Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
| NUMBER: | 957 |
| AUTHOR: | Sir John MacDonell (1846–1921) |
| QUOTATION: | Let me make one more remark suggested by this trial and by others. There is no accepted test of civilization. It is not wealth, or the degree of comfort, or the average duration of life, or the increase of knowledge. All such tests would be disputed. In default of any other measure, may it not be suggested that as good a measure as any is the degree to which justice is carried out, the degree to which men are sensitive as to wrong-doing and desirous to right it? If that be the test, a trial such as that of Servetus is a trial of the people among whom it takes place, and his condemnation is theirs also. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Miguel Serveto, known as Michael Servetus, was imprisoned in Geneva at John Calvin’s request and burned at the stake as a heretic in 1553. |
| SUBJECTS: | Justice |