Innocence cont.

Caiphus: If innocence is relative, does that free the antisocial and ignorant from the bounds of the law?

Moralam: The law is absolute. Innocence may shift, but it merely orbits that great star of government.

Caiphus: Which then is to be preferred; the relativity of innocence or the immobility of the law?

Moralam: Between the two there lies a balance.

Caiphus: What is this balance?

Moralam: It lies in mercy, in forgiveness, and in grace. It is not in human nature but outside of our selves, untainted though they may be, that this balance lies.

Caiphus: How do I achieve that balance?

Moralam: I cannot give you a set of rules to follow to reach it, for that would be doctrine and self-defeating. Nor can I tell you that balance itself is relative, for that would be tending toward another ironic extreme. Balance may be learned, but never taught.