The Meaning of Things - A c Grayling

Mercy is sometimes described as the support of justice. That is true when laws are unreasonable and unfair, because harsh laws create lawlessness, to prevent which a wise governor will use the opportunity of their harshness to show his own virtue of clemency. But the danger of mercy, even in these circumstances, is that it leads to its own undoing. Shakespeare might have given Portia words no less true than sweet to mitigate Shylock’s legal due; but he has Timon tell a yet harder truth when he says, ‘Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.’ There seems to be a consensus on that point. ‘Pardon one offence,’ says Publilius Syrus, ‘and you encourage the commission of many.’ Seneca: ‘He who forbids not sin commands it’ The chief reason for being merciful is that we all need mercy ourselves.