We may commit a crime sans any sense of compunction, but our conscience keeps telling us afterwards that we made a huge mistake. If you’re a human being, you can’t remove your conscience completely. It’ll continue to gnaw at you, and this trait makes us human beings and distinguishes us from lower animals.
Remorse and compassion are constituents of the human mind. To say that the mind will remain incorrigibly static all through a lifetime is a folly. Remorse has to be the quality of the refined. Human law does not temper justice with any humane substance – that’s why nowhere do we see a sense of kindness or compassion.
Every criminal must be given adequate time to realise the error of his ways. That is why after an arrest, most criminals confess. So, those who contend that an individual is remorseless and beyond repair do great harm and judge wrongly. An individual’s life is a saga of constant moral upgrading. We imperceptibly get better with every passing moment. When we look back, we do feel sad and bad over many a deed did impulsively and often thoughtlessly.
Life’s an endless schooling. To be human is to be compassionate and remorseful. It’s our inalienable character and an intrinsic quality. Remember Walt Whitman’s lines, ‘One universal truth we all endorse/ Every man has a sense of remorse.’
