cuses no one, _because_ ignorance of the law
excuses no one." It is merely reaesserting the doctrine, without giving
any reason at all.

And yet these reasons, which are really no reasons at all, are the only
ones, so far as I know, that have ever been offered for this absurd and
brutal doctrine.

The idea suggested, that "the age of discretion" determines the guilt of
a person,--that there is a particular age, prior to which _all_ persons
alike should be held incapable of knowing _any_ crime, and subsequent to
which _all_ persons alike should be held capable of knowing _all_
crimes,--is another of this most ridiculous nest of ideas. All mankind
acquire their knowledge of crimes, as they do of other things,
_gradually_. Some they learn at an early age; others not till a later
one. One individual acquires a knowledge of crimes, as he does of
arithmetic, at an earlier age than others do. And to apply the same
presumption to all, on the ground of age alone, is not only gross
injustice, but gross folly. A universal presumption might, with nearly
or quite as much reason, be founded upon weight, or height, as upon
age.[103]

This doctrine, that "ignorance of the law excuses no one," is constantly
repeated in the form that "every one is bound to know the law." The
doctrine is true in civil matters, especially in contracts, so far as
this: that no man, who has the _ordinary_ capacity to make reasonable
contracts, can escape the consequences of his own agreement, on the
ground that he did not know the law applicable to it. When a man makes a
contract, he gives the other party rights; and he must of necessity
judge for himself, and take his own risk, as to what those rights
are,--otherwise the contract would not be binding, and men could not
make contracts that would convey rights to each other. Besides, the
capacity to make reasonable contracts, _implies and includes_ a
capacity to form a reasonable judgment as to the law applicable to them.
But in _criminal_ matters, where the question is one of punishment, or
not; where no second party has acquired any right to have the crime
punished, unless it were committed with criminal intent, (but only to
have it compensated for by damages in a civil suit;) and when the
criminal intent is the only moral justification for the punishment, the
principle does not apply, and a man is bound to know the law _only as
well as he reasonably may_. The criminal law requires neither
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