Something For The Moral Relativists

In his new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker traces the decline of human sacrifice, and suttee in particular (the now illegal practice of a Hindu widow "willingly" cremating herself on her dead husband's funeral pyre ) and this was British Commander Charles Napier's brilliant retort to this custom: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows . . . very well . . . we also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them . . . build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows . . . you may follow your custom, and then we will follow ours."