- description
- # Section in Billy Budd
## Overview
This is a section of text extracted from the file [billy_budd.txt](arke:01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY), specifically lines 1417-1452. It is part of section "V" [V](arke:01KG8AJTEX0PCWZNN5BNG3WKQM) of the novel. The previous section is labeled "X" [X](arke:01KG8AKFBZ25VFD37G7SXH5G3F).
## Context
The text is part of the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The source file, [billy_budd.txt](arke:01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY), contains the full text of the novel *Billy Budd*.
## Contents
This section discusses the character Claggart and his "mania of an evil nature," which the narrator describes as innate and "a depravity according to nature." It also questions whether this phenomenon might explain some criminal cases that puzzle the courts, and suggests including "clerical proficients" in legal proceedings to assess moral responsibility. The section concludes by stating that the chapter is necessary to explain the hidden nature of the master-at-arms, and that the narrative will continue with "an added hint or two in connection with the accident of the mess."
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- 2026-01-30T20:49:36.085Z
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- description_title
- Section in Billy Budd
- end_line
- 1452
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.323Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1417
- text
- the method and the outward proceeding is always perfectly rational.
Now something such was Claggart, in whom was the mania of an evil
nature, not engendered by vicious training or corrupting books or
licentious living, but born with him and innate, in short, ‘a depravity
according to nature.’
Can it be this phenomenon, disowned or not acknowledged, that in some
criminal cases puzzles the courts? For this cause have our juries at
times not only to endure the prolonged contentions of lawyers with their
fees, but also the yet more perplexing strife of the medical experts
with theirs? But why leave it to them? Why not subpœna as well the
clerical proficients? Their vocation bringing them into peculiar contact
with so many human beings, and sometimes in their least guarded hour, in
interviews very much more confidential than those of physician and
patient; this would seem to qualify them to know something about those
intricacies involved in the question of moral responsibility; whether in
a given case, say, the crime proceeded from mania in the brain or rabies
of the heart. As to any differences among themselves these clerical
proficients might develop on the stand, these could hardly be greater
than the direct contradictions exchanged between the remunerated medical
experts.
Dark sayings are these, some will say. But why? It is because they
somewhat savour of Holy Writ in its phrase ‘mysteries of iniquity.’
The point of the story turning on the hidden nature of the
master-at-arms has necessitated this chapter. With an added hint or two
in connection with the accident of the mess, the resumed narrative must
be left to vindicate as it may its own credibility.
------------------------------------------------------------------------