In the event that they are not, the scapegoat itself presents society with a fresh difficulty: in some few cases the interaction of different pains and rages in their new setting produces an almost saintly character (while oftentimes the thing left behind, remembering, as it were, being raised on sweetmeats and experiencing only love, will prove itself selfish and unpleasant), but for the most part the scapegoats are unbalanced and dangerous. They may assert and find a legal right to their separate existence, but their nature is to build empires, lay low nations and express their anger through the infliction of suffering on those who offend them. The possession of a multitude of physical bodies does not diminish the experience of pain—the twenty other instances of a man whose local presence is having an index finger crushed in a vise will all scream—and so scapegoats are dangerous and frightening even now. Several of modern history’s more ruthless and violent crooks have been scapegoats who somehow eluded capture and then took over someone else’s life, vanishing from society until they were ready to do something truly appalling. We’re mostly past that point now, and it’s hard to define criminality or wrongdoing in a setting where conventional human living is a pastime rather than a necessity, a sort of ongoing theatrical production in which whole populations of humans engage, but to the extent these considerations still apply, it’s one of our greatest dilemmas: what to do with those who don’t fit into the most inclusive environment of which humanity is capable?