CHAPTER VI.

ON PUNISHMENT

SECTION I.

ON PUNISHMENT AS INFLICTED UNDER THE NATURAL LAWS.

THE last point connected with the Natural Laws, which I consider, is the principle or which punishment for infringement of them is inflicted in this world.

Every law presupposes a superior, who establishes it, and requires obedience to its dictates. The superior may be supposed to act under the dictates of the animal faculties, or under those of the moral sentiments. The former being selfish, whatever they desire is for selfish gratification. Hence laws instituted by a superior inspired by the animal powers, would have for their leading object the individual advantage of the law-giver, with no systematic regard to the enjoyment or welfare of those who were called on to obey. The moral sentiments, on the other hand, are altogether generous, disinterested, and just; they delight in the happiness of others, and do not seek individual advantage as their supreme end. Laws, instituted by a law-giver inspired by them, would have for their grand object the advantage and enjoyment of those who are required to yield obedience. The story of William Tell will illustrate my meaning. Gessler, an Austrian governor of the canton of Uri, placed his hat upon a pole, and required the Swiss peasants to pay the same honors to it that were due to himself. The object of this requisition was obviously the gratification of the Austrian's Self-Esteem, in witnessing the humiliation of the Swiss. It was framed without the least regard to their happiness; because such abject slavery could gratify no faculty in their minds, and ameliorate no

principle of their nature, but, on the contrary, was calculated to cause the greatest pain to their feelings.

Before punishment, for breaking such a law as this, could be justly inflicted, it would be indispensably necessary that the people called on to obey it should not only possess the power of doing so, but likewise be benefited by their obedience. If it could be established, that, by the very constitution of their minds, it was impossible for the Swiss to reverence the hat of the tyrant, and that, if they had pretended to do so, they would have manifested only baseness and hypocrisy,-then the law was unjust, and all punishment for disobedience was pure tyranny and oppression on the part of the governor. In punishing, he employed Destructiveness as a means of procuring gratification to his own Self-Esteem.

Let us imagine, on the other hand, a law promulgated by a sovereign whose sole motive was the happiness of his subjects, and that the edict was, Thou shalt not steal. If the law-giver were placed far above the reach of theft by his subjects, and if respect to each other's rights were indispensable to the welfare of his people themselves, then it is obvious, that, so far as he was personally concerned, their stealing or not stealing would be of no importance to him, while it would be of the highest moment to themselves. Let us suppose, then, that, in order to prevent the evils which the subjects would bring upon themselves by stealing, he were to add a's a penalty, that every man who stole should be locked up, and instructed in his duty until he clearly felt the necessity of abstaining from theft;-the justice and benevolence of this sentence would rest securely on the circumstance, that it was in the highest degree advantageous, both to society at large and to the offender himself. Suppose that the latter was born with large organs of Acquisitiveness and Secretiveness, and deficient Conscientiousness, and that when he committed the offence he really could not help stealing, - still there would be no cruelty and no injustice in locking him up, and instructing him in

moral duty until he learned to abstain from theft; because, if this were not done, and if all men were to follow his example and only steal, the human race, and he, as a member of it, would necessarily starve and become extinct.

Now, the Creator's natural laws, so far as I have been able to perceive them, are instituted solely on the latter principle; that is to say, there is not the slightest indica tion of the object of any of the arrangements of creation being to gratify an inferior feeling in the Creator himself. No well-constituted mind, indeed, could conceive Him commanding beings whom He called into existence, and whom He could annihilate in a moment, to do any act of homage which had reference merely to the acknowledgment of His authority, solely for His personal gratification, and without regard to their own welfare and enjoyment. We cannot, in short, without absolute outrage to the moral sentiments and intellect, imagine Him doing any thing analogous to the act of the Swiss governor-placing an emblem of His authority on high, and requiring his creatures to obey it, merely to gratify Himself by their homage, to their own disparagement and distress. Accordingly, every natural law, so far as I can discover, appears clearly instituted for the purpose of adding to the enjoyment of the creatures The object of the punish

who are called on to obey it. ment inflicted for disobedience is to arrest the offender in his departure from the laws; which departure, if permitted to proceed to its natural termination, would involve him in tenfold greater miseries. This arrangement greatly promotes the activity of the faculties; and, active faculties being fountains of pleasure, the penalties themselves become benevolent and just. For example,

Under one of the physical laws, all organic bodies are liable to combustion. Timber, coal, oils, and animal substances, when heated to a certain extent, catch fire and burn: And the question occurs, Was this quality bestowed on them for a benevolent purpose or not? Let us look to the advantages attending it. By means of fire we obtain

warmth in cold latitudes, and light after the sun has set: it enables us to cook, thereby rendering our food more wholesome and savoury; and by its aid we soften and fuse the metals. I need go no farther; every one will acknowledge, that, by the law under which organic bodies are liable to combustion, countless benefits are conferred on the human race.

The human body itself, however, is organized, and in consequence is subject to this law; so that, if placed in a great fire, it is utterly dissipated in a few minutes. Some years ago, a woman, in a fit of insanity, threw herself into an iron smelting furnace, in full blaze: she was observed by a man working on the spot, who instantly put off the steam-engine that was working the bellows, and came to take her out; but he then saw only a small black speck on the surface of the fire, and in a few minutes more even that had disappeared. The effect of a less degree of heat is to disorganize the texture of the body. What mode, then, has the Creator followed, to preserve men from the danger to which they are subjected by fire? He has caused their nerves to communicate sensations from heat, agreeable while the temperature is such as to benefit the body; slightly uneasy, when it becomes so high as to be in some measure hurtful; positively painful when the heat approaches that degree at which it would seriously injure the organized system; and horribly agonizing whenever it becomes so elevated as to destroy the organs. The principle of all this is very obviously benevolent. Combustion brings us innumerable advantages; and when we place ourselves in accordance with the law intended to regulate our relation to it, we reap unmingled benefits and pleasure. But we are in danger from its excessive action; and so kind is the Creator, that he does not trust to the guardianship of our own Cautiousness and intellect alone to protect us from infringement, but has established a monitor in every sensitive nerve, whose admonitions increase in intensity through imperceptible gradations, exquisitely adjusted to the degrees

of danger, till at last, in pressing circumstances, they urge in a note so clamant as to excite the whole physical and mental energy of the offender to withdraw him from the impending destruction.

Many persons imagine that this mode of admonition would be altogether unexceptionable if the offender always possessed the power to avoid incurring it, but that, on the other hand, when a child, or an aged person, stumbles into the fire, through mere lack of bodily strength to keep out of it, it cannot be just and benevolent to visit him with the tortures that follow from burning. This, however, is a short-sighted objection. If, to remedy the evil supposed, the law of combustion were altogether suspended as to children and old men, so that, as far as they were concerned, fire did not exist, then they would be deprived of the light, warmth, and other benefits which it affords. This would be an awful deprivation; for warmth is more than commonly grateful and necessary to them, in consequence of the very feebleness of their frames. Or we may suppose that their nerves were constituted so as to feel no pain from burning-an arrangement which would effectually guarantee them against the tortures of falling into the fire: But, in the first place, nerves feel pain under the same law that enables them to feel pleasure the agony of burning arises altogether from an excessive degree of the stimulus of heat, which, when moderate, is genial and pleasant; and, secondly, if no pain were felt when in the fire, the child and old man would have no urgent motive to get out of it. Under the present system, the pain would excite an intense desire to escape; it would increase their muscular energy, or make them roar aloud for assistance; in short, it would compel them to get out of the fire, by some means or other, and thus if possible escape from death. As they fell into the fire in consequence of a deficiency of mental or bodily power to keep out of it, the conclusion is obvious, that if no pain attended their contact with the flames, they might repose there as contentedly as on a bed of down; and the