EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 155 



Next as to the main point, the measure of punishment : 1. It should 

 be such as clearly to outweigh the profit of the offense : including not 

 simply the immediate profit, but every advantage, real or apparent, 

 that has weighed as an inducement to commit it. 2. The greater the 

 mischief of the offense, the greater is the expense that it is worth while 

 to be at, in the way of punishment. 3. When two offenses come into 

 competition, the punishment for the greater should be such as to make 

 the less preferred ; thus robbery with violence to the person is always 

 punished more severely than simple robbery. 4. The punishment to 

 be so adjusted that, for every part of the resulting mischief, a motive 

 may be provided to restrain from causing it. 5. The punishment should 

 not be greater than is needed for these ends. 6. There should be taken 

 into account the circumstances affecting the sensibility of the offenders, 

 so that the same punishment may not operate unequally ; as age, sex, 

 wealth, position. 7. The punishment needs to be increased in magni- 

 tude as it falls short of certainty. 8. It must be further increased in 

 magnitude as it falls short in point of proximity. Penalties that are 

 uncertain and those that are remote correspondingly fail to influence 

 the mind. 9. When the act indicates a habit, the punishment must be 

 increased so as to outweigh the profit of the other offenses that the 

 offender may commit with impvxnity : this is severe, but necessary, as 

 in putting down the coiners of base money. 10. When a punishment 

 well fitted in its quality cannot exist in less than a certain quantity, it 

 may be of use to employ it, although a little beyond the measure of 

 the offense : such are the punishments of exile, expulsion from a soci- 

 ety, dismissal from office. 11. This may be the case more particularly 

 when the punishment is a moral lesson. 12. In adjusting the quantum, 

 account is to be taken of the circumstances that render all punishment 

 unprofitable. 13. If, in carrying out these provisions, an^^^thing occurs 

 tending to do more harm than the good arising from the punishment, 

 that thing should be omitted. 



In regard to the selection of punishments, Bentham lays down a 

 number of tests or conditions whereby they are fitted to comply with 

 the foregoing requirements : 1. The quality of variability: a punish- 

 ment should have degrees of intensity and duration ; this applies to 

 fines, corporal punishment, and imprisonment, also to censure or ill- 

 name. 2. Equability, or equal application under all circumstances : 

 this is not easy to secure ; a fixed fine is an unequable punishment. 3. 

 Cornmensur ability : that is, punishments should be so adapted to of- 

 fenses that the offender may clearly conceive the inequality of the suf- 

 fering attached to crimes of different degrees of heinousness ; this prop- 

 erty can be grafted on the variable punishments, as imprisonment. 4, 

 Characteristicalness : this is where something can be found in the 

 punishment whose idea exactly fits the crime. Bentham dilates upon 

 this topic, in order to discriminate it from the old crude method of an 

 eye for an eye ; cases in point occur abundantly both in the family and 



