Proceedinc/s of the Royal Society of Victoria. 24^ 



The Kev. Hastings Raslulall objected to the retributive 

 theory of punishment, and expected that with the necessary 

 nioraiization of communities, the sphere of criminal law 

 ought gradually to extend ; while Dr. Ferdinand Tonnies, 

 of Kiel University, asserted that all punishment as punish- 

 ment should cease, though he had no better substitute to 

 offer than a system of fines ; while he looked to further 

 research foi- other means of preventing crime than could be 

 found in the threatened or real consequences of what the 

 criminal had done. Professor Seth, in discussing both these 

 opinions, raised the question whether the newer and older 

 views of punishment were mutually exclusive, and if not, 

 what was their relation to one another, and seemed to 

 favour the idea that punishment must be reformatory only. 

 He asserted " that society was now so securely oi'ganised, 

 that it could afford to be not only just, but generous as 

 well." Would not this be rather dangerous pleading if 

 adopted in our Law Courts? Most thinking people 

 would agree with Professor Seth in this adverse criticism 

 of the diverse views advanced by Mr. Rashdall and 

 Dr. Tonnies, and also when he much qualified the 

 idea that crime was a " pathological phenomenon," by 

 urging that ''it wns only an analogy or metaphor 

 after all, and like all metaphors, might easil}' prove 

 misleading if taken as a literal description of the facts;" 

 that "to resolve all badness into insanit}^ did not conduce to 

 clear thinking," and that " normal crime, if it had anything 

 to do with insanity, was rather a cause than a result." 

 He said that " To reduce crime to a ' pathological phenome- 

 non ' was to sap the very foundation of our moral judgment, 

 merit as well as demerit, reward and punishment, were 

 thereby undermined. Such a view might be scientific, it 

 was not ethical, for it refused to recognise the commonest 

 moral distinctions." One of the articles of the Inter- 

 national Criminological Association, quoted by Dr. Tonnies, 

 said, " Punishment was an act of justice, and the essence 

 of punishment was retribution. From this standpoint, 

 satisfaction was the primary object of punishment, 

 and the other objects included reformation and deter- 

 rence." We might justly take this as a fair statement 

 of the facts. While we acknowledged that retribution 

 could only be made in trivial crimes against the 

 property or person, when crimes became more serious, 

 retribution became more or less impossible. Punishment 



