xvi FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY 289 



near to confessing that such, on scientific principles, 

 would be the right and rational way of dealing with the 

 criminal. If the criminal is a recrudescence of the beast 

 in man, and comparable to a tiger or a shark (p. 2 1 3), 

 why on earth should he not be treated as such ? Surely 

 Mr. Blatchford would not preserve him from extermination 

 merely in order that he might provide sport for our 

 judges and our police? In one passage (p. 215) Mr. 

 Blatchford admits that &quot; although the prisoner ought not 

 to be punished, it is imperative that he be restrained. 

 Quite a sensible conclusion, no doubt ; but as an argu 

 ment for leniency how verbal and how feeble ! Mr. 

 Blatchford can, of course, insist on reserving the word 

 &quot;punishment&quot; for the retribution inflicted on misdeeds, 

 and deny the application of the name to the treatment 

 which aims at the protection of society and the reclama 

 tion of the offender. But would not such a defence 

 savour of the hair-splitting of the philosophers whom 

 Mr. Blatchford so despises ? Besides, has he a right to 

 ignore the facts that the actual treatment of anti-social 

 conduct is largely inspired by the preventive, and even 

 by the reformatory, views of &quot; punishment,&quot; and that even 

 a spice of vindictiveness, if there is fore-knowledge that 

 the commission of a crime will lead to social execration, 

 may act as a powerful deterrent from crime. 



If, moreover, it is admitted to be &quot; imperative &quot; to 

 &quot; restrain &quot; offenders, surely the cheaper and more effective 

 the means the better. Science could certainly suggest 

 modes of prevention far more efficacious than the punish 

 ments now in vogue, while at the same time cheaper and 

 socially more advantageous. But it is probable that they 

 would strike us all as strange and cruel. For example, it 

 would be cheaper to brand or to mutilate than to imprison, 

 and far more terrifying to vivisect than to hang. More 

 over, in cases where even this deterrent failed, society 

 might console itself with the thought that it would reap 

 great benefits from the advance of knowledge derivable 

 from scientific executions. In the present state of moral 

 sentiment, while the criminal is regarded as a responsible 



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