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FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



have been hanged by the neck may furnish to others 

 about to do as you have done the precise motive which 

 will hold them back. If your act be such as to invoke 

 a minor penalty, then not only others, but yourself, may 

 profit by the punishment which we inflict. On the homely 

 principle that 'a burned child dreads the fire,' it will make 

 you think twice before venturing on a repetition of your 

 crime. Observe, finally, the consistency of our conduct. 

 You offend, you say, because you cannot help offending, 

 to the public detriment. We punish, is our reply, because 

 we cannot help punishing, for the public good. Practi- 

 cally, then, as Bishop Butler predicted, we act as the 

 world acted when it supposed the evil deeds of its crim- 

 inals to be the products of free-will." ' 



4 'What,* 1 1 have heard it argued, "is the use of preach- 

 ing about duty, if a man's predetermined position in the 

 moral world renders him incapable of profiting by ad- 

 vice?" Who knows that he is incapable? The preach- 

 er's last word is a factor in the man's conduct, and it may 

 be a most important factor, unlocking moral energies which 

 might otherwise remain imprisoned and unused. If the 

 preacher thoroughly feel that words of enlightenment, 

 courage, and admonition enter into the list of forces em- 

 ployed by Nature herself for man's amelioration, since she 

 gifted man with speech, he will suffer no paralysis to fall 

 upon his tongue. Dung the fig-tree hopefully, and not 

 until its barrenness has been demonstrated beyond a doubt 

 let the sentence go forth, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it 

 the ground?" 



* An eminent Church dignitary describes all this, not unkindly, as "trucu- 

 lent logic." J think it worthy of his Grace's graver consideration. 



