6 1 8 &RA GMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
propose to grapple with this question in its rudest form, 
and in the most uncompromising way, "If," says the 
robber, the ravisher, or the murderer, " I act because I 
must act, what right have you to hold me responsible for 
my deeds? " The reply is, " The right of society to protect 
itself against aggressive and injurious forces, whether they 
be bound or free, forces of nature or forces of man." 
" Then," retorts the criminal, "you punish me for what I 
cannot help." "Let it be granted," says society, "but 
had you known that the treadmill or the gallows was cer- 
tainly in store for you, you might have ' helped.' Let us 
reason the matter fully and frankly out. We may enter- 
tain no malice or hatred against you; it is enough that 
with a view to our own safety and purification we are 
determined that you and such as you shall not enjoy liberty 
of evil action in our midst. You, who have behaved as a 
wild beast, we claim the right to cage or kill as we should 
a wild beast. The public safety is a matter of more im- 
portance than the very limited chance of your moral 
renovation, while the knowledge that you 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 burnt 
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, be- 
cause you cannot help offending, to the public detriment. 
We punish, is our reply, because we cannot help punish- 
ing, for the public good. Practically, then, as Bishop 
Butler predicted, we act as the world acted when it sup- 
posed the evil deeds of its criminals to be the products of 
free- will."* 
" What," I 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 advice?" 
Who knows that he is incapable? The preacher's last 
word is a factor in the man's conduct, and it may be a 
* An eminent church dignitary describes all this, not unkindly, as 
"truculent logic." I think it worthy of his grace's graver con- 
sideration. 
