SCIENCE AND MAN. 36] 



wide experience gathered in various parts of the world, 

 and a thorough student of the duties of his vocation. 

 He told me that the prisoners in his charge might be 

 divided into three distinct classes. The first class 

 consisted of persons who ought never to have been in 

 prison. External accident, and not internal taint, had 

 brought them within the grasp of the law, and what 

 had happened to them might happen to most of us. 

 They were essentially men of sound moral stamina, 

 though wearing the prison garb. Then came the 

 largest class, formed of individuals possessing no strong 

 bias, moral or immoral, plastic to the touch of circum- 

 stances, which could mould them into either good or 

 evil members of society. Thirdly came a class 

 happily not a large one whom no kindness could con- 

 ciliate and no discipline tame. They were sent into 

 this world labelled 'incorrigible,' wickedness being 

 stamped, as it were, upon their organisations. It was 

 an unpleasant truth, but as a truth it ought to be faced. 

 For such criminals the prison over which he ruled was 

 certainly not the proper place. If confined at all, their 

 prison should be on a desert island where the deadly* 

 contagium of their example could not taint the moral 

 air. But the sea itself he was disposed to regard as a 

 cheap and appropriate substitute for the island. It 

 seemed to him evident that the State would benefit if 

 prisoners of the first class were liberated ; prisoners of 

 the second class educated ; and prisoners of the third 

 class put compendiously under water. 



It is. not, however, from the observation of indi- 

 viduals that the argument against 'free-will,' as com- 

 monly understood, derives its principal force. It is, 

 as already hinted, indefinitely strengthened when 

 extended to the race. Most of you have been forced to 

 listen to the outcries and denunciations which rang 



