PUNISHMENT BY MAN. 367 



which is usually supposed to be, the correction of some fault, 

 or bad habit, but it begets a dangerous feeling of antagonism, 

 or antipathy, both to man and to the work to which he de- 

 votes this or that animal injudiciously punished. When a 

 master is angry ; when he is absurdly or cruelly severe in the 

 form or degree of punishment administered ; when punishment 

 is inflicted on an innocent animal ; when the punisher is a per- 

 son whom the punished animal hates ; when the animal is 

 naturally irritable, or has been rendered unnaturally so by 

 continuous ill-usage; and, finally, when punishment is im- 

 properly administered to animals labouring under various 

 kinds of disease, mental or bodily, it is but natural that 

 viciousness in the man should beget viciousness in the animal ; 

 that the latter should acquire a dislike, perhaps permanent, 

 both to its work and its master ; that its character should be 

 vitiated by the development of rancour, resentment, mo- 

 roseness. 



In the case of punishment judiciously conducted for dis- 

 ciplinary purposes, the dread of punishment inspired by an 

 experience of its discomforts, positive or negative, has a 

 powerful influence in regulating action. It leads, for instance, 

 to submission to man's superior will and superior intelligence; 

 to exercise of the animal's own will in self-control, in the 

 restraint of impetuosity, mischievousness, appetite, desire, 

 passion of all kinds. This is a salutary and normal dread of 

 punishment by man. 



But in other cases, such a dread becomes morbid. Acted 

 on by imagination, it begets suspicion and delusion, or 

 ferocity and aggressiveness, and hurries the animal into acts 

 dangerous either to itself, to other animals, or to man. This 

 sort of morbid fear of man and his punishments, is the result, 

 in nine cases out of ten, of man's cruelty, injustice, or thought- 

 lessness, in punishing animals that are innocent, that are 

 conscious of having committed no offence against him ; of 

 his exercising undue severity, of not proportioning the form 

 of punishment to the sensitiveness of the animal ; or of his 

 not taking into account its individuality. 



Punishment is more or less useless or ineffective in many 

 forms of mental defect or disorder ; and there is a parallelism 



