370 PUNISHMENT BY MAN. 



bidden act something that man dislikes and prohibits be 

 it stealing from the larder or soiling a sofa, chastisement 

 will or may follow in the form of a kick, or a blow, or the 

 deprivation of some privilege ; and they know, moreover, in 

 such a case, that they have fairly earned some expression of 

 a master's disapprobation or anger. They sin with a fall 

 fore-knowledge of the consequences. They know what is 

 their sin, for what it is they are to be punished. 



The doctrine of the metempsychosis, so prevalent among 

 certain nations of the East, has had a wonderful influence in 

 preventing the deserved punishment of various animals re- 

 garded as more or less sacred. It leads the Brahmins indeed 

 to the absurd extreme of the deification of troublesome, if not 

 noxious or dangerous, animals ; to the harbouring or protec- 

 tion feeding and consequent multiplication of several that 

 are usually regarded by ourselves as vermin of the most ob- 

 jectionable kind ; a sort of ultra-humanitarian protection that 

 is most inimical to cleanliness of person or to good general 

 health in man. Before, however, we smile at or denounce 

 such humanitarianism as Quixotic, let us remind ourselves 

 that the tendency of the age in our own and other civilised 

 countries is mischievously to do away with desirable punish- 

 ment in man, the practical result of which is the holding 

 forth of premiums for the increase, to an extent dangerous to 

 our nationality, of various forms of social disease and vice 

 of drunkenness, criminality, and insanity. 



