224 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



tte silly and sickly sentimentality which regards the wrongdoer as a 

 suffering victim rather than a criminal will always fail to appeal to anyone, 

 no matter how soft-hearted, who regards the whole situation frankly and 

 sanely. It is obvious also that the failure of reformatory measures must 

 not be taken to imply the failure of society to protect itself. Other 

 measures must be available, which are merely protective, and not at all^ 

 or only indirectly, reformatory. On the other hand, it is clear that reforma- 

 tion is, as a rule, the more economical way to secure protection for the 

 community, provided there is reasonable hope of success, and so long as 

 we restrict our attention to the individual delinquent. The reform of the 

 delinquent is doubly a social gain. From being a minus quantity with 

 respect to social efficiency he becomes a plus quantity. This point is 

 especially important in the case of the juvenile delinquent. 



So far as we are to aim at the protection of society by the reform of 

 the delinquent, the punishment of the delinquent necessarily becomes an 

 individual question, since we are concerned with the operation of motives, 

 and that is always an individual matter. Punishment exerts its influence 

 through disagreeableness, or the fear of disagreeableness. The question 

 whether we can ever reform an individual by means of punishment may 

 possibly be an arguable question. But it is only an arguable question if 

 we interpret ' reform ' to mean more than is intended when we speak of 

 the reformatory aspect of punishment. A misdemeanour is the outcome 

 of a certain external situation meeting with certain inner conditions in the 

 wrongdoer, certain conditions, I mean, in his nature or mind. On a 

 strict scientific reading of the facts we may assume that under all the 

 circumstances of the moment the only kind of behaviour possible was the 

 kind of behaviour that took place. That is to say, we may admit that the 

 delinquent, being what he was, in the circumstances then present, could not 

 have acted otherwise than he did. This may seem a very damning 

 admission, as far as the action of the a.uthority which punishes is concerned, 

 if the ethical question of the moral responsibility of the criminal is to be 

 raised as a practical issue. As I have already said, however, I do not 

 believe that the question of responsibility in any sense, legal or ethical, 

 arises as a practical issue at this point at all, or in this connection. What 

 punishment does, to put the matter in its simplest terms, is so to change 

 the inner conditions, and therefore the inner nature, that in circumstances 

 similar to those present on the previous occasion the misdemeanour is no 

 longer possible, a new kind of behaviour being now the necessary outcome 

 of all the conditions present. This is a reformatory effect in a practical, 

 if not in an academic sense. 



The function normally performed by unpleasantness encountered in 

 the activity of any living organism is to guide the activity so that un- 

 pleasantness may in future be avoided. The fear of unpleasantness again 

 checks the immediacy of impulse, and so allows time for a new kind of 

 behaviour to be substituted for the old kind which led to unpleasantness — 

 the beginnings in the case of the human being, it is worth noting, of self- 

 control. But it is only low down the scale of organic life that the 

 phenomena are to be seen in their simplicity. As we pass up the scale the 

 inner conditions which determine behaviour become more and more 

 complex, and the actual results of any impleasantness or fear become more 



