228 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



to be profoundly disturbing to any thoughtful student of social develop- 

 ment. 



But it may be objected that we are in danger of losing sight of the 

 fact that the topic under discussion is punishment, not simply the reforma- 

 tion of the criminal. A few minutes ago the suggestion was made that 

 in certain cases at least it might be more appropriate to speak of treatment 

 than of punishment, the suggestion involving the view that delinquency 

 ought to be looked on as the outcome of something not unlike disease. 

 However that may be, I do not think there is any warrant for excluding 

 either the idea or the fact of punishment, provided we look to the future, 

 and not simply to the past, in our conception of punishment. The action 

 taken against an individual in the form of punishment must involve some 

 disagreeableness or deprivation, and the reason for the punishment is 

 some past act of the individual. But its purpose is the prevention of 

 similar acts in the future. The fact that hitherto we have been discussing 

 the individual aspect only has tended somewhat to obscure this deterrent 

 function, and the consideration of this function will lead us over to the 

 discussion of the social aspect. 



The deterrent function of punishment has played no inconsiderable 

 part in the discussion of penal measures at all times. The severity of 

 past penal systems has been largely due — almost entirely so far as it has. 

 had a rational basis at all — to the attempt to deter others from similar 

 offences to those for which punishment is inflicted on an ofiender. It is 

 unquestionably the case that many a misdeed is prevented by the fact 

 that the individual who is tempted knows that he will inevitably pay the 

 penalty, and it is also a well-known fact that where, through the 

 inefficiency of the police or other cause, punishment is easily evaded, 

 crime shows a corresponding increase. The justification of a deliberate- 

 use of punishment for deterrent purposes must rest on considerations 

 which are other than purely psychological. Whatever justification is 

 attempted must satisfy the moral sense of the particular society. That 

 is, however, a side-issue so far as our present discussion is concerned. The 

 deterrent effect of punishment as a fact is the main point that concerns- 

 the psychologist, and his business as a psychologist is to analyse and 

 explam this fact. 



It cannot be lightly assumed, however, that the deterrent effect of 

 punishment depends merely on fear of the disagreeableness or suflering^ 

 which the punishment in itself involves. The penal system is an expres- 

 sion, however imperfect, of the sentiments of society with respect to- 

 certain acts — sentiments of hatred in varying degrees. It is not the 

 result of a purely intellectual review of the social results and bearing of 

 these acts. Apart, therefore, from the punishment by law decreed and 

 legally inflicted, the criminal act is inhibited, so far as the normal socialised 

 individual is concerned, by this sentiment in himself and in his fellows,, 

 how developed we cannot at present stop to consider, but resting ultimately 

 on the primitive anger evoked by injury. ' The sentence of the law,' to 

 quote again the legal authority already quoted, ' is to the moral sentiment 

 of the public in relation to any offence what a seal is to hot wax. It 

 converts into a permanent final judgment what might otherwise be a. 

 transient sentiment.' Fear of the punishment as such, fear of the social 



