CRIMES AND CRIMINALS: HOW TO TREAT THEM. 71 
But this state of health does not terminate with himself, if he have progeny, any- 
more than does the color of his hair or eyes. The evil forces that thwarted and 
misdirected his nature, are carried on into even his children's children, though 
they do not lead the same manner of life. 
To those who object to the harsh and vindictive, or even as some say, unjust 
paragraph in the second commandment, I have to say that the law of our organic 
nature shows the truth of it, and when studied closely, the justness and mercy of 
the law, more forcibly than any mere verbal statement could have made it. 
We see then how profoundly our physical and mental natures are bound 
up by our moral nature, or, I may say, with the morality that has existed from 
generation to generation. How the whole moral phase or morality of a nation 
may have been the result of fortuitous circumstances. How a mighty force pro- 
jected into a national life may for generations change the whole moral nature of 
that people. 
But what is true of nations is true of individuals, and conversely. National 
life is but the aggregation of individual lives. 
A case that is often quoted from the criminal records of New York is of a 
woman who was abandoned to all good influences and by adverse circumstances 
and was at first, driven to crime and speedily became its slave, in less than one hund- 
red years had a progeny numbering in the neighborhood of six hundred, of 
whom nearly four hundred were criminals. 
What was it that in her case brought about such dire results. The history of 
her race reveals no special notoriety. The disturbing influences attacked her, and 
the results were most disastrous. That it could have been avoided there is but 
little doubt. The only thing done was to punish the criminals after they are 
made. Would it not have been much better to stop making criminals, than 
simply punish for the commission of crime ? 
But how do we treat criminals, and is it rational ? Is it in the least in con- 
sonance with the physical law of our nature; in harmony with our moral nature, 
the law of God or is it even in harmony with the law of disease, in the physical 
organism, for I have shown that it is in all particulars a disease of the moral nature 
in the same sense that disturbing influences are disease in the physical organism. 
What is done for the man who is physically diseased ? He is put on a strict 
diet. He is fed with substances that experience has shown modify the course of 
life, and bring it back to a state of health. Do we do anything like this for the 
criminal class? Do we not do for them, what was done three thousand years ago 
for the leprous. Nay, what in barbarous nations is still done for them, put 
them off by themselves till they end their mortal career. 
If a man breaks his arm or leg, fractures his skull, cuts his flesh, opens a 
large blood-vessel, we at once seek out a man skilled in putting the bones in 
proper position, closing the gaping edges of the wound or stemming the purple 
tide, and having all done that could be, to promote a return to a state of health. 
We not only give that injured part rest, but the whole body; that the whole of 
the vital power may be directed, as far as possible, to effect the needed repairs , 
