nished with due, when not with undue, severity, while the
comparatively recent crime of fraudulent bankruptcy has as yet been
brought very imperfectly within the grasp of penal law. Again, no man of
clear moral discernment can doubt that he who consciously and willingly
imbrutes himself by intoxication is more blameworthy than he who sells
alcoholic liquors without knowing whether they are to be used internally
or externally, moderately or immoderately, for medicine or for luxury. Yet
because the latter makes himself liable to fine and imprisonment, while
the former--unless he belong to the unprivileged classes--has legal
protection, instead of the disgraceful punishment he deserves, there is a
popular prejudice against the vender of strong drink, and a strange
tenderness toward the intemperate consumer. Yet another instance. There
are crimes worse than murder. There are modes of moral corruption and
ruin, whose victims it were mercy to kill. But while the murderer, if he
escape the gallows, is an outcast and an object of universal abhorrence,
no social ban rests upon him whose crime has been the death of innocence
and purity, yet, if reached at all by law, can be compounded by the
payment of money.

But though law is in many respects an imperfect moral teacher, and its
deficiencies are to be regretted, its *educational power* is strongly felt
for good, especially in communities where the administration of justice is
strict and impartial. It is of no little worth that a child grows up with
some fixed beliefs as to the turpitude of certain forms of evil,
especially as the positive enactments of the penal law almost always
coincide with the wisest judgments of the best men in the community.
Moreover, law is progressive in every civilized community, and in
proportion as it approaches the standard of absolute right, it tends to
bring the moral beliefs of the people into closer conformity with the same
standard. It is, then, a partial and narrow view of law to regard it only
or chiefly as the instrument of society for the detection and punishment,
or even for the direct prevention of crime. Its far more important
function is so to train the greater part of each rising generation, that
certain forms and modes of evil-doing shall never enter into their plans
or purposes.

The *civil*, no less than the criminal *law is a source of knowledge as to
the right*. The law does not create, but merely defines the rights
appertaining t