uct may be found in the
successive reforms of the penal code of any civilized country, or in the
abolition of slavery. Punishment is, in all very early stages of
society, capricious, mostly unregulated by any definite customs or
enactments, and, consequently, often disproportioned, either in the way
of excess or defect, to the character of the offence. As the community
advances in complexity and intelligence, successive reformers arise who
attempt, by definite enactment, to regulate the amount of punishment due
to each description of offence, and, from time to time, to increase or
diminish, as occasion seems to require, the severity of the existing
code. The considerations by which, at least in our own time, these
reforms are determined are such as these: the adequacy or inadequacy of
the punishment to deter men from the commission of the offence, the
tendency of excessive punishment to produce a reaction of sentiment in
favour of the criminal, and a reluctance on the part of the judge or
jury to convict, the superfluous suffering inflicted by that part of the
punishment which is in excess of the requirements of the case, due
publicity and notoriety as a means of warning others, the reform of the
criminal himself, and so on. All these considerations, it will be
observed, are derived from tracing the effects of the punishment either
on the criminal himself, or on persons who are under a similar
temptation to commit the crime, or on the sentiment of society at large,
or of that portion of society which is connected with the administration
of justice, and it is only by the exercise of great circumspection, and
of a keen intelligence on the part of the statesman, the jurist, or the
moralist, that grave errors can be avoided, and an adequate estimate of
the probable results can be formed. The mere instinct of the community,
unmodified and uncorrected by the conscious speculations of its more
thoughtful members, would be in much danger of either causing a large
amount of needless suffering to the criminal, or of seriously
diminishing the security of society. It would almost certainly be guilty
of grave inequalities in the apportionment of punishment to specific
crimes. The history of slavery similarly shews the importance of the
functions of the moralist and the reformer. It must have been at the
suggestion of some prominent member of a tribe, whose intelligence was
in advance of that of his fellows, that men first took to capt