bearing these evil consequences they visited
on their children certain other evil consequences, with the view of
teaching them the impropriety of their conduct. Suppose that when a
child, who had been forbidden to meddle with the kettle, spilt boiling
water on its foot, the mother vicariously assumed the scald and gave a
blow in place of it; and similarly in all other cases. Would not the
daily mishaps be sources of far more anger than now? Would there not be
chronic ill-temper on both sides? Yet an exactly parallel policy is
pursued in after-years. A father who beats his boy for carelessly or
wilfully breaking a sister's toy, and then himself pays for a new toy,
does substantially this same thing--inflicts an artificial penalty on
the transgressor, and takes the natural penalty on himself: his own
feelings and those of the transgressor being alike needlessly irritated.
Did he simply require restitution to be made, he would produce far less
heart-burning. If he told the boy that a new toy must be bought at his,
the boy's, cost; and that his supply of pocket-money must be withheld to
the needful extent; there would be much less disturbance of temper on
either side: while in the deprivation afterwards felt, the boy would
experience the equitable and salutary consequence. In brief, the system
of discipline by natural reactions is less injurious to temper, both
because it is perceived to be nothing more than pure justice, and
because it in great part substitutes the impersonal agency of Nature for
the personal agency of parents.

Whence also follows the manifest corollary, that under this system the
parental and filial relation, being a more friendly, will be a more
influential one. Whether in parent or child, anger, however caused, and
to whomsoever directed, is detrimental. But anger in a parent towards a
child, and in a child towards a parent, is especially detrimental;
because it weakens that bond of sympathy which is essential to
beneficent control. From the law of association of ideas, it inevitably
results, both in young and old, that dislike is contracted towards
things which in experience are habitually connected with disagreeable
feelings. Or where attachment originally existed, it is diminished, or
turned into repugnance, according to the quantity of painful impressions
received. Parental wrath, venting itself in reprimands and castigations,
cannot fail, if often repeated, to produce filial alienation; while the