ression is ordinarily used. Punishment as something inflicted
for the purpose of giving pain is cruelty and vengeance and nothing
else. Whatever should be done to the criminal, if we have humanity and
imagination, we must feel sympathy for him and consider his best good
along with that of all the rest of the members of the society whose
welfare is our concern.

While punishment cannot be defended, still self-defense is inherent in
both individuals and society and, without arguing its justification, no
one can imagine a society that will not assert it and act for its
defense. This will be true regardless of whether the given society is
worth preserving or not. Inherent in all life and organization is the
impulse of self-preservation. Those members of society who are
sufficiently "anti-social" from the standpoint of the time and place
will not be tolerated unduly to disturb the rest. These, in certain
instances, will be destroyed or deprived of their power to harm. If
society has a right attitude toward the subject, if it has imagination
and sympathy and understanding, it will isolate these victims, not in
anger but in pity, solely for the protection of the whole. Some there
are who ask what difference it makes whether it is called punishment or
not. I think that the attitude of society toward the criminal makes the
whole difference, and any improvement is out of the question until this
attitude influences and controls the whole treatment of the question of
crime and punishment.

If doctors and scientists had been no wiser than lawyers, judges,
legislatures and the public, the world would still be punishing
imbeciles, the insane, the inferior and the sick; and treating human
ailments with incantations, witchcraft, force and magic. We should still
be driving devils out of the sick and into the swine.

Assuming then that man is governed by external conditions; that he
inevitably reacts to certain stimuli; that he is affected by all the
things that surround him; that his every act and manifestation is a
result of law; what then must we and can we do with and for the
criminal?

First of all we must abandon the idea of working his moral reformation,
as the term "moral reformation" is popularly understood. As well might
we cure the physically ill in that way! Man works according to his
structure. He never does reform and cannot reform. As he grows older his
structure changes and from increase of vitality or from decrease of