reach of the arm of the law
is not necessarily by any means to make the actual penalty, in the
largest sense of the term, more severe. So long as he retains the good
opinion of his fellows, imprisonment is no injury to a man; it has
happened to some of our most distinguished and respected public men. The
bad opinion of his fellows, even when the law is powerless to touch him,
is often an irretrievable injury to a man. We do not fortify the social
reaction, in most matters, when we attempt to give it a legal sanction;
we do not even need to fortify it, for it is sometimes harsher and more
severe than the law, overlooking or not knowing all the extenuating
circumstances. In France, as in England, the force of social opinion,
independently of the law, is exceedingly and perhaps excessively
strong.

In England, however, we see an attitude towards immorality which differs
alike from the French attitude and the German attitude, though it has
points of contact with both. The distinctive feature of the Englishman's
attitude is his spirit of extreme individualism (which distinguishes him
from the German) combined with the religious nature of his moral fervour
(which distinguishes him from the Frenchman), both being veiled by a shy
prudery (which distinguishes him alike from the Frenchman and the
German). The Englishman's reverence for the individual's rights goes
beyond the Frenchman's, for in France there is a tendency to subordinate
the individual to the family, and in England the interests of the
individual predominate. But while in France the laws have been
re-moulded to the national temperament, this has not been the case to
anything like the same extent in England, where in modern times no great
revolution has occurred to shake off laws which still by their
antiquity, rather than by their reasonableness, retain the reverence of
the people. Thus it comes about that, on the legal side the English
attitude towards immorality in many respects resembles the German
attitude. Yet undoubtedly the most fundamental element in the English
attitude is the instinct for personal freedom, and even the religious
fervour of the moral impulse has strengthened the individualistic
element.[201] We see this clearly in the fact that England has even gone
beyond France in rejecting the control of prostitutes. The French are
striving to abolish such control, but in England where it was never
extensively established it has long been abolished, le