in his seventh chapter, will appear to be founded
on error. He spends some time in placing in a ridiculous point of view
the attempt to convince a man's understanding and to clear up a
doubtful proposition in his mind, by blows. Undoubtedly it is both
ridiculous and barbarous, and so is cock-fighting, but one has little
more to do with the real object of human punishments than the other.
One frequent (indeed much too frequent) mode of punishment is death. Mr
Godwin will hardly think this intended for conviction, at least it does
not appear how the individual or the society could reap much future
benefit from an understanding enlightened in this manner.

The principal objects which human punishments have in view are
undoubtedly restraint and example; restraint, or removal, of an
individual member whose vicious habits are likely to be prejudicial to
the society'; and example, which by expressing the sense of the
community with regard to a particular crime, and by associating more
nearly and visibly crime and punishment, holds out a moral motive to
dissuade others from the commission of it.

Restraint, Mr Godwin thinks, may be permitted as a temporary expedient,
though he reprobates solitary imprisonment, which has certainly been
the most successful, and, indeed, almost the only attempt towards the
moral amelioration of offenders. He talks of the selfish passions that
are fostered by solitude and of the virtues generated in society. But
surely these virtues are not generated in the society of a prison. Were
the offender confined to the society of able and virtuous men he would
probably be more improved than in solitude. But is this practicable? Mr
Godwin's ingenuity is more frequently employed in finding out evils
than in suggesting practical remedies.

Punishment, for example, is totally reprobated. By endeavouring to make
examples too impressive and terrible, nations have, indeed, been led
into the most barbarous cruelties, but the abuse of any practice is not
a good argument against its use. The indefatigable pains taken in this
country to find out a murder, and the certainty of its punishment, has
powerfully contributed to generate that sentiment which is frequent in
the mouths of the common people, that a murder will sooner or later
come to light; and the habitual horror in which murder is in
consequence held will make a man, in the agony of passion, throw down
his knife for fear he should be tempted to use it in th