formed, ignorant, or deceived, they desire to instruct him, or to give him correct information. Although we may have suffered injury from another, if we perceive the causes from which it has proceeded to be really such as I have now explained, and if we comprehend and believe in the supremacy of the moral sentiments, it will be impossible for us to prefer the method of redress by animal resentment.

The question naturally presents itself, What is the distinction between right and wrong under this system? If offences proceed from unfortunate development of brain, not fashioned by the individual himself,-from external temptations, which overtake him unsolicited,—or from want of knowledge which he never had it in his power to acquire, -how are the distinctions between right and wrong, merit and demerit, to be maintained? The answer is simple.

The natural distinction between right and wrong, so far as Man is concerned, is based on the constitution of his faculties. The act of wantonly killing another is wrong, because it is in direct opposition to the dictates of benevolence; the act of appropriating to ourselves effects belonging to another is wrong, because it is distinctly denounced by conscientiousness; and so with all other misdeeds. The authority of the moral law, in forbidding offences, is found in our innate consciousness that the moral sentiments are of a higher order than the propensities, and are appointed to rule them. The external sanction of the moral law depends on the whole arrangements of creation being constituted to enforce its dictates. If benevolence and conscientiousness condemn murder, and if the whole other faculties of the mind, and the external order of things, harmonize with their dictates, and combine to punish the offender, the foundation and sanctions of the moral law appear abundantly strong. It has been objected, that, in Tartary, to steal from strangers is honourable; but Dr Thomas Brown has well answered this objection. There are more principles in the mind than benevolence, veneration, and conscientiousness; and it is possible to misinform the intellect, and thereby to misdirect equally the propensities and sentiments. The Tartars are taught to believe that all men beyond their own tribes are their enemies, and would rob and murder them if they could; and, of course, so long as this intellectual conviction lasts, strangers become the objects of their animal resentment. Every foreigner is, in their eyes, a criminal, clearly convicted

of deliberate purpose to rob and murder them. In England, under Lord Ellenborough's Act, when men are convicted of acting with this intention, they are delivered over to the hangman to be executed; and we might as well maintain, as a general proposition, that the English are fond of hanging one another, as that the Tartars approve of robbery and murder. Strangers whom the Tartars maltreat in this manner, actually stand convicted in their minds of an intention of using them in the same way if they could. The real method of arriving at a correct view of the question, is to suppose the conviction complete in a Tartar's mind, that other men love him and would make him an object of their benevolence, and then ask him whether he approves of robbing and murdering a benefactor. There is no instance of human nature, in a state of sanity, regarding such a deed as virtuous. The moral law, therefore, when cleared of other principles that may act along with it, but are not part of it, is obviously universal and inflexible in its dictates.*

The views contained in this chapter were printed and distributed among a few friends in 1827, and I was favoured by them with several remarks. Some of these appear to merit a reply.

It is objected, that, according to the moral system of treating offenders, punishment would be abrogated and crime encouraged.

I respectfully answer, that if this system be right in itself and suited to the nature of Man, it will carry in itself all the punishment that will be needed, or that can serve any beneficial end. I believe that to a man whose mind consists chiefly of animal propensities and intellect, confinement, compulsory labour, and the enforcement of moral conduct, will be highly disagreeable, and that this is the punishment which the Creator designed should attend that unfortunate combination of mental qualities. It is analogous to the pain of a wound; the object of which is, to induce the patient to avoid injuring himself again. The irksomeness and suffering to a criminal, inseparable from confinement and forced labour, are inducements to him to avoid infringements of the moral law; and when perceived by himself to arise from the connection established by the Creator between crime and the most humane means of restraining it, he will

* This subject is more fully treated of in my work on Moral Philosophy.

learn to submit to the infliction, without those rebellious feelings which are generally excited by pure animal retribution. It appears to me that the call for more suffering than would accompany the moral method of treatment, proceeds to a great extent from the yet untamed barbarism of our minds; just as it was the savageness of the hearts of our ancestors which led them to regard torture and burning as necessary in their administration of criminal justice. In proportion as the higher sentiments shall gain ascendency among men, severity will be less in demand, and its inutility will be more generally perceived. The Americans, in their penitentiaries, have set a good example to Europe in regard to criminal legislation. Their views still admit of improvement, but they have entered on the right path by which success is to be attained Their countryman Dr Caldwell has offered them excellent counsel, which I hope they will appreciate and follow.

Another objection is frequently stated--that if we render prisons comfortable as schools of reform, we shall induce the lower members of the people to commit crimes in order to obtain the enjoyments and advantages which they will afford. This notion proceeds from a mistaken estimate of the feelings of the people. However poor and uncultivated, they possess the same faculties as their superiors, and they regard crime as degrading, although the criminal were lodged in a palace. They prize the crust of bread won by honest labour, as sweeter than luxuries acquired by turpitude and fraud. These feelings will ever preserve them from seeking bodily comfort at the expense of integrity and independence. During the last Irish famine, we heard of thousands of the destitute dying from the effects of starvation; but the jails were not besieged by voluntary criminals, urging their right to be admitted and fed, in consequence of having committed robbery and murder. Moreover, there is something seriously wrong in the administration of a country so rich and intelligent as England, when a class exists which can be supposed to be tempted to crime by the imaginary comforts of a well-ordered prison; and the proper course of action is to improve the condition of the poor, and not to degrade that of criminals.

Another objection is, that the views now advocated, even supposing them to be true, are utopian, and cannot be carried into effect in the present condition of society. I

deny the first branch of this objection; but admit the second to be well-founded. No system of morals which is true can be utopian-this term being understood to mean visionary and impracticable. But a true system may not be reducible to practice at its first announcement, by a people who do not know one jot of its principles, and whose guides sedulously divert their minds from studying it. Christianity itself has not yet been generally practised; but does any rational man on this account denounce it as utopian and worthless? It would be folly to expect judges and juries to abandon the existing practice of criminal jurisprudence, and to adopt that which is here recommended, before they, and the society for whom they act, understand and approve of the new views; and no one who bears in mind by what slow and laborious steps truth makes its way, and how long a period is necessary before it can develop itself in practice, will expect any new system to triumph in the age in which it was first promulgated. I have frequently repeated in this work, that, by the moral law, we cannot enjoy the full fruits eyen of our own intelligence and virtue, until our neighbours have been rendered as wise and virtuous as ourselves. No reasonable man, therefore, can expect to see the principles expounded in this work, although true, generally diffused and adopted in society, until the natural means of communicating a knowledge of them, and producing a general conviction of their truth and utility, shall have been perseveringly employed for a period sufficient to accomplish this end. In the mean time, the established practices of society. must be supported, if not respected; and he is no promoter of the real progress of mankind, who, the moment after he has sówn the seeds of truth, and without allowing summer and autumn to bring the product to maturity, would attempt to gather the fruit. The rational philanthropist will zealously teach his views, and introduce them into practice as favourable opportunities occur; not doubting that he will sooner accomplish his object thus, than by making premature attempts at realizing them, which must inevitably end in disappointment. Already some progress is perceptible in the legislative treatment of offenders against the laws. The transportation system, in regard to male convicts, has been abandoned; and, in prison discipline, we are promised the adoption of several excellent suggestions, published by Captain Maconochie, in his instructive elucidations of "The

Mark System," and in harmony with the principles of this work.*

SECT. II.-MORAL ADVANTAGES OF THE SUFFERINGS INFLICTED UNDER THE NATURAL LAWS.

After the mind has embraced the principles of the Divine administration, benevolence and justice are discernible in the evils consequent on infringement of the natural laws. Suffering endured by one individual, also serves to warn others against transgression. These facts appear to indicate that one object of the arrangements of creation is the improvement of the moral and intellectual nature of Man. So strikingly conspicuous, indeed, is the ameliorating influence of suffering, that many persons have supposed this to be the primary object for which it is sent; a notion which, with great deference, I cannot help regarding as unfounded in principle, and dangerous in practice. If evils and misfor

* In some of my other publications, I have entered more into detail on the subject of criminal legislation and prison discipline. See Moral Philosophy, Lectures xi., xii., and xiii.; Notes on the United States of North America, i. 104, 171, 182, 196, 203, 204, 313; ii. 326, 369; iii. 115; Thoughts on Capital Punishment; and Remarks on the Principles of Criminal Legislation, and the Practice of Prison Discipline. The leading ideas expounded in these works, and in the foregoing section, were ably and eloquently maintained by the late Dr Charles Caldwell, Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Lexington, Kentucky, in his "New Views of Penitentiary Discipline, and Moral Education and Reformation of Criminals," published at Philadelphia in 1829, and reprinted in the Phrenological Journal, vol. viii. pp. 385, 493. Mr Simpson also has treated the subject with great ability in the same Journal, vol. ix. p. 481, and in the Appendix to his work on "The Necessity of Popular Education," -a work in which he has expounded and applied many principles of the present treatise with much acuteness and felicity of illustration. In 1841, Mr M. B. Sampson published a valuable exposition of the same principles, under the title of "Criminal Jurisprudence considered in relation to Mental Organisation," several editions of which have been printed; and Captain Maconochie's more recent treatise on “The Mark System," contains expositions of specific arrangements by means of which the principles here advocated may be carried into practical effect. In the Phrenological Journal, vol. xvi. p. 1 (1843), there is published an interesting letter to the Author, "On the Application of Phrenology to Criminal Legislation and Prison Discipline," by Mr C. J. A. Mittermaier, Professor of Criminal Law in the University of Heidelberg.—See also the APPENDIX, No. XI.