onr abominable penal laws—and cling to their commercial scales and their futile endeavours of counterpoising guilt by punishment: but might we not be able to get a step further? What a relief it would be to the general sensation of life, if, while freeing ourselves from the belief in guilt, we could also shake off the old craving for revenge, and even consider it a noble prudence of the happy ones in conformity with Christian teaching to bless our enemies and to do good to those who have offended us! Let us rid the world of the notion of sin-and banish with it the idea of punishment. May these banished monsters henceforth live far from the abodes of mankind, if, indeed, they want to live and do not perish from disgust with themselves and do not forget that the loss suffered by society and the individual through criminals is as severe as that which they suffer through the sick: for these spread grief, ill-humour, being productive and consuming the carnings of others, at the same time requiring attendants, physicians, amusements, and feeding on the time and strength of the healthy ones. Despite all this we should rightly describe him who, for this reason, would wreak vengeance on the sick, as inhuman. In olden times indeed people were less humane: in crude states of society, and even now among certain savage tribes, the sick are treated as criminals, as a danger to the community, and living abodles of demonic beings embodied in them through some offence committed by them. Here, truly, applies the saying, The sick are the
