even say that the old Hellenic doctrine is not also the latest and best to be had.[1] But what we must say, what nearly every one will admit, what we must take for granted without further discussion, is this, that whatever else it may be it is at least not the opinion of the vulgar.
We need not dwell on the point. If, on the one side, punishment is always an end in itself, whatever else it may be, and if, on the other, whatever else it is, it never can be an end in itself, we may take it for granted that between the two there is no agreement.[2]
But if, as we saw, to understand punishment is to understand responsibility, and not to know the one is to be ignorant of the other, and to hold an opposite theory on the one, is to hold, as a consequence, an opposite theory on the other; if ‘responsibility means punishment,’ and punishability is the same as accountability; and if, further, the teaching of the Necessitarian with respect to punishment is in flagrant contradiction with vulgar opinion—how, if he were so minded, is he to assert that his teaching on responsibility is not so also? How is he to deny that accountability is a
- ↑ Still it is not the only doctrine; and Mr Bain, in his Manual of Mental and Moral Science (p. 404), really should not talk to the student as if it were. For Mr. Bain’s solid work in psychology I have a great respect, but still I, or any one else, have a right to protest against this. Still more right have I to protest against the statement in his preface, ‘Part Second—the Ethical Systems—is a full detail of all the systems, ancient and modern;’ when, by his own admission (p. 725), this is not the case.
- ↑ There are two points we can not pass over—(1) Punishment of children; (2) Correction of animals. (1) We must distinguish punishment and discipline, or correction; the former is inflicted because of wrong-doing, as desert, the latter is applied as means of improvement. It is right to inflict the former, only in the case of a being either wholly or partially accountable. The application of the latter (which is not punishment) is a practical question for parents or tutors, both in respect of the occasion and amount. Pedagogic punishment (proper) differs from judicial in admitting greater latitude of particular considerations in the individual case. (2) If many persons meant what they said, animals are moral and responsible, and animals are punished. And a time would seem coming, when we shall hear of the ‘rights of the beast.’ Why not, in Heaven’s name? Why is the beast not a subject of right, civil at least, if not political? But this is for our emancipators of the future. We are content to hold the vulgar creed that a beast is no moral agent, actual or possible; is not responsible, nor the subject of rights, however much the object of duties. According to vulgar notions, a beast ought not to be punished because he deserves it, but only to make him better; and though practice is bad on this head, yet I think most persons would say that a man, who habitually punished a dog for a fault, in respect of which he was ὅλος ἀνίατος, was not fit to keep a dog at all; but the ὅλος ἀνίατος among men, the hardened habituals, are the men whom we consider most punishable. On the other hand, though the beast can not be punished, yet he can be corrected as often as is convenient and to any extent. I was once told of a west-country sportsman who, on starting for the field before the day’s work was begun, used regularly to tie up his dogs to a gate and thrash them, and at intervals during the day’s sport repeat the νουθέτησις. Whether it was wise to correct for no fault is a question for the dog-breaker; but surely no man in his senses would call it punishment. And yet it was good utilitarian punishment. And that is what is meant, when it is said that such punishment is the treating a man like a dog.
