Exactly opposite in their nature to these we have adduced in this case, are the reasons for and against the second method adopted for the prevention of crimes—I mean that which is designed to operate on men's very passions and inclinations. For, on the one hand, the necessity appears greater in this case, as, when liberty is loosened from its bonds, enjoyment becomes more wantonly extravagant, and desires range more unrestrainedly; and these are tendencies which the regard for others' rights, although it ever increases with the sense of one's own freedom, might not perhaps be sufficient to counteract. But, on the other hand, the disadvantage of such a policy increases in the very measure in which the moral nature feels every fetter more deeply galling than the physical. The reasons according to which it appears that any political effort directed to the moral improvement of the citizens is neither necessary nor advisable, I have already endeavoured to unfold. Those very reasons apply in this case in their full extent, and only with this difference, that the State does not here aim at reforming morality in general, but only at exercising an influence on the conduct of particular individuals which seems to endanger the authority of the law. But by this very difference the sum of the disadvantages increases. For, from the very reason that this effort is not general in its operation, it must come short of its proposed end, so that not even the partial good which it realizes is sufficent to reconcile us to the injury which it occasions; and further, it presupposes not only the interference of the State with regard to the citizen's private actions, but also the power of influencing them,—a power which is still more questionable when we consider those to whom it may be entrusted. That is, there must be a superintending power entrusted to persons either specially appointed, or to the regular State functionaries who are already in office, over the conduct and the situations arising out of it, either of all
