Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/555

Rh punished or not punished, the fact was lost to sight that he had disobeyed our social rules in not waiting for the courts to deal with the criminal whose life he took.

There are, roughly speaking, three elements in human society. The largest is always the standard, and is modified in character according to the conditions of the times. Of the two other elements that do not harmonize with this, the first is what is known as the criminal class. This is sometimes made up of a comparatively large number of individuals, and is in reality composed of members of the human race who are lagging behind in the advanced march of civilization. The other conflicting element is comparatively meager in numbers, and is characterized by its members being always in advance of the main body. They are variously called reformers, cranks, or heretics. Many of these two less numerous groups are often brought up to answer for their acts, and the ultimate aim of all judicial processes concerning them should be to make them members of the larger body. Where this is unattainable, the incorrigible should be either destroyed or removed permanently from the society with which they are in conflict. The whole history of criminology up to date indicates positively that punishment does not reclaim, and we must banish from criminal law all idea of vengeance as involved in the term. When we look at it as an isolated fact, the position of a judge trying to impose the exact punishment to fit the crime and weighing what he is pleased to call mitigating circumstances, in order to lessen the measure of wrath prescribed for some unfortunates who often as much need treatment as some of our insane, we must at once be conscious that there is something wrong in our judicial system. This idea has been deemed sufficiently ludicrous to form one of the telling points in a comic opera.

One of the principal elements impelling the criminal to crime is his desire to punish his enemy, for it can not be denied that a large number of murders are committed from this motive. Should the law that we term majestic proceed with the same motive toward the criminal? It will always appear to be so while we continue to speak of it in the language now used. If the spirit of anger and revenge could be entirely eliminated from the death penalty, and every idea of punishment meted out to an individual was removed from the judgment, only the absolute safety of society being made the reason for taking the human life judicially, executions would become exceedingly rare. It must be plain that the question for us to decide to-day is, Are we, who belong to the predominating class of society, bettered by our acts toward those who are not in harmony with the methods and motives that have made society what it is, and keep it in the position it now occupies; or are we debasing ourselves by our