Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/264

 exhibitions, in order that they may be rendered less prone to deeds of horror upon other occasions. In a cultivated Age, not addicted to bloodshed, it would, in our opinion, be sufficient if the death-judgment were only pronounced in public, but carried into effect in secrecy and silence; and thereafter, the body left open to inspection, so that any one who desired to do so might convince himself that the sentence had been actually completed. In short, the more civilized a People becomes, the punishment of death, and generally all punishments, must become milder and less frequent among them.

This gradual amelioration of Criminal Legislation, we have said, is rendered possible to the State, by means of the improvement of Manners among the People. But, after this possibility has been created, what shall move and impel the State actually to realize that which has thus merely become possible? I answer: The general opinion of Europe, as well as, in particular, the voice of its own Citizens. Until it has become a part of Public Manners to recognise and honour in each individual man the representative of the Race, the People are yet disposed to deeds of violence, and must be held in check by means of severe and, in part, terrible punishments. After this principle has entered into Public Manners, and consequently deeds of violence have become less frequent, it can no longer be endured that any one who bears the human form, whatever offence he may have committed, should be tortured as an exhibition to the crowd; the civilized man turns away his eyes with horror from the spectacle, and the whole world despises, as barbarous, a Government and a Nation which still sanctions such enormities;—and thus the Government is impelled by its own love of honour, as well as that of the Nation, to keep its Criminal Legislation in harmony with the Spirit of the Time, and in so doing itself to adopt Good Manners.