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168 the weight of punishment, and to gain the pure instruction of experience, than to escape, it is true, this one evil, but not to gain any greater clearness of ideas, or any active exercise of moral feeling; and it would be still better that one more transgression of the law should disturb tranquillity, and that the consequent punishment should serve as an instruction and warning, than that the very thing on which the tranquillity and security of the citizens depend,—the regard for others' rights,—be neither really greater in itself, nor now in this case be increased and promoted. Finally, moreover, such an institution cannot have the effect ascribed to it. As with all means which do not operate at once on the inner sources from which actions flow, it will only give another direction to the desires which run counter to the laws, and produce a dissimulation just doubly injurious. I have hitherto confined myself to the supposition that the persons to whom such a supervision as that of which we speak is entrusted do not produce conviction, but only operate through the medium of external arguments. It may seem that I am not authorized to proceed on such a supposition. But that it is well to exercise an influence on one's fellow-citizens and their morality through the medium of a living example and convincing persuasion, is too manifest to be expressly repeated. In any case, therefore, where such an institution produces these results, the foregoing reasoning cannot apply. Only it seems to me that to prescribe anything by law with a view to these ends, is not only unserviceable as a means, but even calculated to defeat the design in which it originates. For, firstly, it does not come within the proper province of the law to recommend virtues, but only to prescribe duties which can be enforced; and it will frequently happen that virtue will lose by such an attempt, since man only enjoys a course of virtuous action when it proceeds from his own free will. And, secondly, every