Page:Sphere and Duties of Government.djvu/200

180 I may here mention illicit sexual intercourse as an example; in which, according to these principles, the State must punish in the person of the perpetrator, when the offence has been committed with a minor. But as human actions require infinitely different degrees of judgment, and the latter only reaches its maturity by successive stages, it is well to fix on different times and degrees of minority by which the validity of different actions may be determined.

What we have here observed respecting minors, applies also to the provisions to be made in the case of idiots and madmen. The difference chiefly consists in this, that these do not require education and training (unless we apply this name to the efforts made to restore them to the use of their reason), but only care and supervision; that in their case, moreover, it is principally the injury they might do to others which is to be prevented, and that they are generally in a condition which forbids the enjoyment either of their personal powers or fortunes. It is only necessary to observe, with regard to these, that as the return to reason is yet possible, the temporary exercise of their rights is all that should be taken from them, and not those rights themselves. As my present design does not permit me to enter more fully into the case of such persons, I shall conclude the subject with the statement of the following general principles:—

1. Those persons who are deprived of their proper powers of understanding, or have not yet reached the age necessary for the possession of them, require the exercise of a special solicitude towards them, as regards their physical, intellectual, and moral welfare. Persons of this kind are minors and those deprived of reason. First, of the former class; and, secondly, of the latter.

2. In the case of minors, the State must determine the duration of their minority. It must provide in this that the period be neither too long nor too short to be essentially