Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/76

72 violence—having an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I will deliver him over to the tormentors till my vengeance is satisfied. If he slew my friend, or sought to slay, but lacked the power, as I have the ability, I will kill him! This desire of vengeance, of paying a hurt with a hurt, has still very much influence on our treatment of criminals. I fear it is still the chief aim of our penal jurisprudence. When vengeance is the aim, violence is the most suitable method; gaols and the gallows most appropriate instruments! But is it right to take vengeance; for me to hurt a man to-day solely because he hurt me yesterday? If so, the proof of that right must be found in my nature, in the law of God; a man can make a statute, God only a right. As I study my nature, I find no such right; reason gives me none; confidence none; religion quite as little. Doubtless I have a right to defend myself by all manly means; to protect myself for the future no less than for the present. In doing that, it may be needful that I should restrain, and in restraining, seize and hold, and in holding incidentally hurt my opponent. But I cannot see what right I have in cold blood wilfully to hurt a man because he once hurt me, and does not intend to repeat the wrong. Do I look to the authority of the greatest Son of man? I find no allusion to such a right. I find no law of God which allows vengeance. In His providence I find justice everywhere as beautiful as certain; but vengeance nowhere. I know this is not the common notion entertained of God and His providence. I shudder to think at the barbarism which yet prevails under the guise of Christianity; the vengeance which is sought for in the name of God!

The aim may be not to revenge a crime, but to prevent it; to deter the offender from repeating the deed, and others from the beginning thereof. In all modern legislation the vindictive spirit is slowly yielding to the design of preventing crime. The method is to inflict certain uniform and specific penalties for each offence, proportionate to the damage which the criminal has done; to make the punishment so certain, so severe, or so infamous, that the offender shall forbear for the future, and innocent men be deterred from crime. But have we a right to punish a man for the example's sake? I may give up my life to save a thousand lives, or one, if I will. But society