Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/80

76 can come. We beat the stool winch we have stumbled over. We punish a man in proportion to tho loss or the fear of society; not in proportion to the offender's state of mind; not with a careful desire to improve that state of mind. This is wise, if vengeance be the aim; if reformation, it seems sheer folly. I know our present method is tho result of six thousand years' experience of mankind; I know how easy it is to find fault—how difficult to devise a better mode. Still, the facts are so plain, that one with half an eye cannot fail to see the falseness of tho present methods. To remove tho evil, we must remove its cause,—so let us look a littlo into this matter, and see from what quarter our criminals proceed.

Here are two classes.

I. There are the foes of society; men that are criminals in soul, born criminals, who have a bad nature. The cause of their crime therefore is to be found in their nature itself,—in their organization, if you will. All experience shows that some men are born with a depraved organization, an excess of animal passions, or a deficiency of other powers to balance them.

II. There are the victims of society; men that become criminals by circumstances, made criminals, not born; men who become criminals, not so much from strength of evil in their soul, or excess of evil propensities in their organization, as from strength of evil in their circumstances. I do not say that a man's character is wholly determined by the circumstances in which he is placed, but all experience shows that circumstances, such us exposure in youth to good men or bad men, education, intellectual, morel, and religious, or neglect thereof, entire or partial, have a vast influence in forming the character of men, especially of men net well endowed by nature.

Now the criminals in soul are the most dangerous of men, the born foes of society. I will not at this moment undertake to go behind their organization, and ask, "How comes it that they are so ill-born?" I stop now at that fact. The cause of their crime is in their bodily constitution itself. This is always a small class. There are in New England perhaps five hundred men born blind or deaf. Apart from the idiots, I think there are not half so many who by nature and bodily constitution are incapable