There has never, I suppose, been any legal system which was not justified by its upholders on this ground. No one is really content, to think that the punishment which he inflicts, or may imagine himself as inflicting through the agency of the State, or in any other way, is purely deterrent; he always thinks it will also be reformative. But, how are you as a matter of fact to attack the evil will? The mere infliction of penalty will not of any necessity achieve this goal at all. We know that it is very seriously debated whether our whole system of punishment in the civilised States of to-day has any really moral effect, at least upon those who fall under its most severe penalties. Probably most convicts leave prison worse men than when they entered. For if a man is below a certain level in moral attainment, pain, far from purifying, only brutalises and coarsens. It is only those who are already far in the path of spiritual growth who are purified by suffering, even as the Captain of our Salvation was thus made perfect. But it is still true that the aim of all penal law is twofold; to check the evil act and, if possible, to convert the evil will. Now, as I suggested previously, mere restraint may have indirectly a positive moral value; as for example in the case of a child, who is potentially of very diverse characters. He has the capacity to grow in many different directions, and it will depend very much upon his surroundings, and the influences which play upon his character, whether this set of instincts or that receives development; and here merely to keep forcibly within bounds the development of certain impulses, which tend to grow out of proportion to the proper harmony and economy of nature, may indirectly have the effect of preserving that harmony and thus develop genuine virtue in the soul. And again, with those whose characters are relatively formed, the direct restraint, for example, of State action may have positive moral value, inasmuch as it is the expression of the moral judgment of Society. What most of us would shrink from, if we were in danger of imprisonment, would not be the physical inconvenience, which is not very great, but the fact that we should have brought ourselves under the censure of Society, and acted in such a way as to put ourselves below the level which Society generally considers itself justified in enforcing. And so the purely restraining influence of the State, even operating through force, may have a positive moral value, because it represents, and is the only way at present devised of representing, the judgment of Society, and to shrink from the judgment of Society is, so far as it goes, a really moral fear. It is not indeed the highest ground for the avoidance of evil, but it is a moral ground, for it arises from our recognition of our fellow-membership in Society with those whose censure we fear.