206. If punishment then is to be just, in the sense that in its infliction due account is taken of all rights, including the suspended rights of the criminal himself, it must be, so far as public safety allows, reformatory. It must tend to qualify the criminal for the resumption of rights. As reformatory, however, punishment has for its direct object the qualification for the exercise of rights, and is only concerned with the moralisation of the criminal indirectly so far as it may result from the exercise of rights. But even where it cannot be reformatory in this sense, and over and above its reformatory function in cases where it has one, it has a moral end. Just because punishment by the state has for its direct object the maintenance of rights, it has, like every other function of the state, indirectly a moral object, because true rights, according to our definition, are powers which it is for the general well-being that the individual (or association) should possess, and that well-being is essentially a moral well-being. Ultimately, therefore, the just punishment of crime is for the moral good of the community. It is also for the moral good of the criminal himself, unless--and this is a supposition which we ought not to make--he is beyond the reach of moral influences. Though not inflicted for that purpose, and though it would not the less have to be inflicted if no moral effect on the criminal could be discerned, it is morally the best thing that can happen to him. It is so, even if a true social necessity requires that he be punished with death. The fact that society is obliged so to deal with him affords the best chance of bringing home to him the anti-social nature of his act. It is true that the last utterances of murderers generally convey the impression that they consider themselves interesting persons, quite sure of going to heaven; but these are probably conventional. At any rate if the solemn infliction of punishment on behalf of human society, and without any sign of vindictiveness, will not breed the shame which is the moral new birth, presumably nothing else within human reach will. M. _THE RIGHT OF THE STATE TO PROMOTE MORALITY._