1. _By the right of the sword_ is technically meant the right of inflicting capital punishment, according to the Apostle's words: "But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain." (Rom. xiii. 4.) We commonly call it _the power of life and death_. 2. That a government may be a working government, as it should be (s. iv., n. 2, p. 319), it must not only make laws, but bear out and enforce its legislation by the sanction of punishment. "If talk and argumentation were sufficient to make men well-behaved, manifold and high should be the reward of talkers.... But in fact it appears that talking does very well to incite and stimulate youths of fine mind; and lighting upon a noble character and one of healthy tastes, it may dispose such a person to take up the practice of virtue: but it is wholly unable to move the multitude to goodness; for it is not their nature to obey conscience, but fear, nor to abstain from evil because it is wrong, but because of punishments. The multitude live by feeling: they pursue the pleasures that they like and the means thereto, and shun the opposite pains, but they have no idea, as they have had no taste, of what is right and fair and truly sweet.... The man who lives by feeling will not listen to the voice of reason, nor can he appreciate its warning. How is it possible to divert such a one from his course by argument? Speaking generally, we say that passion yields not to argument but to constraint.... The multitude obey on compulsion rather than on principle, and from fear of pains and penalties rather than from a sense of right. These are grounds for believing that legislators, while exhorting to virtue and putting certain courses of conduct forward as right and honourable, in the expectation that good men will obey the call, as their habits lead them, should at the same time inflict chastisements and punishments upon the crossgrained and disobedient; and as for the incurably vicious, put them beyond the pale altogether. The result will be, that the decent and conscientious citizen will listen to the voice of reason, while the worthless votary of pleasure is chastened by pain like a beast of burden.... Law has a coercive function, appealing to force, notwithstanding that it is a reasoned conclusion of practical wisdom and intelligence. The interference of persons is odious, when it stands out against the tide of passion, even where it is right and proper to interfere; but no odium attaches to statute law enjoining the proper course." (Aristotle, _Ethics_, X., ix.)