But the community cannot wait until this stage of moral development has been generally attained. It refuses to entrust its existence to the spiritual purity of all its members. On principle it disregards processes in the consciousness of the individual--I have cited in an earlier chapter the few exceptions to this rule: investigation as to premeditation, accountability, freedom from undue influence--and keeps to actions which alone it judges. It declares itself incompetent to pronounce sentence upon a "storm inside a skull," to quote Victor Hugo. Its sphere is that of obvious facts. Not until subjective impulses and decisions are manifested in outward form does it intervene with methods of the same order, with outward coercion. The sanctions of its law are material, are punishments and fines. It hits the wrongdoer over the head and on his hands and forcibly empties his pockets. To look into his soul and set matters to rights there is a task undertaken much later by law-givers. It was only after they had remembered that the source of law is Morality and that its ultimate aim is not the bare attainment of a state of mutual respect for one another's rights, but the education of the community to a universal condition of self-discipline, consideration and neighbourly love, that the law-givers made a point not only of requiting the bad man's misdeeds, but also of trying to elevate him morally. At different times, at different stages of civilization, and according to the current views of the universe, society has interpreted in different ways the punishment it inflicts and which it carries out by forcible means, so as to ensure respect for its laws. Its original character is that of revenge for an offence. The wrongdoer has offended the community, it attacks him furiously and breaks every bone in his body just as an angry individual would do in his first access of indignation. That is Draco's penal code. That is the law of literal requital. The special characteristic of this sanction is its violence and lack of moderation. It does not trouble to find the right proportion between punishment and crime. It does not carefully and fairly weigh the force of its blows. The club falls with a frightful crash, but its dynamical effect is not calculated beforehand in kilogrammetres. "The stab of a knife is not measured," as an Italian proverb says. Thus conceived, punishment has something primitive about it, something intolerably barbarous. The community does the very things it was created, by Morality and Law, to prevent; it exercises the right of the stronger against the challenger; it promotes war, not that of all against all, but of all against one, and its punishment is an act of war.