On the whole, the community has never felt called upon to solve the moral problem of the reward of virtue. It has always contented itself with the punishment of vice and has given its law threatening, but not encouraging, sanctions. This attitude shows that it has always had a clear conception of its moral task. In its positive law it never included anything but that minimum of Morality that was absolutely necessary to its existence, and without which it would dissolve into its original elements, its order would be replaced by chaos, by the war of all against all. It must insist on the observance of this minimum; it must use forcible means to achieve this. But it does not feel justified in demanding more than this minimum, because more is not claimed by its instinct of self-preservation. A surplus of virtue over and above the amount necessary for the life of society is desirable; but it does not lie within the scope of the natural functions of the community, determined by its organic necessities, to achieve this by compulsion and the provision of legal rewards as an encouragement. It is the business of the individual to work at his own moral improvement, and the community cannot interfere directly in the matter. It is enough that it encourage this work indirectly by bestowing care on the culture and education of the individual, by making it the duty of its public schools to inculcate good principles, and by creating a public opinion which surrounds all the activities of higher morality with admiration, respect and gratitude. The moral education of the individual is not an object with which laws are concerned; it is the result of the constant, vital influence of the community, and can have no sanction other than the increase of well-being of every single person within the social union, which is a natural consequence of raising the moral level of the community. The penal sanctions of positive law have a gross materialism about them corresponding to the definite concreteness of the actions with which positive law deals. The broad field of Morality, however, which is outside the narrow sphere of the laws, has no room for sanctions of a material nature. The penalties prescribed by law are directed to actions which, if they became general, would in a very short space of time result in the dissolution of society. The community essays by forcible measures to prevent this kind of action, and these measures more or less fulfil their aim, whether you interpret their use on the theory of discipline, of expiation and purification by repentance, of improvement and moral re-birth, or of intimidation. All these theories were invented later on, after the community had been convinced by experience that punishment, if it does not entirely prevent crime, at least limits it sufficiently to make the continued existence of society possible, and more or less to guarantee to its members the safety of their life, their property and their personal dignity.