“Only daffodils” you say? But he made them for himself and others an eternal possession of beauty and delight. Those who have great possessions on these terms need never turn sorrowfully away when the command comes: “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor.” For these are the inexhaustible treasures of the soul, and are in their nature communal; and happy is the man or nation that finds them. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (1918) The two words Crime and Punishment have come to us in a conjunction which it is very difficult to separate. Our fathers have told us, and our teachers and theologians have strenuously insisted that the one necessarily entails the other. The whole of our social order is based upon the idea that if a man commits crime--an offence, that is to say, against the written law of the community--he must be punished for it. If he were not, social order would go to pieces. But our social order does not lay equal stress upon the idea that if a man lives virtuously he must be rewarded. If a man lives virtuously his reward is in Heaven--that is to say, he takes his chance. His virtue may assist or may hinder his worldly advancement; but we have not yet committed ourselves to the conviction that social order will necessarily go to pieces if virtue is not rewarded. It will only go to pieces if crime is not punished. Society can reconcile itself to the one omission; but it cannot reconcile itself to the other. This inequality of interest in retribution and reward is based perhaps upon the calculation that while you look after the crimes, the virtues will look after themselves; and that the virtues will not--for lack of Birthday Honours--rebel against the society in which they find themselves. And really, there is something in it. Virtue is already self-governing; vice is not. The virtuous and humane part of a man--his will to unite and co-operate with others for social development and service--inclines him to accept and make the best of the conditions of life, to take the rough with the smooth, the hindrances with the aids, the good with the evil: not, indeed, passively, or without some effort to get rid of bad smells, bad tastes, bad laws, bad governments--but with a definite consciousness that in operating against these he is operating not for his own single benefit, but for the benefit of the community. And that being so, he can be left, unrecompensed and unrewarded, to face a very considerable amount of discomfort, adversity, and even injustice, without becoming either a rebel or a criminal. Although if governed unintelligently enough, or wickedly enough, he may be turned into both.