It follows that we must understand "deterrence" in a wider sense than we have hitherto given to it. When we speak of punishment as deterring from crime, we must consider, not merely the effect upon the individual of the prospect of punishment following detection, but the total effect of a systematic adherence to the law upon the preservation of a peaceful state of society at large. We do not simply wish to provide a sufficient motive to decide the individual who is asking himself, shall I steal or not steal? but to maintain an organisation under which property shall be normally respected, and stealing become as exceptional as we can make it. This, in turn, involves much more than a simple execution of the criminal law; it involves the support of agencies for prevention, education, and reformation; though it does, also, involve an inflexible adherence to the criminal law. The law has to use rough means, and cannot possibly affect to adhere precisely to the moral deserts of individual cases. But it is justified by the simple ground that the only alternative is a chaos of barbarism. If you ask, therefore, in what sense is a criminal law just? we must confess that, in certain respects, it is impossible that it should be strictly just; it must deal with the found-out exclusively and with those who are found out in certain definite cases of criminality, and it must, therefore, impose penalties which do not precisely correspond to the degree of criminality implied. But the relation to morality is, nevertheless, intimate. For the growth of the social order depends upon the growth of the corresponding social instincts; or rather, the two processes are correlative. If I love my neighbour I shall not wish to cut his throat; and, in order that I may love him, I must be pretty sure that he does not mean to cut mine. The external framework provides a protection under which the primary moral instincts can expand; and the expansion of the instincts supposes a correlative modification of the external framework. The moral requirement in regard to the criminal law is, therefore, essentially, that it should be such a law as is favourable, when considered in connection with the whole order, to the strength and development of the existing morality. If the criminal asks, How do you justify yourself for punishing me? the reply must be, Because the inflexible administration of the law is an essential precondition of the whole system, under which alone progress is possible. A society in which peace and order are preserved is superior, in morals as in other respects, to a society in which peace and order are made impossible by violence; and the suppression by punishment of offenders is involved in the system. The advantage of belonging to such a society is not to be measured by counting up the working of individual cases; but by the whole characteristics of the social state, taken as a whole, and including, as