What a folly, to ask of the State's authority that it should enter into an honorable fight with the individual, and, as they express themselves in the matter of freedom of the press, share sun and wind equally! If the State, this thought, is to be a _de facto_ power, it simply must be a superior power against the individual. The State is "sacred" and must not expose itself to the "impudent attacks" of individuals. If the State is _sacred_, there must be censorship. The political liberals admit the former and dispute the inference. But in any case they concede repressive measures to it, for--they stick to this, that State is _more_ than the individual and exercises a justified revenge, called punishment. _Punishment_ has a meaning only when it is to afford expiation for the injuring of a _sacred_ thing. If something is sacred to any one, he certainly deserves punishment when he acts as its enemy. A man who lets a man's life continue in existence _because_ to him it is sacred and he has a _dread_ of touching it is simply a--_religious_ man. Weitling lays crime at the door of "social disorder," and lives in the expectation that under Communistic arrangements crimes will become impossible, because the temptations to them, _e. g._ money, fall away. As, however, his organized society is also exalted into a sacred and inviolable one, he miscalculates in that good-hearted opinion. Such as with their mouth professed allegiance to the Communistic society, but worked underhand for its ruin, would not be lacking. Besides, Weitling has to keep on with "curative means against the natural remainder of human diseases and weaknesses," and "curative means" always announce to begin with that individuals will be looked upon as "called" to a particular "salvation" and hence treated according to the requirements of this "human calling." _Curative means_ or _healing_ is only the reverse side of _punishment_, the _theory of cure_ runs parallel with the _theory of punishment_; if the latter sees in an action a sin against right, the former takes it for a sin of the man _against himself_, as a decadence from his health. But the correct thing is that I regard it either as an action that _suits me_ or as one that _does not suit me_, as hostile or friendly to _me_, _i. e._ that I treat it as my _property_, which I cherish or demolish. "Crime" or "disease" are not either of them an _egoistic_ view of the matter, _i. e._ a judgment _starting from me_, but starting from _another_,--to wit, whether it injures _right_, general right, or the _health_ partly of the individual (the sick one), partly of the generality (_society_). "Crime" is treated inexorably, "disease" with "loving gentleness, compassion," and the like.