Huxley's reproach to Spencer of his "administrative Nihilism": but it is a case of something much _more_ than "administration." 13. To return to our subject, namely _punishment_, we must make consequently a double distinction: first, the relatively permanent _element_, the custom, the act, the "drama," a certain rigid sequence of methods of procedure; on the other hand, the fluid element, the meaning, the end, the expectation which is attached to the operation of such procedure. At this point we immediately assume, _per analogiam_ (in accordance with the theory of the historic method, which we have elaborated above), that the procedure itself is something older and earlier than its utilisation in punishment, that this utilisation was _introduced_ and interpreted into the procedure (which had existed for a long time, but whose employment had another meaning), in short, that the case is _different_ from that hitherto supposed by our _naïf_ genealogists of morals and of law, who thought that the procedure was _invented_ for the purpose of punishment, in the same way that the hand had been previously thought to have been invented for the purpose of grasping. With regard to the other element in _punishment_, its fluid element, its meaning, the idea of punishment in a very late stage of civilisation (for instance, contemporary Europe) is not content with manifesting merely one meaning, but manifests a whole synthesis "of meanings." The past general history of punishment, the history of its employment for the most diverse ends, crystallises eventually into a kind of unity, which is difficult to analyse into its parts, and which, it is necessary to emphasise, absolutely defies definition. (It is nowadays impossible to say definitely _the precise reason_ for punishment: all ideas, in which a whole process is promiscuously comprehended, elude definition; it is only that which has no history, which can be defined.) At an earlier stage, on the contrary, that synthesis of meanings appears much less rigid and much more elastic; we can realise how in each individual case the elements of the synthesis change their value and their position, so that now one element and now another stands out and predominates over the others, nay, in certain cases one element (perhaps the end of deterrence) seems to eliminate all the rest. At any rate, so as to give some idea of the uncertain, supplementary, and accidental nature of the meaning of punishment and of the manner in which one identical procedure can be employed and adapted for the most diametrically opposed objects, I will at this point give a scheme that has suggested itself to me, a scheme itself based on comparatively small and accidental material.--Punishment, as rendering the criminal harmless and incapable of further injury.--Punishment, as compensation for the injury sustained by the injured party, in any form whatsoever (including the form of sentimental compensation).--Punishment, as an isolation