have to open; who prey upon the community, and sometimes hate it also. They are simply the enemies of society; and the protection of society against them constitutes precisely the difficulty which at this moment our thinkers have to master, and the duty which our rulers have to discharge. Now we do not say that the obstacles and embarrassments with which the solution of the problem is surrounded are not actually great, because they are. But the problem itself is neither difficult nor obscure, as soon as we take pains to place before ourselves distinctly its precise nature and conditions. The thing to be done is simple enough; the impediments in the way of doing it are nearly all of our own creation, arising partly out of ignorance or thoughtlessness, and partly out of willfulness; partly because we have not fully understood what we had to do, and partly because we have been unwilling to accept the consequences and incur the annoyance and expense of doing it. Divested of all complications, our task is to _defend ourselves_ against the criminal population,--the professional criminals; to guard society against their outrages and depredations in the most prompt, effectual, and enduring fashion we can devise. That is all: we have NOT to _punish_ them; and we shall only confuse our minds and perplex our action if we try to do so. It is the almost universal neglect of this vital distinction, more than any other error, which has led us into such grotesque and inconceivable blunders. _Individuals_ may regard these offenders in any light which harmonizes with their several idiosyncracies. Some may look at them as objects of vengeance; some as objects of compassion; some as subjects of conversion; some as patients to be cured; some as unfortunate lunatics to be carefully and comfortably confined; and there may be much truth in all these different views, and they may be allowed to influence some of the _details_ of the practical treatment of criminals in prison and on their discharge from prison. But _the State_, as we said, has only got to protect the community against them--to regard them as domestic foes, against whom self-defence is legitimate and necessary. The reason why it should not seek to _punish_ them, in the strict and proper meaning of that word, is, that it has not the knowledge requisite for the just discharge of that function. It cannot possibly apportion the penalty it inflicts to the _guilt_ of the offender, which apportionment constitutes the very essence of _punishment_. Neither the wisest judge, nor the most patient and enlightened jury, nor the most omniscient police officer, can do more than form a plausible conjecture as to the _moral criminality_ of any convict; since this, it is obvious, must depend on the organization which he inherited, on the antecedents which have surrounded him from the cradle, on the degree of instruction he has received, on the special nature and _adaptation_ of the temptation,