[Footnote 115: _Leges villæ de Arkes ab abbate S. Bertini concessæ_, 28 (d'Achery, _Spicilegium_, iii. 608).] But although, in innumerable cases, punishment and judicial organisation have succeeded a previous system of revenge, and thus are products of social development, their existence or non-existence among a certain people is no exact index to the general state of culture which that people has attained. Even among low savages we have noticed instances of punishments which are inflicted by the community as a whole, as also by special judicial authorities. On the other hand, we are taught by the history of European and Oriental nations, that the system of revenge is not inconsistent with a comparatively high degree of culture.[116] We can now see the reason for this apparent anomaly. In a small savage community, all the members of which are closely united with each other, an injury inflicted upon one is readily felt by all. The case may be different in a State consisting of loosely-connected social components, which, though forming a political unity, have little communication between themselves, and take no interest in each other's private dealings. And, whilst in the smaller society public resentment is thus more easily aroused, such a society also stands in more urgent need of internal peace. [Footnote 116: See _infra_, on Blood-revenge.] * * * * * Our assumption that punishment is, in the main, an expression of public indignation, is opposed to another theory, according to which the chief object of punishment, not only ought to be, but actually is, or has been, {186} to prevent crime by deterring people from committing it. We are even told that punishment, inflicted for such a purpose, is, largely, at the root of the moral consciousness; that punishment is not the result of a sense of justice, but that the sense of justice is a result of punishment; that, by being punished by the State, certain acts gradually came to be regarded as worthy of punishment, in other words, as morally wrong.[117] [Footnote 117: Rée, _Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen_, p. 45 _sqq._ _Idem_, _Entstehung des Gewissens_, p. 190 _sqq._] There are certain facts which seem to support the supposition that punishment has, to a large extent, been intended to act as a deterrent. We find that among various semi-civilised and civilised peoples the criminal law has assumed a severity which far surpasses the rigour of the _lex talionis_.