weak practical results—it produces also a false mind.
The attempt to separate one thing from another, one human being from another, is at the root of our belief in punishment. Punishment helps to separate, helps to make us feel separate; it does not unite. An English judge declared quite recently that the main object of punishment was not to reform the criminal but to protect society. And so long as that is true, the criminal is just as conscious as we are that the discipline laid on him is the expression of a divided standard of morality, knowing perfectly well that we in like circumstances should not think such punishment good for ourselves or our children.
For is it not true that wherever a local or group interest comes to be established, there the members of that group cease to believe that punishment from any outside power or authority is good for them?
Take the family—those of you who believe in punishment—those who profess to be law-abiding; one of its members commits a theft. Is he handed over to the police to be dealt with according to law? Not at all. On the contrary, everything is done to enable him to escape the punishment. We don't believe in legal punishment when it comes to our own circle. And we only believe in legal punishment for others, because, loving and understanding them less, we are unwilling to take as much trouble about them.
