[65] In a leaf of corrections to the text of the first edition
Coleridge directed that "prerogative as _moral_ beings" should be read
here. The correction seems to have been overlooked by Coleridge's
editors.--ED.
[66] On this principle alone is it possible to justify _capital_, or
_ignominious_ punishments (or indeed any punishment not having the
reformation of the Criminal, as _one_ of its objects). Such
punishments, like those inflicted on Suicides, must be regarded as
_posthumous_: the wilful extinction of the moral and personal life
being, for the purposes of punitive Justice, equivalent to a wilful
destruction of the natural life. If the speech of Judge Burnet to the
horse-stealer (You are not hanged for stealing a horse; but, that
horses may not be stolen) can be vindicated at all, it must be on this
principle; and not on the all-unsettling scheme of _Expedience_, which
is the anarchy of Morals.
[67] The religion of the Dutch sect called the "Family of Love,"
originated by Henry Nicholas about 1540.--ED.
[68] More's 'Mystery of Godliness.'--ED.