The perfectly plain difference is this. All punishment, even the most
horrible, proceeds upon the assumption that the extent of the evil is
known, and that a certain amount of expiation goes with it. Even if
you hang the man, you cannot hang him twice. Even if you burn him,
you cannot burn him for a month. And in the case of all ordinary
imprisonments, the whole aim of free institutions from the beginning of
the world has been to insist that a man shall be convicted of a definite
crime and confined for a definite period. But the moment you admit this
notion of medical restraint, you must in fairness admit that it may go
on as long as the authorities choose to think (or say) that it ought
to go on. The man’s punishment refers to the past, which is supposed
to have been investigated, and which, in some degree at least, has been
investigated. But his restraint refers to the future, which his doctors,
keepers, and wardens have yet to investigate. The simple result will be
that, in the scientific Utopia of the “Clarion,” men like Mann or Syme
or Larkin will not be put in prison because of what they have done.
They will be kept in prison because of what they might do. Indeed, the
builders of the new tyranny have already come very near to avowing
this scientific and futurist method. When the lawyers tried to stop the
“Suffragette” from appearing at all, they practically said: “We do not
know your next week’s crime, because it isn’t committed yet; but we are
scientifically certain you have the criminal type. And by the sublime
and unalterable laws of heredity, all your poor little papers will
inherit it.”
This is a purely practical question; and that is why I insist on it,
even in such strenuous times. The writers on the “Clarion” have a
perfect right to think Christianity is the foe of freedom, or even
that the stupidity and tyranny of the present Government is due to the
monkish mysticism of Lord Morley and Mr. John M. Robertson. They have a
right to think the theory of Determinism as true as Calvin thought it.
But I do not like seeing them walk straight into the enormous iron trap
set open by the Capitalists, who find it convenient to make our law even
more lawless than it is. The rich men want a scientist to write them a
_lettre de cachet_ as a doctor writes a prescription. And so they wish
to seal up in a public gaol the scandals of a private asylum. Yes; the
writers on the “Clarion” are indeed claiming irresponsibility for human
beings. But it is the governments that will be irresponsible, not the
governed.
But I will tell them one small secret in conclusion. There is nothing
whatever wrong in the ancient and universal idea of Punishment--except
that we are not punishing the right people.