This theory is
natural enough in the minds of men and women who believe in hell. In
earlier ages men could not distinguish between the law of retaliation
and the need to deter criminals by using violence against them when they
transgressed. In many primitive systems of justice the law of
retaliation is expressly consecrated. It is even introduced,
inconsistently and as a survival of barbaric times, in the Babylonian
and the Judaic codes, side by side with saner views. It is, of course,
merely a systematisation of brute passion. In the beginning, if a man
knocked your tooth out, you knocked one of his teeth out. With the
growth of law and justice, the barbarous nature of the impulse was
recognised, and the community, by its representatives, inflicted a
"punishment" on the offender instead of allowing the offended to
retaliate. With the modern improvement of moral sentiments we have
realised that this is an imperfect advance on the barbaric idea. The
community has no more right to "punish" than the offended individual
had. We now impose hardship on an offender only for the purpose of
intimidating him from repeating the offence, or of deterring others from
offending.
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