In books on
Jurisprudence, this word is usually employed to designate merely pains
or penalties, but this circumstance arises from the fact that, at least
in modern times, the law seldom has recourse to rewards, and effects its
ends almost exclusively by means of punishments. When we are considering
conduct, however, in its general aspects and not exclusively in its
relations to law, we appear to need a word to express any inducement,
whether of a pleasureable or painful nature, which may influence a man's
actions, and such a word the term 'sanction' seems conveniently to
supply. Taking the word in this extended sense, the sanctions of conduct
may be enumerated as the physical, the legal, the social, the religious,
and the moral. Of the physical sanction familiar examples may be found
in the headache from which a man suffers after a night's debauch, the
pleasure of relaxation which awaits a well-earned holiday, the danger to
life or limb which is attendant on reckless exercise, or the glow of
constant satisfaction which rewards a healthy habit of life. These
pleasures and pains, when once experienced, exercise, for the future, an
attracting or a deterring influence, as the case may be, on the courses
of conduct with which they have respectively become associated. Thus, a
man who has once suffered from a severe headache, after a night's
drinking-bout, will be likely to exercise more discretion in future, or
the prospect of agreeable diversion, at the end of a hard day's work,
will quicken a man's efforts to execute his task.
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