The mere instinct of the community,
unmodified and uncorrected by the conscious speculations of its more
thoughtful members, would be in much danger of either causing a large
amount of needless suffering to the criminal, or of seriously
diminishing the security of society. It would almost certainly be guilty
of grave inequalities in the apportionment of punishment to specific
crimes. The history of slavery similarly shews the importance of the
functions of the moralist and the reformer. It must have been at the
suggestion of some prominent member of a tribe, whose intelligence was
in advance of that of his fellows, that men first took to capturing
their defeated enemies, with a view to future service, instead of
slaughtering them on the field of battle. And we know that, in the time
of Plato and Aristotle, there had already arisen a strong sentiment
against the enslaving of Greeks by Greeks, originating probably in the
instinctive sympathy of race, but quickened and fostered, doubtless, by
the superior capacity which men possess of realising suffering and
misfortune in those who are constituted and endowed like themselves, by
the new conception of a Pan-hellenic unity, and by the vivid sense
which, on reflexion, the citizens of each state must have entertained of
their own liability to be reduced, in turn, to the same condition. In
modern times, the movement which has led to the entire abolition of
slavery in civilized countries owes much, undoubtedly, to the softened
manners and wider sympathies of a society largely transformed by the
combined operation of Christianity and culture, but it has been
promoted, to no inconsiderable degree, by conscious reflexion and direct
argument.
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