Principles of Morals and

152/Jeremy Bentham
those ends. To that of example, as being the principal one, a particular
property has already been adapted. There remains the three inferior ones
of reformation, disablement, and compensation.
XV. A seventh property, therefore, to be wished for in a mode of
punishment, is that of subserviency to reformation, or reforming ten-
dency. Now any punishment is subservient to reformation in proportion
to its quantity: since the greater the punishment a man has experienced,
the stronger is the tendency it has to create in him an aversion towards
the offense which was the cause of it: and that with respect to all of-
fenses alike. But there are certain punishments which, with regard to
certain offenses, have a particular tendency to produce that effect by
reason of their quality: and where this is the case, the punishments in
question, as applied to the offenses in question, will pro tanto have the
advantage over all others. This influence will depend upon the nature of
the motive which is the cause of the offence: the punishment most sub-
servient to reformation will be the sort of punishment that is best calcu-
lated to invalidate the force of that motive.
XVI. Thus, in offenses originating from the motive of ill-will, that
punishment has the strongest reforming tendency, which is best calcu-
lated to weaken the force of the irascible affections. And more particu-
larly, in that sort of offense which consists in an obstinate refusal, on the
part of the offender, to do something which is lawfully required of him,
and in which the obstinacy is in great measure kept up by his resentment
against those who have an interest in forcing him to compliance, the
most efficacious punishment seems to be that of confinement to spare
diet.
XVII. Thus, also, in offenses which owe their birth to the joint in-
fluence of indolence and pecuniary interest, that punishment seems to
possess the strongest reforming tendency, which is best calculated to
weaken the force of the former of those dispositions. And more particu-
larly, in the cases of theft, embezzlement, and every species of
defraudment, the mode of punishment best adapted to this purpose seems,
in most cases, to be that of penal labour.
XVIII. An eighth property to be given to a lot of punishment in
certain cases, is that of efficacy with respect to disablement, or, as it
might be styled more briefly, disabling efficacy. This is a property which
may be given in perfection to a lot of punishment; and that with much
greater certainty than the property of subserviency to reformation. The
inconvenience is, that this property is apt, in general, to run counter to

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Principles of Morals and Legislation/153
that of frugality: there being, in most cases, no certain way of disabling
a man from doing mischief, without, at the same time, disabling him, in
a great measure, from doing good, either to himself or others. The mis-
chief therefore of the offense must be so great as to demand a very
considerable lot of punishment, for the purpose of example, before it
can warrant the application of a punishment equal to that which is nec-
essary for the purpose of disablement.
XIX. The punishment, of which the efficacy in this way is the great-
est, is evidently that of death. In this case the efficacy of it is certain .
This accordingly is the punishment peculiarly adapted to those cases in
which the name of the offender, so long as he lives, may be sufficient to
keep a whole nation in a flame. This will now and then be the case with
competitors for the sovereignty, and leaders of the factions in civil wars:
though, when applied to offenses of so questionable a nature, in which
the question concerning criminality turns more upon success than any
thing else; an infliction of this sort may seem more to savour of hostility
than punishment. At the same time this punishment, it is evident, is in an
eminent degree unfrugal; which forms one among the many objections
there are against the use of it, in any but very extraordinary cases.
XX. In ordinary cases the purpose maybe sufficiently answered by
one or other of the various kinds of confinement and banishment: of
which, imprisonment is the most strict and efficacious. For when an
offense is so circumstanced that it cannot be committed but in a certain
place, as is the case, for the most part, with offenses against the person,
all the law has to do, in order to disable the offender from committing it,
is to prevent his being in that place. In any of the offenses which consist
in the breach or the abuse of any kind of trust, the purpose may be
compassed at a still cheaper rate, merely by forfeiture of the trust: and
in general, in any of those offenses which can only be committed under
favour of some relation in which the offender stands with reference to
any person, or sets of persons, merely by forfeiture of that relation: that
is, of the right of continuing to reap the advantages belonging to it. This
is the case, for instance, with any of those offences which consist in an
abuse of the privileges of marriage, or of the liberty of carrying on any
lucrative or other occupation.
XXI. The ninth property is that of subserviency to compensation.
This property of punishment, if it be vindictive compensation that is in
view, will, with little variation, be in proportion to the quantity: if lucra-
tive, it is the peculiar and characteristic property of pecuniary punish-

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