And so far as this punishment takes the place of
compensation, whether on account of the death of the person to
whom the wrong was done, the indefinite number of persons
affected, the impossibility of estimating the worth of the
suffering in money, or the poverty of the criminal, it may be
said that one of its objects is to gratify the desire for
vengeance. The prisoner pays with his body.
The statement may be made stronger still, and it may be said, not
only that the law does, but that it ought to, make the
gratification of revenge an object. This is the opinion, at any
rate, of two authorities so great, and so opposed in other views,
as Bishop Butler and Jeremy Bentham. /1/ Sir James Stephen says,
"The criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in much the
same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite." /2/
The first requirement of a sound body of law is, that it should
correspond with the actual feelings and demands of the community,
whether right or wrong. If people would gratify the passion of
revenge outside of the law, if the law did not help them, the law
has no choice but to satisfy the craving itself, and thus avoid
the greater evil of private [42] retribution. At the same time,
this passion is not one which we encourage, either as private
individuals or as lawmakers.
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