as circumstances in extenuation or aggravation.  This large part of responsibility, it will seem to every reflective moralist, enters little into the law’s survey; and its penalties, at best, are “the rack of this rude world.”  Death and imprisonment, as it inflicts them, are for the protection of society, not for reformation, though the philanthropic element in the State may use the period of imprisonment with a view to reformation; nor in the history of the punishment of crime, of the vengeance as such taken on men in addition to the social protection sought, has society on the whole been less brutal in its repulse of its enemies than they were in their attack, or shown any eminent justice toward its victims in the sphere of their own lives.  It is a terrible and debasing record, up to this century at least, and uniformly corrupted those who were its own instruments.  It was the application of force in its most material forms, and dehumanized those upon whom it was exercised, placing them outside the pale of manhood as a preliminary to its work.  The lesson that the criminal remains a man, was one taught to the law, not learned from it.  On the civil side, likewise, similar reservations must be made, both as regards its formulation and operation.  The law as an instrument of justice is a rough way of dealing with the problems of the individual in society, but it is effective for social ends; and, in its total body and practical results, it is a priceless monument of human righteousness, sagacity, and mercy, and though it lags behind opinion, as it must, and postpones to a new age the moral and prudential convictions of the present, it is in its treasury that these at last are stored.

If such be the case within the law, what indifference to justice does the course of events exhibit in the world at large which comes under the law’s inquisition so imperfectly!  How continuous and inevitable, how terrible and pitiful is this aspect of life, is shown in successive ages by the unending story of ideal tragedy, in poem, drama, and tale, in which the noble nature through some frailty, that was but a part, and by the impulse of some moment of brief time, comes to its wreck; and, in connection with this disaster to the best, lies the action of the villain everywhere overflowing in suffering and injury upon his victims and all that is theirs.  What is here represented as the general lot of mankind, in ideal works, exists, multiplied world-wide in the lives and fortunes of mankind, an inestimable amount of injustice always present.  The sacrifice of innocence is in no way lessened by aught of vengeance that may overtake the wrong-doer; and it is constant.  The murdered man, the wronged woman, can find no reparation.  What shall one say of the sufferings of children and of the old, and of the great curse that lies in heredity and the circumstances of early life under depraved, ignorant, or malicious conditions?  These brutalities, like the primeval struggle in the rise of life, seem in a world that never heard the name of justice.  The main seat of individual justice and its operation is, after all, in the moral sense of men, governing their own conduct and modifying so far as possible the mass of injustice continually arising in the process of life, by such relief as they can give by personal influence and action both on persons and in the realm of moral opinion.