The owner, acting in his capacity as citizen,
even when he has been compensated as an individual, may still hand him
over to the State for punishment. The arson was a violation, not only
of _commutative_, but of _legal_ justice (c. v., s. ix., nn. 3, 6, pp.
103, 106), a disturbance of the public peace and social order, an
outrage upon the majesty of the law. For this he may be punished by
the State, which is the guardian of all these things, and which has
jurisdiction over him to make laws for him, and to enforce their
sanction against him. Civil punishment, besides being deterrent, is
retributive for the breach of social order. It is the vengeance of the
commonwealth upon the disturber of the public peace. Whether the State
can punish on pure grounds of retribution, away from all hope or need
of deterring possible imitators of the crime, is a question irrelevant
to our present enquiry. Probably a negative answer should be returned.
7. We come now to the punishment of sin by God, the Living
Reasonableness, the Head of the Commonwealth of Creation, the
Legislator of the Eternal Law, the Fountain of all Jurisdiction, Him
in whose hands rests the plenitude of the power to punish.
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