" (Aristotle, _Ethics_, X., ix.)
3. Aristotle seems hard upon the masses, likening them to brutes who
must be governed by the whip. He may be supposed to speak from
experience of the men of his time. If humanity has somewhat improved
in two and twenty centuries, yet it cannot be contended that the whip
is grown unnecessary and beyond the whip the sword. But we must
observe a certain _modus operandi_ of punishment which Aristotle has
not noted, a more human mode than the terror of slavish fear. Just
punishment, felt as such, stimulates the conscience to discern and
abhor the crime. Men would think little of outraging their own nature
by excess, did they not know that the laws of God and man forbid such
outrage. Again, they would think little even of those laws, were not
the law borne out by the sanction of punishment. A law that may be
broken with impunity is taken to be the toying of a legislator not in
earnest. Men here are as children. A child is cautioned against lying.
He reckons little of the caution: he tells a lie, and a flogging
ensues. Thereupon his mind reverts to what he was told: he sees that
the warning was meant in earnest.
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