and the way has ever been made easier by those who have violated
precepts and defied some of the concepts of the time. Both ways are
right and both ways are wrong. The conflict between the two ways is as
old as the human race.

Paths and customs and institutions are forever changing. So are ideas of
right and wrong, and so, too, are statutes. The law, no doubt, makes it
harder for customs and habits to be changed, for it adds to the inertia
of the existing thing.

Is there, then, nothing in the basis of right and wrong that answers to
the common conception of these words? There are some customs that have
been forbidden longer and which, it seems, must necessarily be longer
prohibited; but the origin of all is the same. A changing world has
shown how the most shocking crimes punished by the severest penalties
have been taken from the calendar and no longer even bear the suspicion
of wrong. Religious differences, witchcraft and sorcery have probably
brought more severe punishments than any other acts; yet a change of
habit and custom and belief has long since abolished all such crimes.
So, too, crimes come and go with new ideals, new movements and
conditions. The largest portion of our criminal code deals with the
rights of property; yet nearly all of this is of comparatively modern
growth. A new emotion may take possession of man which will result in
the repeal of many if not all of these statutes, and place some other
consideration above property, which seems to be the controlling emotion
of today.

Crime, strictly speaking, is only such conduct or acts as are forbidden
by the law and for which penalties are prescribed. The classification of
the act does not necessarily have relation to moral conduct. This cannot
be fixed by any exact standard. There is no straight clear line between
the good and bad, the right and wrong. The general ways of determining
good and bad conduct are of little value. The line between the two is
always uncertain and shifting. And, in the last analysis, good or bad
conduct rests upon the "folk-ways," the habits, beliefs and customs of a
community. While this is the real basis of judging conduct, it is
always changing, and from the nature of things, if it could be made
stable, it would mean that society was stratified and all hope of
improvement dead.

II

PURPOSE OF PUNISHMENT

Neither the purpose nor the effect of punishment has ever been
definitely agreed upon, even by its mo