s
of the body. With our modern measures of hygiene in prisons, the
prison cell cannot be called a place of torture for the body: it is
merely a place where all spiritual sustenance is withheld. It consists
of a cell with perfectly bare gray walls, opening only into a narrow
strip of ground enclosed by high walls, where the criminal may walk
in the fresh air, because the open country is all around him, though
it is hidden from his sight. What is lacking here for the body? It is
provided with food, and a shelter from the weather, it has a bed and a
place where it can take in fresh stores of pure oxygen; the body can
rest, nay more, it can do nothing but rest. The conditions seem almost
ideal for any one who does not wish to do anything, and desires simply
to vegetate. But no sound from without, no human voice ever reaches
the ear of the being here incarcerated; he will never again see a
color or a form. No news from the outer world ever reaches him. Alone
in dense spiritual darkness, he will spend the interminable hours,
days, seasons, and years. Now, experience has shown that these
wretched persons cannot live. They go mad and die. Not only their
minds but their bodies perish after a few years. What causes death? If
such a man were a plant, he would lack nothing, but he requires other
nourishment. Emptiness of the soul is mortal even to the vilest
criminal, for this is a law of human nature. His flesh, his viscera,
his bones perish when deprived of spiritual food, just as an oak-tree
would perish without the nitrates of the earth and the oxygen of the
air. This slow death substituted for violent death was, indeed,
denounced as very great cruelty. To die of hunger in nine days like
Count Ugolino is a more cruel fate than to be burnt to death in half
an hour like Giordano Bruno; but to die of starvation of the spirit in
a term of years is the most cruel of all the punishments hitherto
devised for the castigation of man.

If a robust and brutal criminal can perish from starvation of the
soul, what will be the fate of the infant if we take no account of his
spiritual needs? His body is fragile, his bones are in process of
growth, his muscles, overloaded with sugar, cannot yet elaborate their
powers; they can only elaborate themselves; the delicate structure of
his organism requires, it is true, nutriment and oxygen; but if its
functions are to be satisfactorily performed, it requires joy. It is a
joyous spirit which causes