traders who hunt the natives on the Congo like rabbits,
massacre and mutilate them, that they are sick? A bad deed done
with intention argues badness in the doer. We impute to the man
the act and its consequences. We cannot separate the sin from the
sinner, and merely condemn sin in the abstract. There is no such
thing as sin in the abstract. Sin is sin only when it is incorporated
in the will of a human individual. We condemn the sinner because
he has wedded himself to the sin. If this were not the case, we
might as well close our courts of justice. We hold men accountable,
then, for their misdeeds, whatever speculative philosophy may urge
to the contrary. How could we revere virtue if we did not stigmatize its
opposite; how could we believe in human worth if we did not condemn
unworth where it appears?

But the ordinary judgment stops short right here. It recognizes
the particular badness of a particular act, and desires that the agent
be made to suffer for it. It says, this act is the expression of an evil
disposition, and it identifies the whole man with the particular act
of which he was guilty. The spiritual attitude is characterized by
discriminating between the particular act and the whole of the
man's nature. It recognizes that there is an evil strand; but it also
sees or divines the good that exists along with the evil, even in the
most seemingly hopeless cases. It trusts to the good, and builds
upon it with a view to making it paramount over evil. Upon the
basis of this spiritual attitude, what should be our mode of dealing
with the bad? There are a number of steps to be taken in order,
and much depends on our following the right order.

The first step is to arrest the course of evil, to prevent its channel
from being deepened, its area from being enlarged. Pluck the whip
from the hand of the ruffian who is lashing his beast; stay the arm
that is uplifted to strike the cowardly murderous blow. Much has
been said of the need of considering the good of society, of
protecting the community at large from the depredations of the
violent and fraudulent; and of subjecting the latter to exemplary
punishment, in order to deter others from following their example.
But the welfare of society and the welfare of the criminal are
always identical. Nothing should be done to the worst criminal, not
a hair of his head should be touched merely for the sake of
securing the public good, if the thing done be not also for his