the prisoner is sentenced to one year, seven months, and thirteen days.
Not one day more or less! But the human spectator asks: "If the criminal
should happen to be reformed before the expiration of his term, should
he be retained in prison?" The judge replies: "I don't care, he stays in
one year, seven months, and thirteen days!"

Then the human spectator says: "But suppose the criminal should not yet
be fit for human society at the expiration of his term?" The judge
replies: "At the expiration of his term he leaves prison, for when he
has absolved his last day, he has paid his debt!"

This is the same case as that of the imaginary physician who says: "You
have heart trouble? Then take a quart of rhubarb decoction and stay
twelve days in the hospital." Another patient says: "I have broken my
leg." And the doctor: "All right, take a pint of rhubarb decoction and
17 days in the hospital." A third has inflammation of the lungs, and the
doctor prescribes three quarts of rhubarb decoction and three months in
the hospital. "But if my inflammation is cured before that time?" "No
matter," says the doctor, "you stay in three months." "But if I am not
cured of my lung trouble after three months?" "No matter," says the
doctor, "you leave after three months."

To such results have wise men been led by a system of penal justice,
which is a denial of all elementary common sense. They have forgotten
the personality of the criminal and occupied themselves exclusively with
crime as an abstract juristic phenomenon. In the same manner, the old
style medicine occupied itself with disease as such, as an abstract
pathological phenomenon, without taking into account the personality of
the patient. The ancient physicians did not consider whether a patient
was well or ill nourished, young or old, strong or weak, nervous or