on the negligent--that they take care of themselves.

It is an especially vicious extension of the false doctrine above
mentioned that criminals have some sort of a right against or claim on
society. Many reformatory plans are based on a doctrine of this kind
when they are urged upon the public conscience. A criminal is a man
who, instead of working with and for the society, has turned against
it, and become destructive and injurious. His punishment means that
society rules him out of its membership, and separates him from its
association, by execution or imprisonment, according to the gravity of
his offense. He has no claims against society at all. What shall be
done with him is a question of expediency to be settled in view of the
interests of society--that is, of the non-criminals. The French writers
of the school of '48 used to represent the badness of the bad men as
the fault of "society." As the object of this statement was to show
that the badness of the bad men was not the fault of the bad men, and
as society contains only good men and bad men, it followed that the
badness of the bad men was the fault of the good men. On that theory,
of course the good men owed a great deal to the bad men who were in
prison and at the galleys on their account. If we do not admit that
theory, it behooves us to remember that any claim which we allow to the
criminal against the "State" is only so much burden laid upon those who
have never cost the State anything for discipline or correction. The
punishments of society are just like those of God and Nature--they are
warnings to the wrong-doer to reform himself.

When public offices are to be filled numerous candidates at once
appear. Some are urged on the ground that they are poor, or cannot earn
a living, or want support while getting an education, or have female
relatives dependent on them, or are in poor health, or belong in a