being.

If this be the just view of the subject, and both theory and
experience unite to prove that it is, almost all Mr Godwin's
reasonings on the subject of coercion in his seventh chapter,
will appear to be founded on error. He spends some time in
placing in a ridiculous point of view the attempt to convince a
man's understanding and to clear up a doubtful proposition in his
mind, by blows. Undoubtedly it is both ridiculous and barbarous,
and so is cock-fighting, but one has little more to do with the
real object of human punishments than the other. One frequent
(indeed much too frequent) mode of punishment is death. Mr Godwin
will hardly think this intended for conviction, at least it does
not appear how the individual or the society could reap much
future benefit from an understanding enlightened in this manner.

The principal objects which human punishments have in view
are undoubtedly restraint and example; restraint, or removal, of
an individual member whose vicious habits are likely to be
prejudicial to the society'; and example, which by expressing the
sense of the community with regard to a particular crime, and by
associating more nearly and visibly crime and punishment, holds
out a moral motive to dissuade others from the commission of it.

Restraint, Mr Godwin thinks, may be permitted as a temporary
expedient, though he reprobates solitary imprisonment, which has
certainly been the most successful, and, indeed, almost the only
attempt towards the moral amelioration of offenders. He talks of
the selfish passions that are fostered by solitude and of the
virtues generated in society. But surely these virtues are not