connatural to man. Such another enormity would be the affection of
vengeance, if punishment could never rightly be retributive.

4. Aristotle, _Rhetoric_, I., x., 17, distinguishes two functions of
punishment thus: "Chastisement is for the benefit of him that suffers
it, but vengeance is for him that wreaks it, that he may have
satisfaction." Add to this the warning given to the commonwealth by
the example that is made of the offender, and we have the three
functions of punishment, _medicinal_, _deterrent_, and _retributive_.
As it is _medicinal_, it serves the _offender_: as it is _deterrent_,
it serves the _commonwealth_: as it is _retributive_, it serves the
_offended party_, being a reparation offered to him. Now, who is the
offended party in any evil deed? So far as it is a sin against
justice, an infringement of any man's right, he is the offended party.
He is offended, however, not simply and precisely by your violation of
the moral law, but by your having, in violation of that law, taken
away something that belonged to him. Consequently, when you make
restitution and give him back what you took away, with compensation
for the temporal deprival of it, he is satisfied, and the offence
against him is repaired. If you have maliciously burnt his house down,
you bring him the price of the house and furniture, together with
further payment for the fright and for the inconvenience of being, for
the present, houseless. You may do all that, and yet the moral guilt
of the conflagration may remain upon your soul. But that is no affair
of his: he is not the custodian of the moral law: he is not offended
by your sin, formally viewed as sin: nor has he any function of
punishing you, taking vengeance upon you, or exacting from you
retribution for that. But what if his wife and children have perished,
and you meant them so to perish, in the fire? Your debt of restitution
still lies in the matter which you took away. Of course it is a debt