An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

total happiness of the community ; and therefore, in the first place, to exclude, as far as may be, every thing that tends to subtract from that happiness : in other words, to exclude mischief. II. But all punishment is mischief : all punishment Bat punishment is an in itself is evil. Upon the principle of utility, if evil. it ought at all to be admitted, it ought only to be admitted in as far as it promises to exclude some greater evil *. * What follows, relative to the subject of punishment What conought regularly to be preceded by a distinct chapter on the '^^"'^ 'H® ends of punishment. But having little to say on that par- veral other ticular branch of the subject, which has not been said before, jiyg to p^. it seemed better, in a work, which will at any rate be but "'shment, _ "" dismissed to too voluminous, to omit this title, reserving it for another, anothey hereafter to be published, intituled The Theory of Punish- '^°^^' VOL. II. B f ASKS UNMEET FOR PUNISHMENT. III. T^i^i^XIT^ ^* ^'^ plain, therefore, that in the following ZfLTted; ^^^^^ punishment ought not to be inflicted. iiishment. 7nent *. To the same work I must refer the analysis of the several possible modes of punishment, a particular and minute examination of the nature of each, and of its advantages and disadvantages, and various other disquisitions, which did not seem absolutely necessary to be inserted here. A very few words, however, concerning the ends of punishment, can scarcely be dispensed with. Concise "pj^g immediate principal end of punishment is to controul view of the r r r