A state may provide for life imprisonment5 in place of death. Some especially atrocious murder may occur and be fully6 exploited in the press. Public feeling will be fanned to a flame. Bitter hatred7 will be aroused against the murderer. It is perfectly8 obvious to the multitude that if other men had been hanged for murder, this victim would not have been killed. A legislature meets before the hatred has had time to cool and the law is changed. Again, a community may have capital punishment and nothing notable happens. Now and then hangings occur. Juries acquit9 because of the severity of the penalty. A feeling of shame or some bungling10 execution may arouse a community against it. A deep-seated doubt may arise as to the guilt11 of a man who has been put to death. The sentimental12 people triumph. The law is changed. Nothing has been found out; no question has been settled; science has made no contribution; the public has changed its mind, or, speaking more correctly, has had another emotion and passed another law.
In the main, the controversy13 over capital punishment has been one between emotional and unemotional people. Now and then the emotionalist is reinforced by some who have a religious conviction against capital punishment, based perhaps on the rather trite14 expression that "God gave life and only God should take it away." Such a statement is plausible15 but not capable of proof. In the main religious people believe in capital punishment. The advocates of capital punishment dispose of the question by saying that it is the "sentimentalist" or, rather, the "maudlin16 sentimentalist" who is against it. Sentimentalist really implies "maudlin."
But emotion too has its biological origin and is a subject of scientific definition. A really "sentimental" person, in the sense used, is one who has sympathy. This, in turn, comes from imagination which is probably the result of a sensitive nervous system, one that quickly and easily responds to stimuli. Those who have weak emotions do not respond so readily to impressions. Their assumption of superior wisdom has its basis only in a nervous system which is sluggish17 and phlegmatic18 to stimuli. Such impressions as each system makes are registered on the brain and become the material for recollection and comparison, which go to form opinion. The correctness of the mental processes depends upon the correctness of the senses that receive the impression, the nerves that transmit the correctness of the registration19, and the character of the brain. It does not follow that the stoic20 has a better brain than the despised "sentimentalist." Either one of them may have a good one, and either one of them a poor one. Still, charity and kindliness21 probably come from the sensitive system which imagines itself in the place of the object that it pities. All pity is really pain engendered22 by the feelings that translate one into the place of another. Both hate and love are biologically necessary to life and its processes.
Many people urge that the penalty of imprisonment for life would be all right if the culprit could be kept in prison during life, but in the course of time he is pardoned. This to me is an excellent reason why his life should be saved. It is proof that the feeling of hatred that inspired judge and jury has spent itself and that they can look at the murderer as a man. Which decision is the more righteous, the one where hatred and fear affect the judgment23 and sentence, or the one where these emotions have spent their force?
Everyone who advocates capital punishment is really ashamed of the practice for which he is responsible. Instead of urging public executions, the most advanced and sensitive who believe in killing24 by the state are now advocating that even the newspapers should not publish the details and that the killing should be done in darkness and silence. In that event no one would be deterred25 by the cruelty of the state. That capital punishment is horrible and cruel is the reason for its existence. That men should be taught not to take life is the purpose of judicial26 killings27. But the spectacle of the state taking life must tend to cheapen it. This must be evident to all who believe in suggestion. Constant association and familiarity tend to lessen28 the shock of any act however revolting. If men regarded the murderer as one who acted from some all-sufficient cause and who was simply an instrument in an endless sequence of cause and effect, would anyone say he should be put to death?
It is not easy to estimate values correctly. It may be that life is not important. Nature seems extravagantly30 profligate31 in her giving and pitiless in her taking away. Yet death has something of the same shock today that was felt when men first gazed upon the dead with awe32 and wonder and terror. Constantly meeting it and seeing it and procuring33 it will doubtless make it more commonplace. To the seasoned soldier in the army it means less than it did before he became a soldier. Probably the undertaker thinks less of death than almost any other man. He is so accustomed to it that his mind must involuntarily turn from its horror to a contemplation of how much he makes out of the burial. If the civilized34 savages35 have their way and make hangings common, we shall probably recover from some of our instinctive36 fear of death and the extravagant29 value that we place on life. The social organism is like the individual organism: it can be so often shocked that it grows accustomed and weary and no longer manifests resistance or surprise.
So far as we can reason on questions of life and death and the effect of stimuli upon human organisms, the circle is like this: Frequent executions dull the sensibilities toward the taking of life. This makes it easier for men to kill and increases murders, which in turn increase hangings, which in turn increase murders, and so on, around the vicious circle.
In the absence of any solid starting point on which an argument can be based; in the absence of any reliable figures; in the absence of any way to interpret the figures; in the absence of any way to ascertain37 the indirect results of judicial killings, even if the direct ones could be shown; in the impossibility through life, experience or philosophy of fixing relative values, the question must remain where it has always been, a conflict between the emotional and unemotional; the "sentimental" and the stolid38; the imaginative and the unimaginative; the sympathetic and the unsympathetic. Personally, being inclined to a purely39 mechanistic view of life and to the belief that all conduct is the result of certain stimuli upon a human machine, I can only say that the stimuli of seeing and reading of capital punishment, applied to my machine, is revolting and horrible. Perhaps as the world improves, the sympathetic and imaginative nature will survive the stolid and selfish. At least one can well believe that this is the line of progress if there shall be progress, a matter still open to question and doubt.
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1
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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stimuli
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| n.刺激（物） | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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acquit
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| vt.宣判无罪；(oneself)使(自己)表现出 | |
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bungling
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| adj.笨拙的，粗劣的v.搞糟，完不成( bungle的现在分词 )；笨手笨脚地做；失败；完不成 | |
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11
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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maudlin
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| adj.感情脆弱的，爱哭的 | |
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sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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phlegmatic
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| adj.冷静的，冷淡的，冷漠的，无活力的 | |
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registration
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| n.登记，注册，挂号 | |
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stoic
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| n.坚忍克己之人，禁欲主义者 | |
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kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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engendered
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| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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deterred
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| v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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killings
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| 谋杀( killing的名词复数 )； 突然发大财，暴发 | |
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28
lessen
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| vt.减少，减轻；缩小 | |
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29
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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procuring
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的现在分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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36
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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