“Neighbour,” he said, “although we have simplified our lives a great deal from what they were, and have got rid of many conventionalities and many sham2 wants, which used to give our forefathers3 much trouble, yet our life is too complex for me to tell you in detail by means of words how it is arranged; you must find that out by living amongst us. It is true that I can better tell you what we don’t do, than what we do do.”
“Well?” said I.
“This is the way to put it,” said he: “We have been living for a hundred and fifty years, at least, more or less in our present manner, and a tradition or habit of life has been growing on us; and that habit has become a habit of acting4 on the whole for the best. It is easy for us to live without robbing each other. It would be possible for us to contend with and rob each other, but it would be harder for us than refraining from strife5 and robbery. That is in short the foundation of our life and our happiness.”
“Whereas in the old days,” said I, “it was very hard to live without strife and robbery. That’s what you mean, isn’t it, by giving me the negative side of your good conditions?”
“Yes,” he said, “it was so hard, that those who habitually7 acted fairly to their neighbours were celebrated8 as saints and heroes, and were looked up to with the greatest reverence9.”
“While they were alive?” said I.
“No,” said he, “after they were dead.”
“But as to these days,” I said; “you don’t mean to tell me that no one ever transgresses10 this habit of good fellowship?”
“Certainly not,” said Hammond, “but when the transgressions11 occur, everybody, transgressors and all, know them for what they are; the errors of friends, not the habitual6 actions of persons driven into enmity against society.”
“I see,” said I; “you mean that you have no ‘criminal’ classes.”
“How could we have them,” said he, “since there is no rich class to breed enemies against the state by means of the injustice15 of the state?”
Said I: “I thought that I understood from something that fell from you a little while ago that you had abolished civil law. Is that so, literally16?”
“It abolished itself, my friend,” said he. “As I said before, the civil law-courts were upheld for the defence of private property; for nobody ever pretended that it was possible to make people act fairly to each other by means of brute17 force. Well, private property being abolished, all the laws and all the legal ‘crimes’ which it had manufactured of course came to an end. Thou shalt not steal, had to be translated into, Thou shalt work in order to live happily. Is there any need to enforce that commandment by violence?”
“Well,” said I, “that is understood, and I agree with it; but how about crimes of violence? would not their occurrence (and you admit that they occur) make criminal law necessary?”
Said he: “In your sense of the word, we have no criminal law either. Let us look at the matter closer, and see whence crimes of violence spring. By far the greater part of these in past days were the result of the laws of private property, which forbade the satisfaction of their natural desires to all but a privileged few, and of the general visible coercion18 which came of those laws. All that cause of violent crime is gone. Again, many violent acts came from the artificial perversion19 of the sexual passions, which caused overweening jealousy20 and the like miseries21. Now, when you look carefully into these, you will find that what lay at the bottom of them was mostly the idea (a law-made idea) of the woman being the property of the man, whether he were husband, father, brother, or what not. That idea has of course vanished with private property, as well as certain follies22 about the ‘ruin’ of women for following their natural desires in an illegal way, which of course was a convention caused by the laws of private property.
“Another cognate23 cause of crimes of violence was the family tyranny, which was the subject of so many novels and stories of the past, and which once more was the result of private property. Of course that is all ended, since families are held together by no bond of coercion, legal or social, but by mutual24 liking25 and affection, and everybody is free to come or go as he or she pleases. Furthermore, our standards of honour and public estimation are very different from the old ones; success in besting our neighbours is a road to renown26 now closed, let us hope for ever. Each man is free to exercise his special faculty27 to the utmost, and every one encourages him in so doing. So that we have got rid of the scowling28 envy, coupled by the poets with hatred29, and surely with good reason; heaps of unhappiness and ill-blood were caused by it, which with irritable30 and passionate31 men — i.e., energetic and active men — often led to violence.”
I laughed, and said: “So that you now withdraw your admission, and say that there is no violence amongst you?”
“No,” said he, “I withdraw nothing; as I told you, such things will happen. Hot blood will err14 sometimes. A man may strike another, and the stricken strike back again, and the result be a homicide, to put it at the worst. But what then? Shall we the neighbours make it worse still? Shall we think so poorly of each other as to suppose that the slain32 man calls on us to revenge him, when we know that if he had been maimed, he would, when in cold blood and able to weigh all the circumstances, have forgiven his manner? Or will the death of the slayer34 bring the slain man to life again and cure the unhappiness his loss has caused?”
“Yes,” I said, “but consider, must not the safety of society be safeguarded by some punishment?”
“There, neighbour!” said the old man, with some exultation35 “You have hit the mark. That PUNISHMENT of which men used to talk so wisely and act so foolishly, what was it but the expression of their fear? And they had need to fear, since they — i.e., the rulers of society — were dwelling36 like an armed band in a hostile country. But we who live amongst our friends need neither fear nor punish. Surely if we, in dread37 of an occasional rare homicide, an occasional rough blow, were solemnly and legally to commit homicide and violence, we could only be a society of ferocious38 cowards. Don’t you think so, neighbour?”
“Yes, I do, when I come to think of it from that side,” said I.
“Yet you must understand,” said the old man, “that when any violence is committed, we expect the transgressor13 to make any atonement possible to him, and he himself expects it. But again, think if the destruction or serious injury of a man momentarily overcome by wrath39 or folly40 can be any atonement to the commonwealth41? Surely it can only be an additional injury to it.”
Said I: “But suppose the man has a habit of violence — kills a man a year, for instance?”
“Such a thing is unknown,” said he. “In a society where there is no punishment to evade42, no law to triumph over, remorse43 will certainly follow transgression12.”
“And lesser44 outbreaks of violence,” said I, “how do you deal with them? for hitherto we have been talking of great tragedies, I suppose?”
Said Hammond: “If the ill-doer is not sick or mad (in which case he must be restrained till his sickness or madness is cured) it is clear that grief and humiliation45 must follow the ill-deed; and society in general will make that pretty clear to the ill-doer if he should chance to be dull to it; and again, some kind of atonement will follow — at the least, an open acknowledgement of the grief and humiliation. Is it so hard to say, I ask your pardon, neighbour? — Well, sometimes it is hard — and let it be.”
“You think that enough?” said I.
“Yes,” said he, “and moreover it is all that we CAN do. If in addition we torture the man, we turn his grief into anger, and the humiliation he would otherwise feel for HIS wrong-doing is swallowed up by a hope of revenge for OUR wrong-doing to him. He has paid the legal penalty, and can ‘go and sin again’ with comfort. Shall we commit such a folly, then? Remember Jesus had got the legal penalty remitted46 before he said ‘Go and sin no more.’ Let alone that in a society of equals you will not find any one to play the part of torturer or jailer, though many to act as nurse or doctor.”
“So,” said I, “you consider crime a mere47 spasmodic disease, which requires no body of criminal law to deal with it?”
“Pretty much so,” said he; “and since, as I have told you, we are a healthy people generally, so we are not likely to be much troubled with THIS disease.”
“Well, you have no civil law, and no criminal law. But have you no laws of the market, so to say — no regulation for the exchange of wares48? for you must exchange, even if you have no property.”
Said he: “We have no obvious individual exchange, as you saw this morning when you went a-shopping; but of course there are regulations of the markets, varying according to the circumstances and guided by general custom. But as these are matters of general assent49, which nobody dreams of objecting to, so also we have made no provision for enforcing them: therefore I don’t call them laws. In law, whether it be criminal or civil, execution always follows judgment50, and someone must suffer. When you see the judge on his bench, you see through him, as clearly as if he were made of glass, the policeman to emprison, and the soldier to slay33 some actual living person. Such follies would make an agreeable market, wouldn’t they?”
“Certainly,” said I, “that means turning the market into a mere battle-field, in which many people must suffer as much as in the battle-field of bullet and bayonet. And from what I have seen I should suppose that your marketing51, great and little, is carried on in a way that makes it a pleasant occupation.”
“You are right, neighbour,” said he. “Although there are so many, indeed by far the greater number amongst us, who would be unhappy if they were not engaged in actually making things, and things which turn out beautiful under their hands — there are many, like the housekeepers52 I was speaking of, whose delight is in administration and organisation53, to use long-tailed words; I mean people who like keeping things together, avoiding waste, seeing that nothing sticks fast uselessly. Such people are thoroughly54 happy in their business, all the more as they are dealing55 with actual facts, and not merely passing counters round to see what share they shall have in the privileged taxation56 of useful people, which was the business of the commercial folk in past days. Well, what are you going to ask me next?”
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1
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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forefathers
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| n.祖先，先人；祖先，祖宗( forefather的名词复数 )；列祖列宗；前人 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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10
transgresses
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| n.超越( transgress的名词复数 )；越过；违反；违背v.超越( transgress的第三人称单数 )；越过；违反；违背 | |
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transgressions
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| n.违反，违法，罪过( transgression的名词复数 ) | |
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transgression
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| n.违背；犯规；罪过 | |
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transgressor
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| n.违背者 | |
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err
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| vi.犯错误，出差错 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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coercion
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| n.强制，高压统治 | |
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perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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cognate
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| adj.同类的，同源的，同族的；n.同家族的人，同源词 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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renown
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| n.声誉，名望 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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slayer
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| n. 杀人者，凶手 | |
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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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40
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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42
evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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43
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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44
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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45
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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46
remitted
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| v.免除（债务），宽恕( remit的过去式和过去分词 )；使某事缓和；寄回，传送 | |
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47
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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48
wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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49
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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50
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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51
marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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52
housekeepers
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| n.（女）管家( housekeeper的名词复数 ) | |
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53
organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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54
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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55
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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56
taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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