SECTION VIII.--_Of the Right of the sword_.


1. _By the right of the sword_ is technically meant the right of
inflicting capital punishment, according to the Apostle's words: "But
if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in
vain." (Rom. xiii. 4.) We commonly call it _the power of life and
death_.

2. That a government may be a working government, as it should be (s.
iv., n. 2, p. 319), it must not only make laws, but bear out and
enforce its legislation by the sanction of punishment. "If talk and
argumentation were sufficient to make men well-behaved, manifold and
high should be the reward of talkers.... But in fact it appears that
talking does very well to incite and stimulate youths of fine mind;
and lighting upon a noble character and one of healthy tastes, it may
dispose such a person to take up the practice of virtue: but it is
wholly unable to move the multitude to goodness; for it is not their
nature to obey conscience, but fear, nor to abstain from evil because
it is wrong, but because of punishments. The multitude live by
feeling: they pursue the pleasures that they like and the means
thereto, and shun the opposite pains, but they have no idea, as they
have had no taste, of what is right and fair and truly sweet.... The
man who lives by feeling will not listen to the voice of reason, nor
can he appreciate its warning. How is it possible to divert such a one
from his course by argument? Speaking generally, we say that passion
yields not to argument but to constraint.... The multitude obey on
compulsion rather than on principle, and from fear of pains and
penalties rather than from a sense of right. These are grounds for