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much already, yet that there was no help for it, I could have
understood the position, however mistaken I might have
thought it. The judge was fully persuaded that the infliction
of pain upon the weak and sickly was the only means of pre-
venting weakness and sickliness from spreading, and that
ten times the suffering now inflicted upon the accused was
eventually warded off from others by the present apparent
severity. I could therefore perfectly understand his inflict-
ing whatever pain he might consider necessary in order
to prevent so bad an example from spreading further and
lowering the Erewhonian standard; but it seemed almost
childish to tell the prisoner that he could have been in good
health, if he had been more fortunate in his constitution,
and been exposed to less hardships when he was a boy.
I write with great diffidence, but it seems to me that there
is no unfairness in punishing people for their misfortunes,
or rewarding them for their sheer good luck: it is the nor-
mal condition of human life that this should be done, and
no right-minded person will complain of being subjected
to the common treatment. There is no alternative open to
us. It is idle to say that men are not responsible for their
misfortunes. What is responsibility? Surely to be respon-
sible means to be liable to have to give an answer should
it be demanded, and all things which live are responsible
for their lives and actions should society see fit to question
them through the mouth of its authorised agent.
What is the offence of a lamb that we should rear it, and
tend it, and lull it into security, for the express purpose of
killing it? Its offence is the misfortune of being something

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