PUNITION AND REMUNERATION---THEIR RELATION Wherefore, throughout the whole field of legislation, cannot reward be substituted for punishment? Is hope a less powerful incentive to action than fear? When a political pharmacopoeia has the command of both ingredients, wherefore employ the bitter instead of the sweet?
To these natural but unreflecting inquiries, Ireply by a maxim that at first view may appear paradoxical:---``Reward ought never to be employed, when the same effect can be produced by punishment.''
And, in support of this paradox, I employ another:---``Let the means be penal, and the desired effect may be attained without giving birth to suffering:
let the means be remuneratory, and suffering is inevitable.''
The oracular style, however, being no longer in fashion, I shall in plain language give the solution of this enigma.
When a punishment is denounced against the breach of a law, if the 1aw be not broken, no one need be punished.When a reward is promised to obedience, if everybody obey the law, everybody ought to be rewarded.A demand for rewards is thus created: and these rewards can only be derived from the labour of the people, and contributions levied upon their property.
In comparing in their respective properties of punishment and reward, we shall find that the first is infinite in quantity, powerful in its operation, and certain in its effect, so that it cannot be resisted: that the second is extremely limited in quantity, oftentimes weak in its operation, and at all times uncertain in its effect: the desire after it varying exceedingly, according to the character and circumstances of individuals.We may remark again, that the prospect of punishment saddens, whilst that of reward animates the mind; that punishment blunts, while reward sharpens the activity; that punishment diminishes energy, while reward augments it.
It is reward alone, and not punishment, which a man ought to employ, when his object is to procure services, the performance of which may or may not be in the power of those with whom he has to do.
This considered, were it necessary to draw a rough line between the provinces of reward and punishment in a few words, we might say, that punishment was peculiarly suited to the production of acts of the negative stamp---reward to the production of acts of the positive stamp.To sit still and do nothing, is in the power of every man at all times: to perform a given service is in many instances in the power of one individual alone, and that only upon one individual occasion.This arrangement of nature suits very well with the unlimited plenitude of the fund of punishment on the one hand, and the limited amplitude of the fund of reward on the other.The negative acts, of which the peace and welfare of mankind require the performance, are incessant and innumerable, and must be exacted at the hands of every man: the positive acts, of which the performance is required, are comparatively few, performable only by certain persons, and by them on certain occasions only.Not to steal, not to murder, not to rob, must be required at all times at the hands of every man: to take the field for the purpose of national defence---to occupy a place in the superior departments of executive or legislative government---are acts which it is neither necessary nor proper to exact at the hands of more than a few, or of them except on particular occasions.To discover a specific remedy for disease, to analyze a mineral, to invent a method of ascertaining a ship's longitude within a given distance, to determine the quadrature of such or such a curve,---are works which, if done by one man, need never be done again.
It is thus also with regard to such extraordinary services as depend upon accident; such as the giving of information when required, either in the judicial or any other branch of administration.
Are you ignorant whether an individual is in possession of the information in question, or if in possession of it, whether he be disposed to communicate it? Punishment would most probably be both inefficacious and unjust as a means of acquiring this knowledge: resort, then, to reward.
In regard to extraordinary services depending upon personal qualification, the impropriety of punishment and the propriety of reward are the greater, when the utility of the service is susceptible of an indeterminate degree of excellence as is the case with works of literature, of science, and the fine arts.In these cases, reward not only calls forth into exercise talents already existing, but even creates them where they did not exist.It is the property of hope, one of the modifications of joy, to put a man, as the phrase is, into spirits; that is, to increase the rapidity with which the ideas be is conversant about succeed each other, and thus to strengthen his powers of combination and invention, by presenting to him a greater variety of objects.The stronger the hope, so that it have not the effect of drawing the thoughts out of the proper channel, the more rapid the succession of ideas; the more extensive and varied the trains formed by the principle of association, the hetter fed, as it were, and more vigorous, will be the powers of invention.In this state, the attention is more steady, the imagination more alert, and the individual, elevated by his success, beholds the career of invention displayed before him, and discovers within himself resources of which he had hitherto been ignorant.
On the one hand, let fear be the only motive that prompts a man to exert himself, he will exert himself just so much as he thinks necessary to exempt him from that fear, and no more but let hope be the motive, he will exert himself to the utmost, especially if he have reason to think that the magnitude of the reward (or what comes to the same thing, the probability of attaining it) will rise in proportion to the success of his exertions.
