In the last chapter we treated the imputation of evil to the innocent. We must now consider the right attitude toward actual evildoers.  
In discussing sin, one of the points emphasized was that of the moral solidarity between the individual and society. The moral interest of the individual is always identical with the moral interest of society; and, on the other hand, the failure of the individual is a social failure. The human race sags morally at the point of some particular member of it.
 
Again, we defined the task of humanity as the incessant endeavor to embody the ideal spiritual order in the finite sphere of human relations. This effort meets both with partial success and with failure. The gain derived by the human race from its experiences, its labors, its sufferings, is that the spiritual universe in its unattainable elevation and sublimity is more and more revealed to the inner eye; in other words, that by way of effort and recoil, and renewed effort and renewed recoil from the finite, the infiniteness of the infinite world is realized. The essential point is that the boon of realization must be gained both through partial success and failure. Now sin is failure; everyone fails, everyone is convicted of sin. There is no exception. In insisting on203 this point the Christian account is exact. Only it should be remembered that sin or failure itself is one of the instrumentalities by which the end of human existence is achieved. These preliminaries being understood, certain propositions may be brought forward as to the treatment of sin, and in particular as to repentance, punishment and forgiveness.
 
Repentance is recoil, recoil not from the bad act and its painful consequences, but from the principle underlying the act. Every kind of sin is an attempt in some fashion to live at the expense of other life. The spiritual principle is: live in the life of others, in the energy expended to promote the essential life in others. Moral badness is self-isolation, detachment. Spirituality is consciousness of infinite interrelatedness.
 
Punishment, rightly regarded, is a name for the steps taken to lead the unrepentant up to the point of repentance, i.e., up to the recoil. Punishment is itself criminal when undertaken for any other object. Punishment on the vindictive lex talionis theory, or on the bare deterrent theory, is excluded. Reformatory punishment as commonly understood is no less inadequate, because it restricts the idea of reformation as a rule to the externals of conduct.58
 
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The steps taken to lead the evildoer up to the point of repentance are to be criticised from this point of view. Transient or prolonged separation from ordinary society may be necessary. Severe discipline may be indispensable. Capital punishment, however, is wholly out of the question, since the prevention of the crime now being impossible, the achievement of the spiritual gain is the point to be aimed at. But the most effectual aid in promoting repentance is faith in the better nature of the wrongdoer, in that spiritual principle resident within him which no crime committed by him can wholly crush, and which in the most apparently hopeless cases is still to be presumed. But faith in the good that persists in those whom we call bad must go hand in hand with the acknowledgment of the bad that remains unexpurgated in those whom we call good. The prison reformer who poses as impeccable and righteous himself can never win the confidence of the poor human derelicts with whom he has............