There must be life and intelligence, and a purpose in obedience as in all else for it to be a virtue. In itself obedience is not an end, it is only justifiable as a means to an end. It must arise from the exercise of will, not from its atrophy or from surrender to the will of others. You obey because you wish to obey, not because you are forced to do so.
That is the true education in discipline.
But all this can only come with local self-government, local patriotism, and a national education. They are what make a nation.
CHAPTER XV
LAW REFORM
When the personnel of the Government of India from the bottom to the top has been reorganised on a basis of understanding of the people, it will begin to revise its laws, and the first will be its Penal Law, its Criminal Courts and Procedure.
To do this with any success it will be necessary first to study the causation of crime, because until you know how it is caused you cannot possibly frame any system of prevention that is likely to do less harm than good.
This is a subject that many men have been studying for some years past, but very little progress has yet been made. The old shibboleths that crime results from a desire for crime and that the only cure is savage punishment still hold good with all Governments, though quite discredited outside official circles. It is a most fascinating subject, and as it is one I have worked at for many years I may be excused for devoting a somewhat large space to it here.
It is more than twenty-five years ago that my attention was first attracted to the causation of crime. I was a young magistrate then, trying my first cases; very nervous, very conscientious that I should fulfil all the legal requirements as laid down in the Codes. It had never occurred to me then that there was any gulf between justice and law—I supposed that they were one, that law was only codified and systemised justice; therefore, in fulfilling the Law I thought that I was surely administering Justice.
I was trying a theft case. I cannot remember now what it was that had been stolen, but I think it was a bullock. The accused was undefended, and I, as the custom is, questioned him about the case, not with the view of getting him to commit himself, but in order to try to elicit his defence, if any. He had none. He admitted the theft, described the circumstances quite fully and frankly, and said he was guilty. I asked him if he knew when he took the bullock from the grazing ground that he was stealing it, and he answered "Yes." I asked him if he knew that the punishment for cattle theft was two years' imprisonment, which practically meant ruin for life, and he replied that he knew it would be heavy.