Theories of punishment arc sometimes divided into retributive theories, deterrent theories, and remedial theories. The remedial theories frequently take the form of denying that there is any such thing as a just punishment: the task of society is to cure its criminals, not to punish them. In this paper I shall take it for granted that there are some punishments which are just: hence I shall not be concerned with remedial theories in the sense indicated. Retributive and deterrent theories have as common ground the assertion that punishment may be justly inflicted; they differ in their explanation of what constitutes the justice of a just punishment.

The retributive theory of punishment is very difficult to state accurately. Indeed, I shall be concerned to argue that it is impossible to state it coherently: but this must be the result, and not the premiss, of our investigation. I shall begin, therefore, by stating the theory as baldly as possible, and then go on to consider the defects of the theory so stated with a view to discovering whether they can be refined away.

To avert misunderstanding, I should remark that there can be no objection to saying that a person who is justly punished for a crime has met with just retribution. The question at issue is whether the notion of ‘just punishment’ is to be explained by means of the notion of ‘retribution’ or vice versa. According to the retributive theory of punishment which I wish to criticize, ‘retribution’ is not a synonym for ‘punishment’ (or a genus of which reward and punishment are species), but rather a quite independent concept which serves as an explanation of the justice of a just punishment.

It is a remarkable fact that the Church has been established in India for over fifteen hundred years and has had for the most part everything in its favour, and yet in all this time hardly one in a hundred of the people has been converted to the Christian faith. The position is, indeed, worse even than this figure would suggest, as the vast majority of Christians are concentrated in a few very small areas and in the greater part of India the mass of the people remains today untouched except in a very general way by the Christian faith. It is necessary to go even farther than this and to say that for the immense majority of the Indian people Christianity still appears as a foreign religion imported from the West and the soul of India remains obstinately attached to its ancient religion. It is not simply a matter of ignorance. This may have been true in the past, but in recent times there has been a remarkable revival of Hinduism, which is more or less consciously opposed to Christianity, and the educated Hindu today regards his religion as definitely superior to Christianity. These facts, which can scarcely be questioned, suggest that there has been something wrong with the way in which the Gospel has been presented in India (and the same remark would apply to all the Far East) and especially in the relation which has been established between Christianity and Hinduism.

‘In time no less than in regions there are wastes and deserts.’ So I wrote Francis Bacon with medieval science in mind. And when Whewell two hundred years later spoke of‘the almost complete blank which the history of physical science offers, from the decline of the Roman Empire, for a thousand years’, he was only summing up a view of the Middle Ages generally accepted from the seventeenth century down to our own times.

Historians of science did not need much encouragement before passing rapidly and gratefully over the medieval period. Many of the works had never been printed and existed in manuscript only; and everywhere one was confronted with an unfamiliar terminology and barbarous style. That we now know as much as we do about medieval science is due in the first place to the French physicist Pierre Duhem. He re-examined works that had been untouched for centuries and in his monumental treatises of fifty years ago made some disconcerting claims for medieval physicists, especially for his fellow-countrymen of the fourteenth century. To take just one example, Nicolas Oresme emerged as the inventor of co-ordinate geometry, and even as a precursor of Copernicus, although he discussed the motion of the earth only to reject it. Not surprisingly, many took the view that Duhem had overstated his case, but now the medievals had their champion. Issues had been raised, and evidence must be heard.

Unfortunately, the evidence was not forthcoming, unless one accepted Duhem’s quotations at their face value, and overlooked his tendency to tear them out of context and to offer only his translation even when this meant imposing his own interpretation. And there, by and large, the matter rested for thirty years.