Similarly Bain says that the physiological theory of
pleasure and pain has a close relation to that of rewards and
punishments, and that, as punishment ought to be painful, so long
as it does not injure the convict's health (which imprisonment is
just as likely to do), we might have recourse to electric shocks,
which frighten the subject by their mysterious power, without
being repugnant. Again, the English Commission of Inquiry into
the results of the law of penal servitude declared in its report
that, ``In English prisons, disciplinary corporal punishments
(formerly the lash, then the birch) are inflicted only for the
most serious offences. The evidence has shown that in many cases
they produce good results.''
Nevertheless corporal punishments, as the main form of repression,
even when carried out with less barbarous instruments, are
too deeply opposed to the sentiment of humanity to be any longer
possible in a penal code. At the same time they are admissible as
disciplinary punishments, under the form of cold baths, electric
shocks, &c., all the more because, whether prescribed by law or
not, they are inevitable in prisons, and, when not regulated by
law, give rise to many abuses, as was shown at the Stockholm
Prison Conference in 1878.
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