ABSTRACT
All primitive polytheism attributes anger to its gods. They are conceived like men who react in their volitions and emotions to the conduct of their worshippers as human kings react to the conduct of their subjects. Catholics, however, believe in good and bad deserts and are therefore logical in justifying punishment, which can serve no other purpose, on the retributive ground alone. Of course, everyone who believes in God at all would admit at once that anger in men has characteristics which it would be absurd to connect with the Divine Being. Mr. Bernard Shaw has declared that retributive punishment can never make anyone better. Many a man of conduct externally respectable is in God's sight a worse man than the man who has committed what is legally a crime under the stress of some tremendous temptation, like the young forger in Galsworthy's play.
