Professor Robinson has urged the commission to adopt a detailed, mechanical guidelines system that would aggravate punishments for each harm an offender causes and presumably lessen punishment for each mitigating factor. A circulation of this proposal within the criminal law community yielded a uniformly negative response, particularly regarding its practicality. Many viewed the proposal's requirement for elaborate factfinding as occasion for lengthy presentence investigations and sentencing disparity. In criticizing the majority's proposal as irrational and incoherent, Professor Robinson fails to appreciate that the commission must work within the existing Federal Criminal Code and comply with the statutory mandate to devise a system to further all of the statutory purposes of sentencing. Robinson's criticism that the guidelines are mathematical averages of past sentencing is incorrect. Although the commission has met the statutory mandate to consider past sentencing, the guidelines also modify past sentencing practices. Although the proposed guidelines do not eliminate sentencing disparity, as Robinson charges, they are an improvement on current disparities and are a beginning point for developing more uniform sentencing.