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× FORE:CHAPTER XI. OATHS.CHAPTER XLI. THE PREVENTION OF CRIMES��OF KNOWLEDGE��MAGISTRATES��REWARDS��EDUCATION.

× FORE:[66] From political morality, unless founded on the immutable sentiments of mankind, no lasting advantage can be hoped. Whatever law deviates from these sentiments will encounter a resistance which will ultimately prevail over it, just in the same way as a force, however slight, if constantly applied, will prevail over a violent motion applied to any physical body.

× FORE:It has already been remarked by Montesquieu that public accusations are more suited to republics, where the public good ought to be the citizens�� first passion, than to monarchies, where such a sentiment is very feeble, owing to the nature of the government itself, and where the appointment of officers to accuse transgressors of the law in the name of the public is a most excellent institution. But every government, be it republican or monarchical, ought to inflict upon a false accuser the same punishment which, had the accusation been true, would have fallen upon the accused.

× FORE:We shall see, if we open histories, that laws, which[118] are or ought to be covenants between free men, have generally been nothing but the instrument of the passions of some few men, or the result of some accidental and temporary necessity. They have never been dictated by an unimpassioned student of human nature, able to concentrate the actions of a multitude of men to a single point of view, and to consider them from that point alone��the greatest happiness divided among the greatest number. Happy are those few nations which have not waited for the slow movement of human combinations and changes to cause an approach to better things, after intolerable evils, but have hastened the intermediate steps by good laws; and deserving is that philosopher of the gratitude of mankind, who had the courage, from the obscurity of his despised study, to scatter abroad among the people the first seeds, so long fruitless, of useful truths.

× FORE:I said that the promptness of punishment is more useful, because the shorter the interval of time between the punishment and the misdeed, the stronger and the more lasting in the human mind is the association of these ideas, crime and punishment, so that insensibly they come to be considered, the one as the cause and the other as its necessary and inevitable consequence. It is a proved fact that the association of ideas is the cement of the whole fabric of the human intellect, and that without it pleasure and pain would be isolated and ineffective feelings. The further removed men are from general ideas and universal principles, that is, the more commonplace they are, the more they act by their immediate and nearest associations, to the neglect of remoter and more complex ones, the latter being of service only[187] to men strongly impassioned for a given object of pursuit, inasmuch as the light of attention illuminates a single object, whilst it leaves the others obscure. They are also of service to minds of a higher quality, because, having acquired the habit of running rapidly over many subjects at a time, they possess facility in placing in contrast with one another many partial feelings, so that the result of their thoughts, in other words, their action, is less perilous and uncertain.

× FORE:I speak of probability in connection with crimes, which, to deserve punishment, ought to be proved. But the paradox is only apparent, if one reflects that, strictly speaking, moral certainty is only a probability, but a probability which is called certainty, because every sensible person necessarily assents to it, by a force of habit which arises from the necessity of acting, and which is prior to all speculation. The certainty requisite for certifying that a man is a criminal is, therefore, the same that determines everyone in the most important actions of his life. The proofs of a crime may be divided into ��perfect�� and ��imperfect,�� the former being of such a[136] nature as exclude the possibility of a man��s innocence, and the latter such as fall short of this certainty. Of the first kind one proof alone is sufficient for condemnation; of the second, or imperfect kind, as many are necessary as suffice to make a single perfect proof; that is to say, when, though each proof taken separately does not exclude the possibility of innocence, yet their convergence on the same point makes such innocence impossible. But let it be noted that imperfect proofs, from which an accused has it in his power to justify himself and declines to do so, become perfect. This moral certainty of proofs, however, is easier to feel than to define with exactitude: for which reason I think that the best law is one which attaches to the chief judge assessors, taken by lot, not by selection, there being in this case more safety in the ignorance which judges by sentiment than in the knowledge which judges by opinion. Where the laws are clear and precise, the function of a judge consists solely in the certification of fact. If for searching out the proofs of a crime ability and cleverness are required, and if in the presentation of the result clearness and precision are essential, all that is required to judge of the result is simple and common good sense, a faculty which is less fallacious than the learning of a judge, accustomed as he is to wish to find men guilty and to reduce everything to an artificial system borrowed from his studies. Happy the nation where the[137] laws are not a science! It is a most useful law that everyone shall be judged by his equals, because where a citizen��s liberty and fortune are at stake those sentiments which inequality inspires should have no voice; that feeling of superiority with which the prosperous man regards the unfortunate one, and that feeling of dislike with which an inferior regards his superior, have no scope in a judgment by one��s equals. But when the crime in question is an offence against a person of a different rank from the accused, then one half of the judges should be the equals of the accused, the other half equals of the plaintiff, that so, every private interest being balanced, by which the appearances of things are involuntarily modified, only the voice of the laws and of truth may be heard. It is also in accordance with justice that an accused person should have power up to a certain point of refusing judges whom he may suspect; and if he is allowed the exercise of this power for some time without opposition, he will seem to condemn himself. Verdicts should be public, and the proofs of guilt public, in order that opinion��which is, perhaps, the only bond of society there is��may place a check on outbursts of force and passion, and that the people may say, ��We are not slaves without defence��: a feeling which both inspires them with courage and is as good as a tribute to a sovereign who understands his real interest. I refrain from pointing out other details and precautions which[138] require similar regulations. I should have said nothing at all, had it been necessary for me to say everything.The year before its publication 51 malefactors were executed in London, the year after 97, whilst not long afterwards was seen the rare spectacle of nearly 20 criminals hung at a time. Romilly was so much shocked at what he considered the folly and inhumanity of Madan��s book that he wrote a short tract of observations upon it, of which he sent a copy to each of the judges. But it is characteristic of the feeling of that time that only a hundred copies of his tract were sold. It was, however, from that time that Romilly began to make the criminal law his special study, so that to Madan indirectly our country owes the efforts of Romilly.

× FORE:Ramsay argues that the penal laws of a particular country can only be considered with reference to the needs of a particular country, and not in the abstract; that the government of a country will always enforce laws with a view to its own security; and that nothing less than a general revolution will ever make the holders of political power listen for a moment to the claims of philosophers.

× FORE:Since mankind generally, suspicious always of the language of reason, but ready to bow to that of authority, remain unpersuaded by the experience of all ages, in which the supreme punishment has never diverted resolute men from committing offences against society; since also they are equally unmoved by the example of the Romans and by twenty years of the reign of the Empress Elizabeth of Russia, during which she presented this illustrious example to the fathers of their people, an example which is at least equivalent to many conquests bought by the blood of her country��s sons, it is sufficient merely to consult human nature itself, to perceive the truth of the assertion I have made.

× FORE:[32]The object of the preliminary chapters is to place the historical importance of the original in its just light, and to increase the interest of the subjects it discusses.