INFAMY.
Infamy is a sign of public disapprobation, depriving a criminal of the
good-will of his countrymen, of their confidence, and of that feeling
almost of fraternity that a common life inspires. It does not depend upon
the laws. Hence the infamy which the laws inflict should be the same
as that which arises from the natural relations of things, the same as
that taught by universal morality, or by that particular morality, which
depends on particular systems, and sets the law for ordinary opinions
or for this and that nation. If the one kind of infamy is different
from the other, either the law loses in public esteem, or the ideas of
morality and honesty disappear, in spite of declamations, which are never
efficacious against facts. Whoever declares actions to be infamous which
are in themselves indifferent, detracts from the infamy of actions that
are really in themselves infamous.
Corporal and painful punishments should not be inflicted for those
crimes which have their foundation in pride, and draw from pain itself
their glory and nutriment. For such crimes ridicule and infamy are more
fitted, these being penalties which curb the pride of fanatics by the
pride of the beholders, and only let truth itself escape their tenacity
by slow and obstinate efforts. By such an opposition of forces against
forces, and of opinions against opinions, the wise legislator destroys
that admiration and astonishment among a people, which a false principle
causes, whose original absurdity is usually hidden from view by the
plausible conclusions deduced from it.
Penalties of infamy ought neither to be too common, nor to fall upon too
many persons at a time; not too common, because the real and too frequent
effects of matters of opinion weaken the force of opinion itself; not too
general, because the disgrace of many persons resolves itself into the
disgrace of none of them.
This, then, is the way to avoid confounding the relations and invariable
nature of things, which, being unlimited by time and in ceaseless
operation, confounds and overturns all narrow regulations that depart
from it. It is not only the arts of taste and pleasure which have for
their universal principle the faithful imitation of nature; but the art
of politics itself, at least that which is true and permanent, is subject
to this general maxim, since it consists in nothing else than the art
of directing in the best way and to the same purposes the immutable
sentiments of mankind.