CONCLUSION.
From all that has gone before a general theorem may be deduced, of great
utility, though little comformable to custom, that common lawgiver of
nations. The theorem is this: ‘In order that every punishment may not
be an act of violence, committed by one man or by many against a single
individual, it ought to be above all things public, speedy, necessary,
the least possible in the given circumstances, proportioned to its crime,
dictated by the laws.’
FOOTNOTES
[64] Note that the word Right is not opposed to the word Force; but the
former is rather a modification of the latter; that is, the modification
most advantageous to the greater number. And by justice I mean nothing
else than the chain which is necessary for holding together private
interests and preventing their breaking away into the original state of
insociability.
One must be careful not to attach to this word Justice the idea of
anything real, as of a physical force or an independent entity; it is
only a human mode of thinking, a mode that has unbounded influence over
each one’s happiness. Still less do I mean that other kind of justice
that has emanated from God, and has its immediate connection with the
penalties and rewards of a future life.
[65] If every individual is bound to society, society is no less bound to
every individual by a contract which is necessarily obligatory on both
sides. This obligation, which descends from the throne to the cabin,
which binds equally the greatest and most miserable of men, means nothing
but that it is the interest of all men that covenants advantageous to the
greater number should be observed.
The word ‘obligation’ is one of those which are much more frequent in
ethics than in any other science, and which are the abbreviated symbol
of a train of reasoning rather than of a single idea. Seek for an idea
corresponding to the word ‘obligation’ and you will seek in vain; reason
about it, and you will both understand yourself and be understood by
others.
[66] According to the criminalists the greater the atrocity of the
crime the greater the credibility of the witness. Look at the iron
maxim dictated by the most cruel stupidity: _In atrocissimis leviores
conjecture sufficiunt, et licet judici jura transgredi._ Translate this
into common language, and Europeans will see one of the very many and
equally senseless rules to which almost without knowing it they are
subject: _In the most atrocious crimes_ (that is, in the least probable)
_the slightest conjectures are enough, and the judge may legitimately
exceed the law_. Absurd legal practices are often the result of fear,
which is the principal source of all human contradictions. Legislators
(who are really only lawyers, authorised by chance to decide about
everything, and to become from interested and venal writers arbiters
and legislators about the fortunes of men), alarmed by the condemnation
of some innocent person, have loaded jurisprudence with superfluous
formalities and exceptions, the exact observance of which would cause
anarchy to sit with impunity on the throne of justice. In their fright at
some crimes of an atrocious nature and difficult to prove, they thought
themselves under the necessity of getting over the very formalities
established by themselves; and so, now with despotic impatience, now with
feminine timidity, they have transformed grave trials into a kind of
play, in which hazard and subterfuge act the principal part.
[67] In the original manuscript and the first edition there was no _not_.
It is unknown how it got in, or whether Beccaria was aware of it. Cantù,
_Beccaria_, 127.
[68] Commerce and property are not themselves an end of the social
compact, but they may be a means to reach that end. To expose all
the members of society to evils, for the production of which so many
circumstances work together, would be to subordinate ends to means—a
paralogism of all the sciences, but especially of political science,
and one into which I fell in the first editions, where I said that the
innocent bankrupt ought to be kept guarded in pledge of his debts or
employed as a slave to labour for his creditors. I am ashamed of having
so written. I have been accused of irreligion without deserving to be,
and I have been accused of sedition without deserving to be. I offended
the rights of humanity, and no one reproached me for it!
[69] Where a country’s boundaries increase at a greater rate than its
population, there luxury favours despotism, firstly, because scarcity of
men means less industry, and less industry means a greater dependence
of poverty upon wealth, and greater difficulty and less dread of a
combination of the oppressed against their oppressors; secondly, because
the flatteries, the services, the distinctions, the submission, which
cause the difference between the strong man and the feeble to be all the
more felt, are more easily obtained from few men than from many, since
men are more independent the less subject they are to observation, and
are the less subject to observation the more numerous they are. But
where the population increases at a faster rate than the boundaries are
enlarged, luxury is opposed to despotism, because it gives life to men’s
industry and activity, and the necessity of the poor man offers too
many pleasures and comforts to the rich man for the pleasures of pure
ostentation, which increase the idea of dependence, to have the greater
place. Hence it is observable that in large, weak, and depopulated
States, unless there are counteracting causes, the luxury of ostentation
prevails over the luxury of comfort; but in populous rather than large
States the luxury of comfort always causes the diminution of that of
ostentation.
[70] This attraction resembles in many points that of gravitation, which
moves the universe, because, like it, it diminishes with distance; and if
the one force controls all the movements of physical bodies, the other
controls those of the mind during the continuance of its sway. But they
differ in this, that, whilst gravitation is counterbalanced by obstacles,
the other for the most part gains force and strength from the increase of
the very obstacles opposed to it.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Crimes and Punishments, by James Anson Farrer