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 nonot. 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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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 nonot. It is unknown how it got in, or whether Beccaria was aware of it. Cantù,Beccaria, 127.
[67]In the original manuscript and the first edition there was nonot. 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!
[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.
[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.
[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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