ous family: but I answer, that punishments are to be estimated, not by the sensibility of the criminal, but by the injury done to society, which injury is augmented by the high rank of the offender. The precise equality of a punishment can never be more than external, as it is in proportion to the degree of sensibility which differs in every individual. The infamy of an innocent family may be easily obliterated by some public demonstration of fávour from the sovereign, and forms have always more influence than reason on the gazing multitude.

*

CHAP. XXII.

Of Robbery,

THE punishment of robbery, not accompanied with violence, should be pecuniary. He who endeavours to enrich himself with the property of another should be deprived of part of his own. But this crime, alas! is commonly the effect of misery and despair; the crime of that unhappy part of mankind to whom the right of exclusive property, a terrible and perhaps unnecessary right, has left but a bare existence. Besides, as pecuniary punishments may increase the number of

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robbers, by increasing the number of poor, and may deprive an innocent family of subsistence, the most proper punishment will be that kind of slavery which alone can be called just; that is, which makes the society, for a time, absolute master of the person and labour of the criminal, in order to oblige him to repair, by this dependence, the unjust despotism he usurped over the property of another, and his violation of the social compact.

When robbery is attended with vlolence, corporal punishment should be added to slavery. Many writers have shewn the evident disorder which must arise from not distinguishing the punishment due to robbery with violence, and that due to theft or robbery committed with dexterity, absurdly making a sum of money equivalent to a man's life. But it can never be superfluous to repeat, again and again, those truths of which mankind have not profited; for political machines preserve their motion much longer than others, and receive a new impulse with more difficulty. These crimes are in their nature absolutely dif ferent, and this axiom is as certain in politics as in mathematics, that between qualities of different natures there can be no similitude.

CHAP. XXIII.

of Infamy considered as a Punishment.

THOSE injuries which affect the honour, that is, that just portion of esteem which every citizen has a right to expect from others, should be punished with infamy. Infamy is a mark of the public disapprobation, which deprives the object of all consideration in the eyes of his fellow-citizens, of the confidence of his country, and of that fraternity which exists between members of the same society. This is not always in the power of the laws. It is necessary that the infamy inflicted by the laws should be the same with that which results from the relations of things, from universal morality, or from that particular system, adopted by the nation and the laws, which governs the opinion of the vulgar. If, on the contrary, one be different from the other, either the laws will no longer be respected, or the received notions of morality and probity will vanish, in spite of the declamations of moralists, which are always too weak to resist the force of example. If we declare those actions infamous which are in themselves indifferent, we lessen the infamy of those which are really infamous.

The punishment of infamy should not be too frequent, for the power of opinion grows weaker by repetition; nor should it be inflicted on a number of persons at the same time, for the infamy of many resolves itself into the infamy of none.

Painful and corporal punishments should never be applied to fanaticism; for, being founded on pride, it glories in persecution. Infamy and ridicule only should be employed against fanatics: if the first, their pride will be overbalanced by the pride of the people; and we may judge of the power of the second, if we consider that even truth is obliged to summon all her force when attacked by error armed with ridicule. Thus, by opposing one passion to another, and opinion to opinion, a wise legislator puts an end to the admiration of the populace, occasioned by a false principle, the original absurdity of which is veiled by some well deduced consequences.

This is the method to avoid confounding the immutable relations of things, or opposing nature, whose actions, not being limited by time, but operating incessantly, overturn and destroy all those vain regulations which contradict her laws. It is not only in the fine arts that the imitation of nature is the fundamental principle; it is the

same in sound policy, which is no other than the art of uniting and directing to the same end the natural and immutable sentiments of mankind.

CHAP. XXIV.

of Idleness.

A WISE government will not suffer in the midst of labour and industry, that kind of political idleness which is confounded by rigid declaimers with the leisure attending riches acquired by industry, which is of use to an increasing society when confined within proper limits. I call those politically idie, who neither contribute to the good of society by their labour nor their riches; who continually accumulate, but never spend; who are reverenced by the vulgar with stupid admiration, and regarded by the wise with disdain; who, being victims to a monastic life, and deprived of all incitement to that activity which is necessary to preserve or increase its comforts, devote all their vigour to passions of the strongest kind, the passions of opinion. I call not him idle who enjoys the fruits of the virtues or vices of his ancestors, and, in exchange for his pleasures, supports the industrious poor. It is not then the narrow virtue of