CHAPTER XLII.
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.