26.11. 11. That human Courts of Justice should not be regulated by the
Maxims of those Tribunals which relate to the Other Life.
The tribunal of the inquisition, formed by the Christian monks on the idea of the
tribunal of penitence, is contrary to all good policy. It has everywhere
met with a general dislike, and must have sunk under the oppositions it
met with, if those who were resolved to establish it had not drawn
advantages even from these oppositions.
This tribunal is insupportable in all governments. In monarchies, it
only makes informers and traitors; in republics, it only forms dishonest
men; in a despotic state, it is as destructive as the government itself.
