6.11. 11. Of the Power of Punishments.
Experience shows that in countries remarkable for the lenity of
their laws the spirit of the inhabitants is as much affected by slight
penalties as in other countries by severer punishments.
If an inconvenience or abuse arises in the state, a violent
government endeavours suddenly to redress it; and instead of putting the
old laws in execution, it establishes some cruel punishment, which
instantly puts a stop to the evil. But the spring of government hereby
loses its elasticity; the imagination grows accustomed to the severe as
well as the milder punishment; and as the fear of the latter diminishes,
they are soon obliged in every case to have recourse to the former.
Robberies on the highway became common in some countries; in order to
remedy this evil, they invented the punishment of breaking upon the
wheel, the terror of which put a stop for a while to this mischievous
practice. But soon after robberies on the highways became as common as
ever.
Desertion in our days has grown to a very great height; in
consequence of which it was judged proper to punish those delinquents
with death; and yet their number did not diminish. The reason is very
natural; a soldier, accustomed to venture his life, despises, or affects
to despise, the danger of losing it. He is habituated to the fear of
shame; it would have been therefore much better to have continued a
punishment
[30]
which branded him with infamy for life; the penalty was
pretended to be increased, while it really diminished.
Mankind must not be governed with too much severity; we ought to
make a prudent use of the means which nature has given us to conduct
them. If we inquire into the cause of all human corruptions, we shall
find that they proceed from the impunity of criminals, and not from the
moderation of punishments.
Let us follow nature, who has given shame to man for his scourge;
and let the heaviest part of the punishment be the infamy attending it.
But if there be some countries where shame is not a consequence of
punishment, this must be owing to tyranny, which has inflicted the same
penalties on villains and honest men.
And if there are others where men are deterred only by cruel
punishments, we may be sure that this must, in a great measure, arise
from the violence of the government which has used such penalties for
slight transgressions.
It often happens that a legislator, desirous of remedying an abuse,
thinks of nothing else; his eyes are open only to this object, and shut
to its inconveniences. When the abuse is redressed, you see only the
severity of the legislator; yet there remains an evil in the state that
has sprung from this severity; the minds of the people are corrupted,
and become habituated to despotism.
Lysander
[31]
having obtained a victory over the Athenians, the
prisoners were ordered to be tried, in consequence of an accusation
brought against that nation of having thrown all the captives of two
galleys down a precipice, and of having resolved in full assembly to cut
off the hands of those whom they should chance to make prisoners. The
Athenians were therefore all massacred, except Adymantes, who had
opposed this decree. Lysander reproached Phylocles, before he was put to
death, with having depraved the people's minds, and given lessons of
cruelty to all Greece.
"The Argives," says Plutarch,
[32]
"having put fifteen hundred of their citizens to death, the Athenians ordered
sacrifices of expiation, that it might please the gods to turn the hearts of
the Athenians from so cruel a thought."
There are two sorts of corruptions — one when the people do not
observe the laws; the other when they are corrupted by the laws: an
incurable evil, because it is in the very remedy itself.
Footnotes
[30]
They slit his nose or cut off his ears.
[31]
Xenophon, "Hist.," iii. 8, 20-22.
[32]
"Of Those Who Are Intrusted with the Direction of the State
Affairs," 14.
