12.3. 3. The same Subject continued.
Those laws which condemn a man to
death on the deposition of a single witness are fatal to liberty. In
reason there should be two, because a witness who affirms, and the
accused who denies, make an equal balance, and a third must incline the
scale.
The Greeks
[5]
and Romans
[6]
required one voice more to condemn: but
our French laws insist upon two. The Greeks pretend that their custom
was established by the gods;
[7]
but this more justly may be said of
ours.
Footnotes
[5]
See Aristides, "Orat. in Minervam."
[6]
Dionysius Halicarnassus on the judgment of Coriolanus, vii.
