Page:Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1775).djvu/129

 suffered the old laws to subsist, it is doubtless because they are deterred by the numberless obstacles which oppose the subversion of errors established by the sanction of many ages; and therefore every wise citizen will wish for the increase of their authority.

HAT a magistrate, the executor of the laws, should have a power to imprison a citizen, to deprive the man he hates of his liberty upon frivolous pretences, and to leave his friend unpunished, notwithstanding the strongest proofs of his guilt, is an error as common as it is contrary to the end of society, which is personal security.

is a punishment, which differs from all others in this particular,