Page:Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1775).djvu/138

 inquire into the truth, but to prove the crime; as if there were not a greater risk of condemning an innocent person, when the probability of his guilt is less.

The generality of men want that vigour of mind, and resolution, which are as necessary for great crimes as for great virtues, and which at the same time produce both the one and the other in those nations which are supported by the activity of their government, and a passion for the public good. For in those which subsist by their greatness or power, or by the goodness of their laws, the passions being in a weaker degree, seem calculated rather to maintain than to improve the form of government. This naturally leads us to an important conclusion, viz. that great crimes do always produce the destruction of a nation.

There are some crimes which, though frequent in society, are of difficult proof, a circumstance admitted, as equal to the probability of the innocence of the accused.