Page:Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1775).djvu/45

Rh A, therefore, against the life and liberty of a citizen, are crimes of the highest nature. Under this head we comprehend not only assassinations, and robberies committed by the populace, but by grandees and magistrates; whose example acts with more force, and at a greater distance, destroying the ideas of justice and duty among the subjects, and substituting that of the right of the strongest, equally dangerous to those who exercise it, and to those who suffer.

HERE is a remarkable difference between the civil laws, those jealous guardians of life and property, and the laws of what is called honour, which particularly respects the opinion of others. Honour is a term which has been the foundation of many long and brilliant reasonings, without annexing to it any