Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/313

Rh that in each constitution are apt to assist or check the principle of liberty, which each state is capable of receiving.

Hilosophical liberty consists in the free exercise of the will; or at least, if we must speak agreeably to all systems, in an opinion that we have the free exercise of our will. Political liberty consists in security, or at least in the opinion th enjoy security.

This security is never more dangerously attacked than in public or private accusations. It is therefore on the goodness of criminal laws that the liberty of the subject principally depends.

Criminal laws did not receive their full perfection all at once. Even in places where liberty has been most fought after, it has not been always found. Aristotle informs us that at Cumæ, the parents of the accuser might be witnesses. So imperfect was the law under the kings of Rome, that Servius Tullius pronounced sentence against the children of Ancus Martius, who were charged with having assassinated the king his father-in-law. Under the first kings of France, Clotarius made a law, that no body should be condemned without being heard; which shews that a contrary custom had prevailed in some particular case or among some barbarous people. It was Charondas that first established penalties against false witnesses. When the subject has no fence to secure his innocence, he has none for his liberty. Rh