Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/314

262 The knowledge already acquired in some countries, or that may be hereafter attained in others, in regard to the surest rules that can be observed in criminal judgments, is more interesting to mankind than any other thing in the universe.

Liberty can only be founded on the practice of this knowledge: and supposing a state to have the best laws imaginable in this respect, a person tried under that state, and condemned to be hanged the next day, would have much more liberty, than a bashaw enjoys in Turky.

HOSE laws which condemn a man to death on the deposition of a single witness, are fatal to liberty. In right 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 and Romans required one voice more to condemn: but our French laws insist upon two. The Greeks pretend that their custom was established by the Gods ; but this more justly may be said of ours.

IBERTY is in its highest perfection, when criminal laws derive each punishment from the particular nature of the crime. There are then Rh