Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/21

Ch. 1 over himelf or others. Which has occaioned ome to doubt, how far a human legilature ought to inflict capital punihments for poitive offences ; offences againt the municipal law only, and not againt the law of nature ; ince no individual has, naturally, a power of inflicting death upon himelf or others for actions in themelves indifferent. With regard to offences mala in e, capital punihments are in ome intances inflicted by the immediate command of God himelf to all mankind ; as, in the cae of murder, by the precept delivered to Noah, their common ancetor and repreentative, “ whoo heddeth man's blood, by man hall his blood be hed. ” In other intances they are inflicted after the example of the creator, in his poitive code of laws for the regulation of the Jewih republic ; as in the cae of the crime againt nature. But they are ometimes inflicted without uch expres warrant or example, at the will and dicretion of the human legilature ; as for forgery, for theft, and ometimes for offences of a lighter kind. Of thee we are principally to peak : as thee crimes are, none of them, offences againt natural, but only againt ocial, rights ; not even theft itelf, unles it be accompanied with violence to one's houe or peron : all others being an infringement of that right of property, which, as we have formerly een, owes it's origin not to the law of nature, but merely to civil ociety.

practice of inflicting capital punihments, for offences of human intitution, is thus jutified by that great and good man, ir Matthew Hale : “ when offences grow enormous, frequent, and dangerous to a kingdom or tate, detructive or highly pernicious to civil ocieties, and to the great inecurity and danger of the kingdom or it's inhabitants, evere punihment and even death itelf is neceary to be annexed to laws in many caes by the prudence of lawgivers. ” It is therefore the enormity, or dangerous tendency, of the crime, that alone can warrant any earthly legilature in putting him to death that Rh