Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/25

Ch. 1. accuations of the innocent : to which we may add that law of the Jews and Egyptians, mentioned by Joephus and Diodorus Siculus, that whoever without ufficient caue was found with any mortal poion in his cutody, hould himelf be obliged to take it. But, in general, the difference of perons, place, time, provocation, or other circumtances, may enhance or mitigate the offence ; and in uch caes retaliation can never be a proper meaure of jutice. If a nobleman trikes a peaant, all mankind will ee, that if a court of jutice awards a return of the blow, it is more than a jut compenation. On the other hand, retaliation may ometimes be too eay a entence ; as, if a man maliciouly hould put out the remaining eye of him who had lot one before, it is too light a punihment for the maimer to loe only one of his : and therefore the law of the Locrians, which demanded an eye for an eye, was in this intance judiciouly altered ; by decreeing, in imitation of Solon's laws, that he who truck out the eye of a one-eyed man, hould loe both his own in return. Beides, there are very many crimes, that will in no hape admit of thee penalties, without manifet aburdity and wickednes. Theft cannot be punihed by theft, defamation by defamation, forgery by forgery, adultery by adultery, and the like. And we may add, that thoe intances, wherein retaliation appears to be ued, even by the divine authority, do not really proceed upon the rule of exact retribution, by doing to the criminal the ame hurt he has done to his neighbour, and no more ; but this correpondence between the crime and punihment is barely a conequence from ome other principle. Death is ordered to be punihed with death ; not becaue one is equivalent to the other, for that would be expiation, and not punihment. Nor is death always an equivalent for death : the execution of a needy decrepid aain is a poor atisfaction for the murder of a nobleman in the bloom of his youth, and full enjoyment of his friends, his honours, and his fortune. But the reaon upon which this entence is grounded eems to be, that this is the highet penalty that man can inflict, Rh