To the Reader

Summary

A few odd remnants of the laws of an ancient conquering race codified twelve hundred years ago by a prince ruling at Constantinople, and since jumbled together with the customs of the Lombards and bundled up in the rambling volumes of obscure academic interpreters – this is what makes up the tradition of opinions that passes for law across a large portion of Europe. It is as deplorable as it is common that an opinion of Carpzov's, an ancient custom noted by Claro, or a mode of punishment suggested with vengeful complacency by Farinacci have become the laws so confidently implemented by those who should tremble at the responsibility of ordering the lives and fortunes of men. These laws, which are the residue of the most barbarous centuries, are examined in this book insofar as they relate to the system of criminal justice. This book presumes to set out their confusions for the benefit of those who are charged with the public welfare in a style designed to ward off the unenlightened and impatient run of men. That sincere search for the truth, that independence of vulgar opinion with which this work is written, are the effects of the benign and enlightened government under which the present author lives. The great monarchs, the human benefactors who rule us, love the truths which are expounded by humble philosophers with an unfanatical zeal directed exclusively against those who, eschewing reason, rely on force or machination.