8 - The classification of crimes

Summary

We have seen what the true measure of crimes is, namely, harm to society. This is one of those palpable truths which, though they call for neither quadrants nor telescopes to be discovered, but are within the grasp of the average intelligence, nevertheless have, by a curious conjunction of circumstances, only been firmly recognised by a few thinkers in every nation and in every century. But opinions worthy only of Asiatic despots and emotions robed in authority and power have blotted out, mainly by unfelt pressures but sometimes by violent impressions affecting the timid credulity of men, the simple ideas, which perhaps shaped the first philosophy of those youthful societies, and to which the enlightenment of the present century seems to be leading us back, with that greater conviction that results from a rigorous analysis, from a thousand unhappy experiences and the very obstacles themselves.

It would now seem appropriate to examine and to distinguish all the various sorts of crimes and the ways of punishing them, if it were not for the fact that this would demand immense and tedious detail because of the variations caused by the differing circumstances of differing times and places. But it will be enough to point out the most general principles and the most baneful and common mistakes to correct both those who, from a misguided love of freedom, would wish to introduce anarchy, and those who would like to reduce men's lives to monastic regularity.