On Crimes and Punishments

complacency by Farinaccius Prospero Farinacci, an Italian jurist, should be the laws that are obeyed with certainty by those who, trembling, should hold the lives and fortunes of men in their hands. These laws, which are the dregs of the most barbaric centuries, are examined in this book regarding the part that concerns the criminal system. The disorders of these laws are exposed to the directors of public happiness with a style that discourages the unenlightened and impatient common people. That genuine investigation of truth, that independence from vulgar opinions with which this work is written, is an effect of the gentle and enlightened Government under which the Author lives. The great Monarchs, the benefactors of Humanity, who govern us,