On Crimes and Punishments

-of the social pact, the failure to admit them before the pact itself.

Divine Justice and natural Justice are by their essence immutable and constant, because the relationship between two identical objects is always the same. However, human or political Justice, being nothing but a relationship between an action and the varied state of Society, can vary as that action becomes necessary or useful to Society. Nor can it be well discerned except by one who analyzes the complicated and highly mutable relationships of civil combinations. As soon as these essentially distinct principles are confused, there is no longer any hope of reasoning well in public matters. It belongs to Theologians to establish the boundaries of-