On Crimes and Punishments

accelerated those intermediate transitions with good laws. And that philosopher deserves the gratitude of mankind who had the courage, from his obscure and despised study, to cast among the multitude the first, long-unfruitful seeds of useful truths.

The true relationships between the sovereign and the subjects, and among different nations, have become known. Commerce has been animated by the appearance of philosophical truths made common through the stampa press. A silent war of industry—the most humane and the most worthy of reasonable men—has been kindled among nations. These are fruits that we owe to the light of this century. Yet very few have examined and combated the cruelty of punishments and the irregularity of criminal procedures, a part of legislation so principal, and yet so neglected in almost all of Europe. Very few, tracing back to general principles, have annihilated the errors accumulated over many centuries, restraining, at least with the sole force that known truths possess,