Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - I. Chapter. On Punishments
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conduce to the improvement of the guilty, and thus
tend to prevent a renewed interruption of the
system of law instituted for the public welfare.
Such appears to be the nature of punishments
in their most perfect state 5 such the object to be
aimed at in their organization. That it cannot in
reality be perfectly attained, is to be accounted
for, partly from the imperfection inseparable from
all human productions; partly in those outward
circumstances which often exert so powerful an
influence, that they form a kind of relative system
of law- This explains, and may even in some
degree excuse, those false directions which
criminal legislation has so often taken, and in which it
is still, in a great degree, proceeding; but it must
by no means be cited, either for its historical
foundation, or its existence as a fact, to the hindrance
of a useful progressing towards a theory of
punishment more suited to the advancement of knowledge,
and the demands of human nature; for the
continued striving to approach perfection, is one of the
signs of the divine origin of man.
To listen without prejudice to the often
dear-bought experience of former times, and thence to
draw knowledge and guidance how to judge, and
correctly answer the demands of the present; and
thus to prepare the possibility of a rational
understanding of that problem, which the future must
in its turn solve, forms the proper continuity of
the advancing cultivation of the human race. The
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