Chapter 11 Public peace

Finally, in the third type of crimes we find particularly those which

disturb the public peace and the calm of the citizenry, such as
brawls and revels in the public streets which are meant for the
conduct of business and traffic. Likewise, there is fanatical dema-
gogy which arouses the volatile emotions of curious crowds,
emotions that gain in strength from the mass of the listeners and
from dark and inscrutable enthusiasm more than from clear and
calm reason, which never influences a large gathering of men.
Among the measures effective in forestalling the dangerous
amassing of popular emotions are street-lighting at public expense,
the posting of guards in the various districts of the city, sober and
moral sermons delivered in the silence and sacred peace of churches
protected by public authorities, and homilies in defence of public
and private interests in the nation's councils, in parliaments or
wherever the majesty of the sovereign power resides. These make
up one of the main branches of the care of the magistrate, which
the French call police. But if the magistrate implements laws which
are arbitrary and not set down in a code which is diffused among
all the citizens, then the door is open to tyranny, which always
hems in political liberty.
I can find no exception to the general truism that every citizen
ought to know when he is guilty and when he is innocent. If censors,
or other arbitrary magistrates are necessary in some regimes, that
necessity arises from the weakness of its constitution and not from
the nature of a well-organised government. Uncertainty as to one's
fate has sacrificed more victims to a hidden tyranny than public

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 On Crimes and Punishments

and official cruelty ever has. The latter disgusts men's minds more
than it debases them. The true tyrant always begins by usurping
men's opinions, and hobbling the courage which can only shine in
the clear light of the truth, in the fire of emotion, or in ignorance
of danger.
But what shall be the punishments appropriate for these crimes?
Is death a really useful and necessary punishment for the security
and good order of society? Are torture and corporal punishment
just and do they serve the purpose for which the laws were set up?
What is the best way to prevent crimes? Are the same punishments
equally useful at all times? What influence do they exercise over
public mores? These questions need to be answered with a math-
ematical rigour which will cut through the cloud of specious reason-
ing, seductive eloquence and diffident doubt. I should deem myself
satisfied if I had no claim other than that of being the first to
present to Italians, rather more clearly than hitherto, those things
which other nations have ventured to write and have begun to put
into practice; but if, in upholding the rights of men and the
invincible truth, I were to contribute to relieving some blighted
victim of tyranny or, equally lethal, ignorance, from the spasms
and anxieties of death, the blessing and tears of joy of even
a single innocent man would console me for the scorn of the
multitude.

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511802485.020 Published online by Cambridge University Press