1783-12-04 (static/transcriptions/1783/12/013.jpg)

Of justice and right but according to prescribed rules. It must be hoped, that his own reason generally approves those rules; but it is the judgment or the Law, not his own, which he delivers. Were judges to decide by their bare opinions of right and wrong, opinions always unknown, often capricious, sometimes improperly biased, to what an arbitrary tribunal would men be subject! In how dreadful a state of slavery would they live! Let us be satisified, gentlemen with law, which all, who please, may understand, and not call for equity in its popular sense, which differs in different men, and must at best be dark and uncertain.

The end of criminal law, a most important branch of the great juridical system, is to prevent crimes by punishment, so that the pain of it, as a fine writer expresses himself, may be inflicted on a few, but the dread of it extanded to all. In the administration of penal justice, a
/ severe