whom want forces to be thieves, or who, now being idle vaga-
bonds or useless servants, will certainly grow thieves at last.
If you do not find a remedy to these evils, it is a vain thing to
boast of your severity in punishing theft, which though it may
have the appearance of justice, yet in itself is neither just nor
convenient.  For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated,
and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then
punish them for those crimes to which their first education
disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that
you first make thieves and then punish them ?'

   "While I was talking thus, the counsellor who was present
had prepared an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had
said, according to the formality of a debate, in which things
are generally repeated more faithfully than they are answered;
as if the chief trial to be made were of men's memories.

   "'You have talked prettily for a stranger,' said he, 'having
heard of many things among us which you have not been able
to consider well; but I will make the whole matter plain to you,
and will first repeat in order all that you have said, then I will
show how much your ignorance of our affairs has misled you,
and will in the last place answer all your arguments.  And that
I may begin where I promised, there were four things --'

   "'Hold your peace,' said the cardinal; 'this will take up too
much time; therefore we will at present ease you of the trouble
of answering, and reserve it to our next meeting, which shall
be to-morrow, if Raphael's affairs and yours can admit of it.
But, Raphael,' said he to me, 'I would gladly know upon what
reason it is that you think theft ought not to be punished by
death?  Would you give way to it?  Or do you propose any
other punishment that will be more useful to the public?  For
since death does not restrain theft, if men thought their lives
would be safe, what fear or force could restrain ill men?  On
the contrary, they would look on the mitigation of the punish-
ment as an invitation to commit more crimes.'

   "I answered: 'It seems to me a very unjust thing to take
away a man's life for a little money; for nothing in the world
can be of equal value with a man's life: and if it is said that it
is not for the money that one suffers, but for his breaking the
law, I must say extreme justice is an extreme injury; for we
ought not to approve of these terrible laws that make the small-
est offences capital, nor of that opinion of the Stoics that makes
all crimes equal, as if there were no difference to be made be-
tween the killing a man and the taking his purse, between
which, if we examine things impartially, there is no likeness
nor proportion.  God has commanded us not to kill, and shall
we kill so easily for a little money?  But if one shall say, that
by that law we are only forbid to kill any, except when the laws
of the land allow of it; upon the same grounds, laws may be
made in some cases to allow of adultery and perjury: for God
having taken from us the right of disposing, either of our own
or of other people's lives, if it is pretended that the mutual
consent of man in making laws can authorize manslaughter in
cases in which God has given us no example, that it frees people
from the obligation of the divine law, and so makes murder a
lawful action; what is this, but to give a preference to human
laws before the divine?

   "'And if this is once admitted, by the same rule men may in
all other things put what restrictions they please upon the laws
of God.  If by the Mosaical law, though it was rough and
severe, as being a yoke laid on an obstinate and servile nation,
men were only fined and not put to death for theft, we cannot
imagine that in this new law of mercy, in which God treats us
with the tenderness of a father, he has given us a greater
license to cruelty than he did to the Jews.  Upon these rea-
sons it is that I think putting thieves to death is not lawful;
and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd, and of ill-conse-
quence to the commonwealth, that a thief and a murderer
should be equally punished; for if a robber sees that his danger
is the same, if he is convicted of theft as if he were guilty of
murder, this will naturally incite him to kill the person whom
otherwise he would only have robbed, since if the punishment is
the same, there is more security, and less danger of discovery,
when he that can best make it is put out of the way; so that
terrifying thieves too much, provokes them to cruelty.

   "But as to the question, What more convenient way of
punishment can be found? I think it is much more easier to find
out that than to invent anything that is worse; why should we
doubt but the way that was so long in use among the old
Romans, who understood so well the arts of government, was
very proper for their punishment?  They condemned such as
they found guilty of great crimes, to work their whole lives in
quarries, or to dig in mines with chains about them.  But the
method that I liked best, was that which I observed in my
travels in Persia, among the Polylerits, who are a considerable
and well-governed people.  They pay a yearly tribute to the
King of Persia; but in all other respects they are a free nation,
and governed by their own laws.  They lie far from the sea,
and are environed with hills; and being contented with the
productions of their own country, which is very fruitful, they
have little commerce with any other nation; and as they, ac-
cording to the genius of their country, have no inclination to
enlarge their borders; so their mountains, and the pension they
pay to the Persians, secure them from all invasions.