XI.

admonishing or reprimanding those around CHAP. them; and, after they have acquired superiority above others in any useful or elegant art, in labouring still farther to outdo past performances of their own; and, as Euripides says,

The greater part of every day consume

In skilful struggles to surpass themselves.

Since we all require relaxation and amusement, Merriment and laughit is plain why we derive pleasure from playful ter. pastimes, and from all those persons who, by their words or actions, have the power of provoking laughter, or exciting merriment. But the subject of" ridicule," has been explained in my Treatise on Poetry: so that enough has been said concerning pleasure, from which we may easily deduce the doctrine of its contrary, pain: and having thus analysed both pleasure and utility, I have completed the first branch of my subject, and explained the various objects, for the sake of which, men are tempted to the commission of injuries.

LET us next consider who are the individuals CHAP. XII. most likely to commit them, and also, who are the individuals most exposed to suffer them. Persons most likely To the former class belong those who think that the wrong intended is possible, and by them, most liable practicable; who think that they may do it injury. without discovery, or should they be discovered, that they may easily escape punishment; or should punishment be incurred, that the weight of it will be far less than the advantage accruing from the crime, either to themselves, or to per

I.

of wrong,

men of

eloquence.

Persons connected

in friend

BOOK sons most dear to them. The doctrine of possibility, and the propositions relative to it, will be explained in a subsequent part of this work; for this is a subject alike essential to all the The doers three branches of rhetoric. But supposing the wrong intended to be practicable, impunity in energy and doing it, is most likely to be expected by men of energy and eloquence, rich, popular, and thoroughly versed in all the chicane of litigation; or by those who have such persons for their friends and abettors, their dependents and followers. With instruments of this kind at their command, they will expect to be safe in the commission of wrong; sometimes to escape detection, and often to elude punishment. The same expectation will be formed by those who enjoy the friendship of the injured party, or that of the judges. The unsuspicious nature of friendship is open to offence, and its benignity will prefer compromise to harsh legal proceedings. Judges, again, united in friendship with the delinquent, will be disposed to favour him, either by mitigating his punishment, or by entirely remitting it. Those delinquents are likely to be concealed, whose circumstances are stances un- most opposite to their crimes: a sorry pithless to the per- fellow will not be easily supposed guilty of an petration assault, nor a miserable mortal, deformed at once by ugliness and poverty, readily suspected of adultery. Nor will a man be suspected of purloining things so much exposed to the public eye, that the utmost audacity could scarcely risk the attempt; nor, indeed, of any crime so

ship with the judge

or party.

Those

placed in circum

favourable

of the

crimes im

puted to them.

XII.

enormous, that hardly any example of it is re- CHAP. corded usual maladies are the objects of prophylactic medicine, and usual crimes of prohibitory law; few precautions are taken against evils of rare occurrence. As to the commission of crimes with impunity, he who has enemies innumerable, stands nearly on the same footing with the general favourite. The latter is above suspicion; the former is so generally suspected, and so closely watched, that, while in his senses, he will not be believed to have incurred the certainty of detection and of consequent punishment.

and oppor

tives from which guilt

In theft, impunity will be expected when the Various things stolen may be easily hid or disposed of; site mowhen they may be easily transferred from one place to another, or converted from one form is incurred. into another; when, in case of discovery, sentence may be set aside, or delayed, or the judges corrupted; and, if a fine is in question, when payment may be resisted or postponed, or the culprit is too poor to pay even the smallest amercement. There is temptation to injustice, when the gain is great, manifest, and immediate; and the danger slight, uncertain, and remote; especially when all danger disappears in the vastness of the desired object, as the attainment of sovereignty over free states. Certain individuals will commit crimes, which produce pecuniary advantage at the risk merely of reputation: others, again, will not be deterred from criminal actions that expose them to fine, forfeiture, or banishment, provided that, instead

Q

I.

BOOK of subjecting them to disgrace, such actions rather redound to their glory; as happened to Zeno, who rendered himself amenable to law, for the sake of avenging his parents. Thus it is that guilt is incurred, from most opposite motives, by different classes of persons, differently affected. Those who have often been fortunate in escaping detection or punishment, will be encouraged to adventure anew; while others again, who have been peculiarly unsuccessful in all their iniquitous attempts, will thereby be stimulated to fresh enterprise; and, as happens to the vanquished in battle, impelled by misfortune itself, to hazard once more the chance of arms. Some men are guided solely by present pleasure, or present profit, with a total disregard of enjoyments and advantages much greater, but future. These are the obnoxious to all tumultuary assaults of passion. Others, again, having acquired the virtue of temperance, obey its dictates, and reject lesser present goods, to secure far greater in prospect. Crimes are committed in the hope that they will be ascribed to mischance, necessity, nature, or custom; in short, to any of those causes that are exclusive of wilful and deliberate villany; and when rash confidence is reposed in the equity and lenity of magistrates. The needy are always liable to the suspicion of wrong; but the needy are of two kinds, those extremely indigent, and those rioting in superfluity of abundance: the former are led astray by natural wants, the latter by the insatiable demands of pampered passions. Men

XIL

of high reputation, and those sunk to the CHAP. depths of infamy, are liable to the same suspicion for opposite reasons: the character of the one is too bright to be sullied; that of the other, too low to be degraded.

viduals

bours, and

Such, then, for ordinary, are the deers of The indiwrong; and those most obnoxious to it, are most liable individuals possessed of objects and advantages to injury of which the doers stand in need.69 Neighbours Neighare exposed to mutual injuries, because the gain the far disis speedy; and those widely remote, because the tant. vengeance is slow: thus our pirates reason, who plunder the distant Carthaginians. The incautious, the credulous, the slothful, and those modest to timidity, all such are open to injury; because it is easy to elude their observation, or to avert their prosecution: the slothful are reluctant to engage in troublesome litigations; the modest are ashamed of them. Those who Those ofhave often submitted to injuries without making with imputen injured reprisals, thereby expose themselves to new nity. wrongs: whence the ordinary proverb of "being a prey even to the Mysians 70," expressive of that cowardly submission which provokes rapacity. Both those who have fortunately escaped injuries, and those who have often suffered them, are thereby put off their guard: the former

69 He has above said that the needy are of two descriptions; those wanting in necessaries, and those rioting in abundance; the former tempted by natural wants, the latter by artificial passions that are insatiable.

70 The most effeminate people of Lesser Asia, itself the most effeminate country of antiquity. See History of Ancient Greece, Pt. ii. vol. i. p. 127.