The primitive history of criminal law divides itself therefore into four stages. Understanding that the conception of _Crime_, as distinguished from that of _Wrong_ or _Tort_ and from that of _Sin_, involves the idea of injury to the State or collective community, we first find that the commonwealth, in literal conformity with the conception, itself interposed directly, and by isolated acts, to avenge itself on the author of the evil which it had suffered. This is the point from which we start; each indictment is now a bill of pains and penalties, a special law naming the criminal and prescribing his punishment. A _second_ step is accomplished, when the multiplicity of crimes compels the legislature to delegate its powers to particular Quaestiones or Commissions, each of which is deputed to investigate a particular accusation, and if it be proved, to punish the particular offender. Yet _another_ movement is made when the legislature, instead of waiting for the alleged commission of a crime as the occasion of appointing a Quaestio, periodically nominates Commissioners like the Quaestores Parricidii and the Duumviri Perduellionis, on the chance of certain classes of crimes being committed, and in the expectation that they _will_ be perpetrated. The _last_ stage is reached when the Quaestiones from being periodical or occasional become permanent Benches or Chambers--when the judges, instead of being named in the particular law nominating the Commission, are directed to be chosen through all future time in a particular way and from a particular class--and when certain acts are described in general language and declared to be crimes, to be visited, in the event of their perpetration, with specified penalties appropriated to each description.