Lombroso and Tarde, indeed, have confronted me <p 102>with historic examples of vigorous and even savage repressions, whereby it was possible to stamp out some epidemic crime. But these examples are not conclusive, for I have shown that, as soon as these exceptional repressions were at an end, as, for instance, after the death of Pope Sixtus V., brigandage and other crimes were persistently renewed. But my main rejoinder is this, that these exceptional repressions depend upon the _jus belli_; and therefore cannot enter into the ordinary and constant methods of penal administration. This may not have the effect of an extraordinary repression, secured by a somewhat unscrupulous promptitude, which strikes innocent and guilty alike; and thus it is impossible to treat as equal, or even to compare, the influence of methods which are essentially different. Another false comparison is drawn between the effective force of various punishments, and their potentiality is confounded, whereas it is necessary to distinguish the punishment of the written code from that of the judge, and still more from that carried into execution. In fact it is only natural that punishment should more or less terrify the criminal who has been judged and is about to be condemned; but this in no way proves its efficacy, which should have been displayed by the menace of the law in guarding the prisoner against the crime. Even with the death penalty, there are many instances of condemned persons who, through congenital insensibility, submit to it cynically. Moreover, for such as have been overwhelmed with terror when the moment of execution arrived, the utmost that this fact can prove is that <p 103>they are so constituted as to give themselves up completely to the impression of the moment, without the energy to resist it. In other words, so long as the punishment is distant and uncertain, they were not terrified, but having always yielded to the impression of the moment, they yielded to the criminal impulse. For other punishments, also, it is known that punitive methods, even when not contrary to the law, as they sometimes are in Italy, are always less stern than simple folk imagine when they read the codes and the sentences. And criminals naturally judge of punishments by their own experience, that is to say, in accordance with their practical application, and not with the more or less candid threats of the lawmaker.