LIV. There are two other circumstances that are very worthy of being attended to, which would contribute to recommend this political system for improving the arts; the one is, that children would begin to learn much sooner than they commonly do. In the house of an artificer, where the son is destined to follow the trade of his father, he will scarce have done sucking the breast of his mother, when he will begin to drink the milk of his father’s instruction; in consequence of which, not only time would be gained, but his application to the business would become more natural to him. The other circumstance is, that the state would avoid the loss of many good artificers, which is occasioned by the inconstancy of the tempers and dispositions of youth. Those, who by continuing to work at the trade they first began to learn, would become excellent artificers, by going on to change their occupations continually, would never arrive at being more, than mere novices, or beginners; and this mischief would be avoided, by obliging the son of every handicraft person, to follow the trade of his father. LV. The second convenience that would result to the public by trades being hereditary, is, that it would ascertain the ranks and classes of people in a state; it being no uncommon thing, for disputes to arise between families, about birth and precedence; which inconvenience would be remedied by such a regulation, as in such a case, the rank of most people would be ascertained, and the cause of these disputes in a great measure removed. PARADOX VI. _Torture is a very fallible means for discovering the truth in criminal Cases._ LVI. I enter upon this essay, begging permission of all tribunals of justice to speak my sentiments on this head. I venerate the laws and the use of them; but as I am treating here of such as are purely human, I apprehend I may be permitted to reason on the tendency or propriety of them. Nor is the torture being admitted in the ecclesiastical courts, as a mode of enquiry in the examination into crimes, any objection to my doing this, for as the learned Canonist Francis Schomer observes, this practice is not conformable to the antient discipline of the church; and he quotes other authors in support of this opinion, and says further, that in a long course of time, it by little and little, came to be transferred from the secular tribunals to the ecclesiastical ones: _Predetentim à curiis sæcularibus ad ecclesiasticas pervenisse_ (Schmier in Supplem. ad lib. v. Decret); so that doubting of the propriety of inquiring by torture in the ecclesiastical courts, amounts to no more, than disputing whether the antient or modern practice of those courts, is the most consonant to reason.