IX. Clemency, as it is explained by Moralists and Theologians, is a virtue; but as understood by the vulgar, it is a vice. This different acceptation of one and the same word, may be easily accounted-for. If we advert to the doctrine laid down by St. Thomas, we shall there find, Clemency explained as not inconsistent with severity. But I ask whether in the idea of the vulgar, these two qualities are not very different? They are clearly so; because that which is termed severe, they without the least hesitation deny can be clement. Therefore the signification which the vulgar give to the word Clemency, is different from that which is given to it by learned and wise men. X. Severity then in the opinion of these last, is an habitual inflexibility of the mind, which will not relax in the punishment of crimes, whenever the dictates of right reason require they should be punished. Clemency also, as explained by them, is an habitual disposition to lessen the punishment of crimes, whenever the same right reason dictates that they should be lessened; _Quando oportet, et in quibus oportet_, says the angelic doctor, and it is from his doctrine that this definition is taken. It is clear, there is no opposition, but rather an agreeable harmony between these two qualities; and it is also clear, that the vulgar look upon that inflexibility of the mind in which severity consists, as diametrically opposite to clemency; and thus they call obdurate, rigorous, inexorable, and austere, all those, who possess that inflexible habit. XI. That prince or magistrate is clement in the opinion of the vulgar, who is to be wrought upon by the intreaties of friends, the tears of the guilty, and the cries of his orphan family; and who indulges the softness of his own disposition, and is induced from these motives, to mitigate the punishments, which the law has allotted to crimes. But in reality, this is not Clemency, but injustice. It is rather a vileness, and a weakness of mind, which is cloaked under the name of Clemency. He is a protector and an encourager of wickedness, who from such considerations, and without any other motives, slackens his hand in the punishment of crimes. He is an indirect tyrant of the state, and becomes an abettor of all those evils, which are occasioned by the daring rashness of delinquents; and he is also a multiplier of them to an excessive number, by his forbearing to deter bad men from committing them by proper examples; and it is for this reason, that we said in the title of this paradox, that that which is called Clemency in princes and magistrates, is prejudicial to the public at large.