The efficacy of punishments is either physical, or moral, or both. It is physical by the impotence to which it reduces the guilty, and moral by the example it offers. The physical efficacy of the punishment of death was at first its most powerful recommendation. In killing an enemy, it did away with danger; and what could be more natural than to gratify vengeance while insuring safety? In the present day, however, there is no longer any question of revenge. No legislation, no government, wishes to have imputed to it such barbarity. But every society and every government still desires security; and capital punishment seems to offer it. But the efficacy of punishments is not the same in all places or at all times. It varies according to the different stages of society, the degrees of civilisation, the sentiments of the people, and the circumstances of government. Capital punishment, in spite of appearances, has not, even in a physical sense, the advantage of an immutable efficacy; for in suppressing a known enemy, it does not always suppress danger. What was formerly the composition of society? A small aristocracy, rich and powerful; and the multitude poor, obscure, and weak, notwithstanding numerical strength. When a conspiracy was hatched by the great, it had its known and important chiefs, invested with immense power: it was the fruit of the ambition of some men, perhaps only of one, and the work of a few personal influences. On seizing two or three of the conspirators, therefore, the danger was over. {259} The Percy family, after having placed Henry Lancaster on the throne of England, becoming discontented, conspired and made war against him; but they were defeated and proscribed, and Henry had nothing more to dread. Where are now those eminent and avowed chiefs, whom to destroy was to destroy a party? Under what proper names are peril and influence thus concentrated! Few men now-a-days have a name, and these few are of little consequence. Power has departed from individuals and families; it has left the hearths where it formerly dwelt, to spread itself abroad in society. There it circulates rapidly, and though scarcely seen in any particular spot, it is present everywhere. It is attached to the public interests, ideas, and sentiments, which no single person directs, which no one represents in such a manner as to make their fate depend in the slightest degree upon his. But if these forces are hostile to power, let it search and inquire in what hands they are deposited. Upon what head will it let fall its vengeance? There are still reformers and leaguers, but no longer a Coligny or a Mayenne. The death of an enemy is now but that of a man, and neither troubles nor weakens the party he served. If power is reassured when the life is taken, it deceives itself: its danger remains the same, for it was not the man who created it. The causes of its perils are widely-scattered and deeply-seated; and the absence of a nominal chief does not lessen