the relation of engagements with the political resources, which arise from commerce and its transactions. There exists thus a multitude of prohibitions of punishments, or gradations in the penalties, which have not any connexion but with the general views of the legislation, and agree not with the circumscribed good sense, which determines the judgment of individuals. It is then often, by considerations very extensive and complicated, that an action is criminal or reprehensible in the eyes of the law: thus, we know not how to erect, on this base alone, a system of morality, of which every one can have a clear perception; and since the legislator carefully avoids submitting any thing to private examination, because he sacrifices often to this principle natural justice, how then can he wish, at the same time, to give us for a rule of conduct a political morality, which is all founded on reasoning? It is of consequence still to observe, that to the eyes of the greater number of men, the sense of the laws, and the decrees formed by those who interpret them, ought necessarily to be identified and blended, and form only one point of view; and as the judges are frequently exposed to error, the true spirit of legislation remains often in obscurity, and we with difficulty discern it. It is, perhaps, because laws are the work of our understanding, that we are disposed to grant them a universal dominion: but I will avow, I am far from thinking that they can ever be substituted instead of the salutary influence of religion, and that I believe them insufficient even to regulate the things immediately under their jurisdiction; thus I would request you to reflect, if the unfortunate errors with which we reproach criminal tribunals, have not their source in the faults committed by sovereign authority; when it has referred all the duties of the judges to the injunctions of the law, and when it has refused to confide any longer in the conscience and private sentiments of the magistrates.