upon an offender, as a means of correction and amendment, or where the injured party is satisfied with an acknowledgment of the offence, the occasion for punishment is done away. It was this motive to clemency, which the son of David had in view, where he observes that it behoves the righteous to be merciful. For as all punishment, especially of the more severe cast, has in it some thing, which tho' not repugnant to justice, is at variance, at least, with charity, reason easily suffers us to forbear inflicting it, unless that forbearance is opposed by some weightier, juster, and more undeniable motive of charity. XXIII. Cases may occur where it is absolutely necessary to inflict punishment, as upon notorious, and atrocious criminals, or where it is for the public good, to dispense with that severity, or where the judicial authorities may use their own discretion in mitigating or enforcing the sentence of the law. Upon which Seneca pertinently remarks, that the exercise of lenity should always be an act of free deliberation. As to the disputes of the Stoics on these points, they are, in the opinion of Cicero and others, debates upon words rather than things: consequently they are less worthy of philosophical contemplation. XXIV. There seems to be a greater difficulty in deciding what is to be done, subsequently to the establishment of penal laws; because a legislator is bound, in some measure, by his own laws. But this, as it was proved in a former part of this treatise, is only true with respect to the legislator, in his individual capacity, as a private member of the state, but not in his public character, in which he represents the whole Majesty and Authority of the state itself. As such, he can entirely repeal the law: for it is the nature of all human laws, to depend upon the will of the maker, not only for their origin, but also for their duration. Yet a lawgiver ought not, upon trivial grounds, to repeal a statute, for, in so doing he would be acting against the rules of sovereign justice. But as the legislator has power to repeal the whole of a law, so in the case of some particular person, or individual action, he may relax its rigour, allowing it to remain in other respects, as it stood before. As an example of this, the actions of the Deity may be cited, who, according to the testimony of Lactantius, in enacting his laws, did not deprive himself of the exercise of his mercy, to grant pardons. "The Emperor, _says Augustin_, may recall his sentence, pardon and release a criminal; because, _as he further explains it_, the person who has power to make laws, is not INVARIABLY bound to observe them." Yet this privilege of departing from the letter must never be used but for the most important reasons. Although such reasons cannot be precisely defined, yet it is certain that, since the establishment of civil law, more weighty ones are required to authorise such pardons, than before that period. Because punishments have derived