England, which is the duty of those who are to profess and practise that
law.

In considering the important subject of criminal law it will be my duty
to found, on a regard to the general safety, the right of the magistrate
to inflict punishments, even the most severe, if that safety cannot be
effectually protected by the example of inferior punishments. It will be
a more agreeable part of my office to explain the temperaments which
Wisdom, as well as Humanity, prescribes in the exercise of that harsh
right, unfortunately so essential to the preservation of human society.
I shall collate the penal codes of different nations, and gather
together the most accurate statement of the result of experience with
respect to the efficacy of lenient and severe punishments; and I shall
endeavour to ascertain the principles on which must be founded both the
proportion and the appropriation of penalties to crimes.

As to the _law of criminal proceeding_, my labour will be very easy; for
on that subject an English lawyer, if he were to delineate the model of
perfection, would find that, with few exceptions, he had transcribed the
institutions of his own country. The whole subject of my lectures, of
which I have now given the outline, may be summed up in, the words of
Cicero:--"Natura enim juris explicanda est nobis, eaque ab hominis
repetenda natura; considerandae leges quibus civitates regi debeant; tum
haec tractanda, quae composita sunt et descripta, jura et jussa populorum;
in quibus."--_Cic. de Leg._ lib. i. c. 5.

V. The next great division of the subject is the law of nations,
strictly and properly so called. I have already hinted at the general
principles on which this law is founded. They, like all the principles
of natural jurisprudence, have been more happily cultivated, and more
generally obeyed, in some ages and countries than in others; and, like
them, are susceptible of great variety in their application, from the
character and usages of nations. I shall consider these principles in
the gradation of those which are necessary to any tolerable intercourse
between nations; those which are essential to all well-regulated and
mutually advantageous intercourse; and those which are highly conducive
to the preservation of a mild and friendly intercourse between
civilised states. Of the first class, every understanding acknowledges
the necessity, and some traces of a faint reverence for them are
discovered even among the mo