For the use of laws (which are but rules authorized)is not to bind the people from all voluntary actions,but to direct and keep them in such a motion as not to hurt themselves by their own impetuous desires,rashness,or indiscretion;as hedges are set,not to stop travellers,but to keep them in the way.And therefore a law that is not needful,having not the true end of a law,is not good.A law may be conceived to be good when it is for the benefit of the sovereign,though it be not necessary for the people,but it is not so.For the good of the sovereign and people cannot be separated.It is a weak sovereign that has weak subjects;and a weak people whose sovereign wanteth power to rule them at his will.Unnecessary laws are not good laws,but traps for money which,where the right of sovereign power is acknowledged,are superfluous;and where it is not acknowledged,insufficient to defend the people.
The perspicuity consisteth not so much in the words of the law itself,as in a declaration of the causes and motives for which it was made.That is it that shows us the meaning of the legislator;and the meaning of the legislator known,the law is more easily understood by few than many words.For all words are subject to ambiguity;and therefore multiplication of words in the body of the law is multiplication of ambiguity:besides it seems to imply,by too much diligence,that whosoever can evade the words is without the compass of the law.And this is a cause of many unnecessary processes.For when I consider how short were the laws of ancient times,and how they grew by degrees still longer,methinks I see a contention between the penners and pleaders of the law;the former seeking to circumscribe the latter,and the latter to evade their circumions;and that the pleaders have got the victory.It belongeth therefore to the office of a legislator (such as is in all Commonwealths the supreme representative,be it one man or an assembly)to make the reason perspicuous why the law was made,and the body of the law itself as short,but in as proper and significant terms,as may be.
It belongeth also to the office of the sovereign to make a right application of punishments and rewards.And seeing the end of punishing is not revenge and discharge of choler,but correction either of the offender or of others by his example,the severest punishments are to be inflicted for those crimes that are of most danger to the public;such as are those which proceed from malice to the government established;those that spring from contempt of justice;those that provoke indignation in the multitude;and those which,unpunished,seem authorized,as when they are committed by sons,servants,or favourites of men in authority:for indignation carrieth men,not only against the actors and authors of injustice,but against all power that is likely to protect them;as in the case of Tarquin,when for the insolent act of one of his sons he was driven out of Rome,and the monarchy itself dissolved.But crimes of infirmity;such as are those which proceed from great provocation,from great fear,great need,or from ignorance whether the fact be a great crime or not,there is place many times for lenity,without prejudice to the Commonwealth;and lenity,when there is such place for it,is required by the law of nature.The punishment of the leaders and teachers in a commotion;not the poor seduced people,when they are punished,can profit the Commonwealth by their example.To be severe to people is to punish ignorance which may in great part be imputed to the sovereign,whose fault it was they were no better instructed.
In like manner it belongeth to the office and duty of the sovereign to apply his rewards always so as there may arise from them benefit to the Commonwealth:wherein consisteth their use and end;and is then done when they that have well served the Commonwealth are,with as little expense of the common treasury as is possible,so well recompensed as others thereby may be encouraged,both to serve the same as faithfully as they can,and to study the arts by which they may be enabled to do it better.To buy with money or preferment,from a popular ambitious subject to be quiet and desist from making ill impressions in the minds of the people,has nothing of the nature of reward (which is ordained not for disservice,but for service past);nor a sign of gratitude,but of fear;nor does it tend to the benefit,but to the damage of the public.It is a contention with ambition,that of Hercules with the monster Hydra,which,having many heads,for every one that was vanquished there grew up three.For in like manner,when the stubbornness of one popular man is overcome with reward,there arise many more by the example,that do the same mischief in hope of like benefit:and as all sorts of manufacture,so also malice increaseth by being vendible.And though sometimes a civil war may be deferred by such ways as that,yet the danger grows still the greater,and the public ruin more assured.It is therefore against the duty of the sovereign,to whom the public safety is committed,to reward those that aspire to greatness by disturbing the peace of their country,and not rather to oppose the beginnings of such men with a little danger,than after a longer time with greater.