Encyclopaedia Americana: a popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time : including a copious collection of original articles in American biography : on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon (Volume 4).

Date:: 1830-33

Credit: Encyclopaedia Americana: a popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time : including a copious collection of original articles in American biography : on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon (Volume 4). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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$the jurisprudence of the European conti- nent.] Crime is generally used to desig- nate an act of guilt, which offends the laws Iwth of God and man. It implies freedom of will, and a power of dis- tinguishing between right and wrong. Hence young children, madmen and idi- ots cannot commit crimes, neitlier can persons in a state of great intoxication.* But the circumstances under which full im- putabiLity or responsibility shall commence cannot be decided by general rules, but each case must be judged by itself. To constitute a crime, there must be an inten- tion manifested by an outward act. If the intention be wanting, the act is merely accidental. If the outward act is want- ing, there is nothing for human tribunals to punish. RIere uitention does not come under their cognizance. There are, more- (rver, many acts of guilt committed, in ev- ery community, which are not of a nature to be made the subject of legislation, and cannot be brought before the courts. On the other hand, there are, in ever}' state, certain actions, in themselves naturally indiffcn-cnt, but which are foi-bidden and punished as injurious to the community. These form the greater part of the class of mere offences against the police regula- tions. Many actions, in themselves indif- ferent, may, however, by reason of the hea\'j' penalties attached to them, be class- ed among crimes in the technical and juridical sense. The degree of punish- ment imposed on any crime should be proportioned to the degi'ee of injury vol- untarily inflicted. It is a matter of impor- tance to decide w hether an uninterrupted series of ilUcit acts is to be considered as the continuation of a single crime [delictum continuatum), or as several crirpes of the .same kind (delictum reiteratum). In the former case, there would be only one punishment; in the latter, several. But the award of several punishments, if capi- tal, cannot l)e executed by more than one punishment of death; and, if the punish- ment consist in a deprivation of freedom, the confinement can only be prolonged. According to the scientific principles of law, it would be, perhaps, most correct to consider the several crimes as constituting a whole, deserving only one punishment, to be proportioned to the amoiuitof guilt [pa- na major absorhet minorem), although the majority of learned jurists is, at present, of another opinion.—Quaddelida are injuries which must be repaired by their authors, * Drunkenness is not admiUed as a ground of acquittal, or even of mitigation of punishment, either in England or the U. Stales. tliough the intention to perpetrate an il icit act need not be evident. The Roman law has made suchprovisions in various cases. (See Criminal Law.) Punishments them- selves may be divided into criminal or civil, or police punishments. The crimi- nal or severe punishments are such as have great crimes for their object. They may be divided into, 1. capital punish- ments (see Death, Punishimnt of): 2. de- privation of liberty simply (as in the case of imprisonment, and exile from the coun- try), or accompanied with hard labor (for instance, labor in a work-house, a tread- mill, &c.), or sharpened by the infliction of pain (for instance, the punishment of laboring in the work-house, with stripes at the entrance and exit, or hard labor, with an iron chain round the neck): 3. pun- ishments inflicting mere bodily pains, or coi-poreal punishments, such as mutila- tion (which, however, is discarded in well ordered states) and whipping (the latter is frequently applied in inferior crimes, or on young persons not yet en- tirely corrupted): 4. punishments afiecting the honor. All punishments of crime, in- deed, have this character; but, in some cases, the punishment consists mainly in the degradation. Of this latter sort are, 1. such punishments as have for their object to work complete degradation ; for instance, the breaking of the armorial bearings of a noble family by the hang- man, branding, and the public flogging usually connected with it, deprivation of decent burial, civil death, hanging in effigy : 2. such as are intended merely to withdraw some particular civil honor; asi loss of nobiUty, exclusion from guilds and coi7)orations, removal from office: 3. such as have for their object merely humilia- tion and chastisement. The latter sort may, according to the rank of the crimi- nal and the magnitude of the crime, be connected with corporeal punishment; for instance, the pillory, &c.: or they may be of a different kind; as suspension from office, church penances, judicial repri- mands, begging of pardon, recantation of injuries, &c. This latter class of punish- ments is intended chiefly for the correc- tion of the person chastised. The highest degree of degra^ding punishments is always to be considered as equal to loss of life. 4. Civil death is a fiction of law IJictio juris), by means of which an individual can be considered as really dead, with regard to all or some of the common legal privileges. This is not always to be con- sidered as a degrading punishment, since any one can give occasion to a sentence$

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