that you think theft ought not to be punished by death? Would you give
way to it? Or do you propose any other punishment that will be more
useful to the public? For since death does not restrain theft, if men
thought their lives would be safe, what fear or force could restrain ill
men? On the contrary, they would look on the mitigation of the
punishment as an invitation to commit more crimes.' I answered, 'It
seems to me a very unjust thing to take away a man's life for a little
money; for nothing in the world can be of equal value with a man's life:
and if it is said, that it is not for the money that one suffers, but
for his breaking the law, I must say, extreme justice is an extreme
injury; for we ought not to approve of these terrible laws that make the
smallest offences capital, nor of that opinion of the Stoics, that makes
all crimes equal, as if there were no difference to be made between the
killing a man and the taking his purse, between which, if we examine
things impartially, there is no likeness nor proportion. God has
commanded us not to kill, and shall we kill so easily for a little
money? But if one shall say, that by that law we are only forbid to kill
any, except when the laws of the land allow of it; upon the same
grounds, laws may be made in some cases to allow of adultery and
perjury: for God having taken from us the right of disposing, either of
our own or of other people's lives, if it is pretended that the mutual
consent of man in making laws can authorize man-slaughter in cases in
which God has given us no example, that it frees people from the
obligation of the divine law, and so makes murder a lawful action; what
is this, but to give a preference to human laws before the divine? And
if this is once admitted, by the same rule men may in all other things
put what restrictions they please upon the laws of God. If by the
Mosaical law, though it was rough and severe, as being a yoke laid on an
obstinate and servile nation, men were only fined, and not put to death
for theft, we cannot imagine that in this new law of mercy, in which God