be supposed guilty. This is what is called an offensive prosecution; and such are all criminal proceedings, in the eighteenth century, in all parts of our polished Europe. The true prosecution, for information; that is, an impartial inquiry into the fact, that which reason prescribes, which military laws adopt, and which Asiatic despotism allows in suits of one subject against another, is very little practised in any courts of justice. What a labyrinth of absurdities! Absurdities which will appear incredible to happier posterity. The philosopher only will be able to read, in the nature of man, the possibility of there ever having been such a system.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Of Oaths.
THERE is a palpable contradiction between the laws and the natural sentiments of mankind, in the case of oaths, which are administered to a criminal to make him speak the truth, when the contrary is
