CHAPTER XIII.
The last, and perhaps the most important, of the means adopted for preserving the security of the citizens, is the punishment of transgression of the State's laws; and, in pursuance of the plan I proposed to myself, it now becomes me to apply to this also the fundamental principles we have already agreed on. Now the first question which presents itself here is this: what are the actions which the State can punish and brand as crimes? The answer readily suggests itself from what we have before observed. For as the State is not allowed to propose any other end to its activity than the security of its subjects, it may not impose restrictions on any other actions than those which run counter to this ultimate object. But it also follows as clearly that all such actions deserve a just measure of punishment. For (seeing that they disturb and destroy that which is most essential to human enjoyment as well as development) not only is their hurtfulness too serious, that we should not resist their influence by every means consistent with the end and accordant with morality, but it follows, further, from the principles of right, that every one must suffer the punishment so far to invade the province of his own right as the crime he has committed has penetrated into that of the other. But to punish actions, on the contrary, which relate to the agent only, or which are done with the consent of the person
