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CHAP. III.: The same Subject continued. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 1 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

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The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 1.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. III.

The same Subject continued.

THOSE laws, which condemn a man to death on the deposition of a single witness, are fatal to liberty. In right reason there should be two; because a witness who affirms, and the accused who denies, make an equal balance, and a third must incline the scale.

The Greeks§ and Romans required one voice more to condemn: but our French laws insist upon two. The Greeks pretend that their custom was established by the Gods* ; but this more justly may be said of ours.

[§ ]See Aristid. Orat. in Minervam.

[]Dionys. Halicarn. on the judgement of Coriolanus, book 7.

[* ]Minervæ calculus.