Every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty...and...obliges himself to conform to those laws which the community has thought proper to establish.
For the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
Man was formed for society and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.
No man can be entitled to deprive himself or another of [life], but in some manner either expressly commanded in, or evidently deducible from,... the divine laws...of either nature or revelation.
Nothing therefore is to be more avoided, in a free constitution, than uniting the provinces of a judge and a minister of state.
The most principal and important [crime] is the offense of taking away that life, which is the immediate gift of the great creator....
To make a complete crime, cognizable by human laws, there must be both a will and an act.
