Book cover Leviathan

Where The Punishment Is Annexed To The Law, A Greater Hurt Is Not Punishment, But Hostility

Leviathan
Published by:
Thomas Hobbes
Block: 398aac8ee10b40249f82bd3c346fb891

Where The Punishment Is Annexed To The Law, A Greater Hurt Is Not Punishment, But Hostility

Eighthly, If a Punishment be determined and prescribed in the Law it selfe, and after the crime committed, there be a greater Punishment inflicted, the excesse is not Punishment, but an act of hostility. For seeing the aym of Punishment is not a revenge, but terrour; and the terrour of a great Punishment unknown, is taken away by the declaration of a lesse, the unexpected addition is no part of the Punishment. But where there is no Punishment at all determined by the Law, there whatsoever is inflicted, hath the nature of Punishment. For he that goes about the violation of a Law, wherein no penalty is determined, expecteth an indeterminate, that is to say, an arbitrary Punishment.