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Some crimes are assaults on persons, others are offences against goods. The former should always be punished with corporal punishment: the rich and the powerful should not be able to put a price on assaults on the weak and the poor; otherwise wealth, which is the reward of industry under the protection of the laws, feeds tyranny. There is no freedom when the laws permit a man in some cases to cease to be a person and to become a thing:, then you will see the efforts of the powerful devoted to discovering from amongst the mass of civil relations those in which the law most favours his interests. The discovery of these is the magic secret which turns citizens into beasts of burden and which, in the hands of the strong, becomes the chain by which the actions of the rash and the weak are shackled. And it is the reason why, in some states which have all the appearance of being free, tyranny is hidden or worms its way unforeseen into a corner neglected by the lawgiver and gathers strength and grows unobserved. Men generally build the most solid bulwarks against open tyranny, but they do not see the tiny insect which gnaws away at them and opens a path for the river's flood that is the more sure for being concealed.
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