But a court of justice would repudiate with scorn any
proposal of this kind if made to it by the medical faculty; for
justice would cease to be justice, if it were bartered away for any
consideration whatever.
But what is the mode and measure of punishment which public
justice takes as its principle and standard? It is just the
principle of equality, by which the pointer of the scale of justice is
made to incline no more to the one side than the other. It may be
rendered by saying that the undeserved evil which any one commits on
another is to be regarded as perpetrated on himself. Hence it may be
said: "If you slander another, you slander yourself; if you steal from
another, you steal from yourself; if you strike another, you strike
yourself; if you kill another, you kill yourself." This is the right
of retaliation (jus talionis); and, properly understood, it is the
only principle which in regulating a public court, as distinguished
from mere private judgement, can definitely assign both the quality
and the quantity of a just penalty. All other standards are wavering
and uncertain; and on account of other considerations involved in
them, they contain no principle conformable to the sentence of pure
and strict justice. It may appear, however, that difference of
social status would not admit the application of the principle of
retaliation, which is that of "like with like.
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