To the edition of Beccaria published at Paris in 1797, are added some notes by Diderot: unfortunately, they are short and few. I translate those which relate to the present chapter:---

``The errors of courts of justice and the feebleness of the law, even when crimes are known to have been committed, are matters of public notoriety. It is in vain to endeavour to conceal them; there is nothing, therefore, to counterbalance the advantage of disseminating distrust among malefactors, and rendering them suspected and formidable to one another, and the causing them without ceasing to dread in their accomplices so many accusers. This can only tend to make the wicked cowards, and everything which renders them less daring is useful.''

``The delicacy of the author exhibits a noble and generous heart: but human morality, of which laws form the basis, is directed to the maintenance of public order, and cannot admit among the number of its virtues the fidelity of malefactors among themselves, that they may disturb that order, and violate the laws with greater security. In open war, deserters are received: with greater reason ought they to be received in a war carried on amidst silence and darkness, and whose operations consist of snares and treachery.''