2 INTEODUCTIOK. siond of a Penal Code are only some of the means of compassing' the ends of substantive laws, which are the laws that define civil rights and duties. The . rights, duties, and powers which these laws create are secured by the penal law^ which may be regarded as a part of the subsidiary law for causicgf the principal laws to be observed and executed. Some acts in breach of these principal laws are thought fit, on account of the mischievous consequences they have a natural tendency to produce^ to be constituted crimes or ofiences ; and to pat a stop to such consequences, there is annexed to every sach act a certain artificial consequence consisting of punishment to be infiicted on the doer. A Penal Code, that is a Code of oflTences and punishments, is then an auxiliary to the other departments of the law. H many important questions concerning rights and duties are undetermined by the Civil law, it must often be doubtful whether the provisions of the Penal law do or do not apply to a particular case : we cannot know correctly if any given act is to be accounted an ofience under the latter, while it is uncer- tain what recognition the Civil law gives to the right which has been infringed. A Penal Code therefore necessarily partakes of the vagueness and uncertainty of the rest of the law. It cannot be clear and explicit while the substantive Civil law and the law of procedure are dark and confused. While the rights of individuals and the powers of public func- tionaries are uncertain, it cannot always be certain whether those rights have been attacked or tho<le powers exceeded. But if a Code of ofiences and punishments is necessarily im- perfect while other parts of a system of law are so, its defects may, in some degree, be removed by the mode in which the defi- nitions of ofiences are framed. Seeing that this portion of adjec- tive law should have regard rather to the motives and intentions of men's acts than to their strict conformity to law or to any loss or damage wrongfully caused by them, it may be possible to define an offence in such a way as to avoid nice distinctions
