ABSTRACT
Chapter 8. The same arguments that are customarily produced by the adversaries to defend torture are answered. The argument from the requirement of Roman law.
Therewith we have concluded the arguments against torture. Now we shall also elucidate those which tend to be produced in its defense. The first argument in defense of torture is its longstanding use and its deep-rooted usage by so many people. For even before the foundations of the city of Rome, this practice, in truth, had already come into use among the Athenians and the Rhodians (from whom the Romans have acquired not a small part of their laws.) But because long usage should have no less force than the law itself, they stubbornly insist that torture, on account of its great antiquity, gains strength from the agreement of all people and must necessarily be treated as a law in the state. But who does not see the weakness of this argument based on antiquity? I do not deny that custom must be protected by the authority of the law. But neither age alone nor the frequency of practices nor even the agreement of many peoples is sufficient to designate anything at all as a genuine custom and attain the force of law, because a large number of errors does not remove or correct the disgrace of error, nor do the defenders of many bad causes make them just.
