Again, if we compare crimes by the mischief of their effects; first, the same fact, when it redounds to the damage of many, is greater than when it redounds to the hurt of few; and therefore, when a fact hurteth, not only in the present, but also, by example, in the future, it is a greater crime than if it hurt only in the present: for the former is a fertile crime, and multiplies to the hurt of many; the latter is barren. To maintain doctrines contrary to the religion established in the commonwealth, is a greater fault in an authorized preacher than in a private person; so also is it to live profanely, incontinently, or do any irreligious act whatsoever. Likewise in a professor of the law, to maintain any point, or do any act that tendeth to the weakening of the sovereign power, is a greater crime than in another man. Also in a man that hath such reputation for wisdom as that his counsels are followed or his actions imitated by many, his fact against the law is a greater crime than the same fact in another: for such men not only commit crime, but teach it for law to all other men. And generally all crimes are the greater by the scandal they give: that is to say, by becoming stumbling-blocks to the weak, that look not so much upon the way they go in, as upon the light that other men carry before them.