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In Chapter XXX of Des Délits et des peines, Beccaria broaches the issue of judiciary time: not only that of penal procedure but also that of the prescription of crime. In order to fight against arbitrariness, he puts forward a mathematical model which may serve as a standard to determine these durations by law. This analysis leads him, nevertheless, to a qualitative (but not quantitative) leap between two types of offenses: the damage to property and the damage to persons. Anthropology then takes over from arithmetics when it comes to justifying this solution of continuity between the right to live (which relates to natural rights) and the right to property (which relates to societal rights).