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Jon Roland

Based on an public domain edition published in 1914 by G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., London
Translated by Thomas Nugent, revised by J. V. Prichard

The Spirit of Laws (abridged) by Charles de Montesquieu Published: 1748 Abridged and formatted by Neil Jumonville, 2006

PREFACE

IF amidst the infinite number of subjects contained in this book there

is anything which, contrary to my expectation, may possibly offend, I

can at least assure the public that it was not inserted with an ill

intention: for I am not naturally of a captious temper. Plato thanked

the gods that he was born in the same age with Socrates: and for my part

I give thanks to the Supreme that I was born a subject of that

government under which I live; and that it is His pleasure I should obey

those whom He has made me love.

I beg one favour of my readers, which I fear will not be granted me;

this is, that they will not judge by a few hours' reading of the labour

of twenty years; that they will approve or condemn the book entire, and

not a few particular phrases. If they would search into the design of

the author, they can do it in no other way so completely as by searching

into the design of the work.

I have first of all considered mankind; and the result of my thoughts

has been, that amidst such an infinite diversity of laws and manners,

they were not solely conducted by the caprice of fancy.

I have laid down the first principles, and have found that the

particular cases follow naturally from them; that the histories of all

nations are only consequences of them; and that every particular law is

connected with another law, or depends on some other of a more general

extent.

When I have been obliged to look back into antiquity, I have endeavoured

to assume the spirit of the ancients, lest I should consider those

things as alike which are really different; and lest I should miss the

difference of those which appear to be alike.

I have not drawn my principles from my prejudices, but from the nature

of things.

Here a great many truths will not appear till we have seen the chain

which connects them with others. The more we enter into particulars, the

more we shall perceive the certainty of the principles on which they are

founded. I have not even given all these particulars, for who could

mention them all without a most insupportable fatigue?

The reader will not here meet with any of those bold flights which seem

to characterise the works of the present age. When things are examined

with never so small a degree of extent, the sallies of imagination must

vanish; these generally arise from the mind's collecting all its powers

to view only one side of the subject, while it leaves the other

unobserved.

I write not to censure anything established in any country whatsoever.

Every nation will here find the reasons on which its maxims are founded;

and this will be the natural inference, that to propose alterations

belongs only to those who are so happy as to be born with a genius

capable of penetrating the entire constitution of a state.

It is not a matter of indifference that the minds of the people be

enlightened. The prejudices of magistrates have arisen from national

prejudice. In a time of ignorance they have committed even the greatest

evils without the least scruple; but in an enlightened age they even

tremble while conferring the greatest blessings. They perceive the

ancient abuses; they see how they must be reformed; but they are

sensible also of the abuses of a reformation. They let the evil

continue, if they fear a worse; they are content with a lesser good, if

they doubt a greater. They examine into the parts, to judge of them in

connection; and they examine all the causes, to discover their different

effects.

Could I but succeed so as to afford new reasons to every man to love his

prince, his country, his laws; new reasons to render him more sensible

in every nation and government of the blessings he enjoys, I should

think myself the most happy of mortals.

Could I but succeed so as to persuade those who command, to increase

their knowledge in what they ought to prescribe; and those who obey, to

find a new pleasure resulting from obedience -- I should think myself

the most happy of mortals.

The most happy of mortals should I think myself could I contribute to

make mankind recover from their prejudices. By prejudices I here mean,

not that which renders men ignorant of some particular things, but

whatever renders them ignorant of themselves.

It is in endeavouring to instruct mankind that we are best able to

practise that general virtue which comprehends the love of all. Man,

that flexible being, conforming in society to the thoughts and

impressions of others, is equally capable of knowing his own nature,

whenever it is laid open to his view; and of losing the very sense of

it, when this idea is banished from his mind.

Often have I begun, and as often have I laid aside, this undertaking. I

have a thousand times given the leaves I had written to the winds: I,

every day, felt my paternal hands fall. I have followed my object

without any fixed plan: I have known neither rules nor exceptions; I

have found the truth, only to lose it again. But when I once discovered

my first principles, everything I sought for appeared; and in the course

of twenty years, I have seen my work begun, growing up, advancing to

maturity, and finished.

If this work meets with success, I shall owe it chiefly to the grandeur

and majesty of the subject. However, I do not think that I have been

totally deficient in point of genius. When I have seen what so many

great men both in France, England, and Germany have said before me, I

have been lost in admiration; but I have not lost my courage: I have

said with Correggio, "And I also am a painter."

ADVERTISEMENT

1. For the better understanding of the first four books of this work, it

is to be observed that what I distinguish by the name of virtue, in a

republic, is the love of one's country, that is, the love of equality.

It is not a moral, nor a Christian, but a political virtue; and it is

the spring which sets the republican government in motion, as honour is

the spring which gives motion to monarchy. Hence it is that I have

distinguished the love of one's country, and of equality, by the

appellation of political virtue. My ideas are new, and therefore I have

been obliged to find new words, or to give new acceptations to old

terms, in order to convey my meaning. They, who are unacquainted with

this particular, have made me say most strange absurdities, such as

would be shocking in any part of the world, because in all countries and

governments morality is requisite.

2. The reader is also to notice that there is a vast difference between

saying that a certain quality, modification of the mind, or virtue, is

not the spring by which government is actuated, and affirming that it is

not to be found in that government. Were I to say such a wheel or such a

pinion is not the spring which sets the watch going, can you infer

thence that they are not to be found in the watch? So far is it from

being true that the moral and Christian virtues are excluded from

monarchy, that even political virtue is not excluded. In a word, honour

is found in a republic, though its spring be political virtue; and

political virtue is found in a monarchical government, though it be

actuated by honour.

To conclude, the honest man of whom we treat in the third book, chapter

5, is not the Christian, but the political honest man, who is possessed

of the political virtue there mentioned. He is the man who loves the

laws of his country, and who is actuated by the love of those laws. I

have set these matters in a clearer light in the present edition, by

giving a more precise meaning to my expression: and in most places where

I have made use of the word virtue I have taken care to add the term

political.

Book I. Of Laws in General

1. Of the Relation of Laws to different Beings. Laws, in their most

general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the

nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity[1]

His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man

their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.

They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we

behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more

unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive

of intelligent beings?

There is, then, a prime reason; and laws are the relations subsisting

between it and different beings, and the relations of these to one

another.

God is related to the universe, as Creator and Preserver; the laws by

which He created all things are those by which He preserves them. He

acts according to these rules, because He knows them; He knows them,

because He made them; and He made them, because they are in relation to

His wisdom and power.

Since we observe that the world, though formed by the motion of matter,

and void of understanding, subsists through so long a succession of

ages, its motions must certainly be directed by invariable laws; and

could we imagine another world, it must also have constant rules, or it

would inevitably perish.

Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as

invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd

to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules,

since without them it could not subsist.

These rules are a fixed and invariable relation. In bodies moved, the

motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the

relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is

uniformity, each change is constancy.

Particular intelligent beings may have laws of their own making, but

they have some likewise which they never made. Before there were

intelligent beings, they were possible; they had therefore possible

relations, and consequently possible laws. Before laws were made, there

were relations of possible justice. To say that there is nothing just or

unjust but what is commanded or forbidden by positive laws, is the same

as saying that before the describing of a circle all the radii were not

equal.

We must therefore acknowledge relations of justice antecedent to the

positive law by which they are established: as, for instance, if human

societies existed, it would be right to conform to their laws; if there

were intelligent beings that had received a benefit of another being,

they ought to show their gratitude; if one intelligent being had created

another intelligent being, the latter ought to continue in its original

state of dependence; if one intelligent being injures another, it

deserves a retaliation; and so on.

But the intelligent world is far from being so well governed as the

physical. For though the former has also its laws, which of their own

nature are invariable, it does not conform to them so exactly as the

physical world. This is because, on the one hand, particular intelligent

beings are of a finite nature, and consequently liable to error; and on

the other, their nature requires them to be free agents. Hence they do

not steadily conform to their primitive laws; and even those of their

own instituting they frequently infringe.

Whether brutes be governed by the general laws of motion, or by a

particular movement, we cannot determine. Be that as it may, they have

not a more intimate relation to God than the rest of the material world;

and sensation is of no other use to them than in the relation they have

either to other particular beings or to themselves.

By the allurement of pleasure they preserve the individual, and by the

same allurement they preserve their species. They have natural laws,

because they are united by sensation; positive laws they have none,

because they are not connected by knowledge. And yet they do not

invariably conform to their natural laws; these are better observed by

vegetables, that have neither understanding nor sense.

Brutes are deprived of the high advantages which we have; but they have

some which we have not. They have not our hopes, but they are without

our fears; they are subject like us to death, but without knowing it;

even most of them are more attentive than we to self-preservation, and

do not make so bad a use of their passions.

Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable

laws. As an intelligent being, he incessantly transgresses the laws

established by God, and changes those of his own instituting. He is left

to his private direction, though a limited being, and subject, like all

finite intelligences, to ignorance and error: even his imperfect

knowledge he loses; and as a sensible creature, he is hurried away by a

thousand impetuous passions. Such a being might every instant forget his

Creator; God has therefore reminded him of his duty by the laws of

religion. Such a being is liable every moment to forget himself;

philosophy has provided against this by the laws of morality. Formed to

live in society, he might forget his fellow-creatures; legislators have

therefore by political and civil laws confined him to his duty.

2. Of the Laws of Nature. Antecedent to the above-mentioned laws are

those of nature, so called, because they derive their force entirely

from our frame and existence. In order to have a perfect knowledge of

these laws, we must consider man before the establishment of society:

the laws received in such a state would be those of nature.

The law which, impressing on our minds the idea of a Creator, inclines

us towards Him, is the first in importance, though not in order, of

natural laws. Man in a state of nature would have the faculty of

knowing, before he had acquired any knowledge. Plain it is that his

first ideas would not be of a speculative nature; he would think of the

preservation of his being, before he would investigate its origin. Such

a man would feel nothing in himself at first but impotency and weakness;

his fears and apprehensions would be excessive; as appears from

instances (were there any necessity of proving it) of savages found in

forests,[2] trembling at the motion of a leaf, and flying from every

shadow.

In this state every man, instead of being sensible of his equality,

would fancy himself inferior. There would therefore be no danger of

their attacking one another; peace would be the first law of nature.

The natural impulse or desire which Hobbes attributes to mankind of

subduing one another is far from being well founded. The idea of empire

and dominion is so complex, and depends on so many other notions, that

it could never be the first which occurred to the human understanding.

Hobbes[3] inquires, "For what reason go men armed, and have locks and

keys to fasten their doors, if they be not naturally in a state of war?"

But is it not obvious that he attributes to mankind before the

establishment of society what can happen but in consequence of this

establishment, which furnishes them with motives for hostile attacks and

self-defence?

Next to a sense of his weakness man would soon find that of his wants.

Hence another law of nature would prompt him to seek for nourishment.

Fear, I have observed, would induce men to shun one another; but the

marks of this fear being reciprocal, would soon engage them to

associate. Besides, this association would quickly follow from. the very

pleasure one animal feels at the approach of another of the same

species. Again, the attraction arising from the difference of sexes

would enhance this pleasure, and the natural inclination they have for

each other would form a third law.

Beside the sense or instinct which man possesses in common with brutes,

he has the advantage of acquired knowledge; and thence arises a second

tie, which brutes have not. Mankind have therefore a new motive of

uniting; and a fourth law of nature results from the desire of living in

society.

3. Of Positive Laws. As soon as man enters into a state of society he

loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the

state of war.

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a

state of war between different nations. The individuals likewise of each

society become sensible of their force; hence the principal advantages

of this society they endeavour to convert to their own emolument, which

constitutes a state of war between individuals.

These two different kinds of states give rise to human laws. Considered

as inhabitants of so great a planet, which necessarily contains a

variety of nations, they have laws relating to their mutual intercourse,

which is what we call the law of nations. As members of a society that

must be properly supported, they have laws relating to the governors and

the governed, and this we distinguish by the name of politic law. They

have also another sort of law, as they stand in relation to each other;

by which is understood the civil law.

The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that

different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good

they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without

prejudicing their real interests.

The object of war is victory; that of victory is conquest; and that of

conquest preservation. From this and the preceding principle all those

rules are derived which constitute the law of nations.

All countries have a law of nations, not excepting the Iroquois

themselves, though they devour their prisoners: for they send and

receive ambassadors, and understand the rights of war and peace. The

mischief is that their law of nations is not founded on true principles.

Besides the law of nations relating to all societies, there is a polity

or civil constitution for each particularly considered. No society can

subsist without a form of government. "The united strength of

individuals," as Gravina[4] well observes, "constitutes what we call the

body politic."

The general strength may be in the hands of a single person, or of many.

Some think that nature having established paternal authority, the most

natural government was that of a single person. But the example of

paternal authority proves nothing. For if the power of a father relates

to a single government, that of brothers after the death of a father,

and that of cousins-german after the decease of brothers, refer to a

government of many. The political power necessarily comprehends the

union of several families.

Better is it to say, that the government most conformable to nature is

that which best agrees with the humour and disposition of the people in

whose favour it is established.

The strength of individuals cannot be united without a conjunction of

all their wills. "The conjunction of those wills," as Gravina again very

justly observes, "is what we call the civil state."

Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the

inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation

ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.

They should be adapted in such a manner to the people for whom they are

framed that it should be a great chance if those of one nation suit

another.

They should be in relation to the nature and principle of each

government; whether they form it, as may be said of politic laws; or

whether they support it, as in the case of civil institutions.

They should be in relation to the climate of each country, to the

quality of its soil, to its situation and extent, to the principal

occupation of the natives, whether husbandmen, huntsmen, or shepherds:

they should have relation to the degree of liberty which the

constitution will bear; to the religion of the inhabitants, to their

inclinations, riches, numbers, commerce, manners, and customs. In fine,

they have relations to each other, as also to their origin, to the

intent of the legislator, and to the order of things on which they are

established; in all of which different lights they ought to be

considered.

This is what I have undertaken to perform in the following work. These

relations I shall examine, since all these together constitute what I

call the Spirit of Laws.

I have not separated the political from the civil institutions, as I do

not pretend to treat of laws, but of their spirit; and as this spirit

consists in the various relations which the laws may bear to different

objects, it is not so much my business to follow the natural order of

laws as that of these relations and objects.

I shall first examine the relations which laws bear to the nature and

principle of each government; and as this principle has a strong

influence on laws, I shall make it my study to understand it thoroughly:

and if I can but once establish it, the laws will soon appear to flow

thence as from their source. I shall proceed afterwards to other and

more particular relations.

______

1. "Law," says Plutarch, "is the king of mortal and immortal beings."

See his treatise, A Discourse to an Unlearned Prince.

2. Witness the savage found in the forests of Hanover, who was carried

over to England during the reign of George I.

3. In pref., De cive.

4. Italian poet and jurist, 1664-1718.

Book II. Of Laws Directly Derived from the Nature of Government

1. Of the Nature of the three different Governments. There are three

species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic. In order

to discover their nature, it is sufficient to recollect the common

notion, which supposes three definitions, or rather three facts: that a

republican government is that in which the body, or only a part of the

people, is possessed of the supreme power; monarchy, that in which a

single person governs by fixed and established laws; a despotic

government, that in which a single person directs everything by his own

will and caprice.

This is what I call the nature of each government; we must now inquire

into those laws which directly conform to this nature, and consequently

are the fundamental institutions.

2. Of the Republican Government, and the Laws in relation to

Democracy.[1] When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme

power, it is called a democracy. When the supreme power is lodged in the

hands of a part of the people, it is then an aristocracy.

In a democracy the people are in some respects the sovereign, and in

others the subject.

There can be no exercise of sovereignty but by their suffrages, which

are their own will; now the sovereign's will is the sovereign himself.

The laws therefore which establish the right of suffrage are fundamental

to this government. And indeed it is as important to regulate in a

republic, in what manner, by whom, to whom, and concerning what,

suffrages are to be given, as it is in a monarchy to know who is the

prince, and after what manner he ought to govern.

Libanius[2] says that at Athens a stranger who intermeddled in the

assemblies of the people was punished with death. This is because such a

man usurped the rights of sovereignty.

It is an essential point to fix the number of citizens who are to form

the public assemblies; otherwise it would be uncertain whether the

whole, or only a part of the people, had given their votes. At Sparta

the number was fixed at ten thousand. But Rome, designed by Providence

to rise from the weakest beginnings to the highest pitch of grandeur;

Rome, doomed to experience all the vicissitudes of fortune; Rome, who

had sometimes all her inhabitants without her walls, and sometimes all

Italy and a considerable part of the world within them; Rome, I say,

never fixed the number[3] and this was one of the principal causes of

her ruin.

The people, in whom the supreme power resides, ought to have the

management of everything within their reach: that which exceeds their

abilities must be conducted by their ministers.

But they cannot properly be said to have their ministers, without the

power of nominating them: it is, therefore, a fundamental maxim in this

government, that the people should choose their ministers -- that is,

their magistrates.

They have occasion, as well as monarchs, and even more so, to be

directed by a council or senate. But to have a proper confidence in

these, they should have the choosing of the members; whether the

election be made by themselves, as at Athens, or by some magistrate

deputed for that purpose, as on certain occasions was customary at Rome.

The people are extremely well qualified for choosing those whom they are

to entrust with part of their authority. They have only to be determined

by things to which they cannot be strangers, and by facts that are

obvious to sense. They can tell when a person has fought many battles,

and been crowned with success; they are, therefore, capable of electing

a general. They can tell when a judge is assiduous in his office, gives

general satisfaction, and has never been charged with bribery: this is

sufficient for choosing a prætor. They are struck with the magnificence

or riches of a fellow-citizen; no more is requisite for electing an

edile. These are facts of which they can have better information in a

public forum than a monarch in his palace. But are they capable of

conducting an intricate affair, of seizing and improving the opportunity

and critical moment of action? No; this surpasses their abilities.

Should we doubt the people's natural capacity, in respect to the

discernment of merit, we need only cast an eye on the series of

surprising elections made by the Athenians and Romans; which no one

surely will attribute to hazard.

We know that though the people of Rome assumed the right of raising

plebeians to public offices, yet they never would exert this power; and

though at Athens the magistrates were allowed, by the law of Aristides,

to be elected from all the different classes of inhabitants, there never

was a case, says Xenophon,[4] when the common people petitioned for

employments which could endanger either their security or their glory.

As most citizens have sufficient ability to choose, though unqualified

to be chosen, so the people, though capable of calling others to an

account for their administration, are incapable of conducting the

administration themselves.

The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither

too quick nor too slow. But the motion of the people is always either

too remiss or too violent. Sometimes with a hundred thousand arms they

overturn all before them; and sometimes with a hundred thousand feet

they creep like insects.

In a popular state the inhabitants are divided into certain classes. It

is in the manner of making this division that great legislators have

signalised themselves; and it is on this the duration and prosperity of

democracy have ever depended.

Servius Tullius followed the spirit of aristocracy in the distribution

of his classes. We find in Livy[5] and in Dionysius Halicarnassus,[6] in

what manner he lodged the right of suffrage in the hands of the

principal citizens. He had divided the people of Rome into 193

centuries, which formed six classes; and ranking the rich, who were in

smaller numbers, in the first centuries, and those in middling

circumstances, who were more numerous, in the next, he flung the

indigent multitude into the last; and as each century had but one

vote[7] it was property rather than numbers that decided the election.

Solon divided the people of Athens into four classes. In this he was

directed by the spirit of democracy, his intention not being to fix

those who were to choose, but such as were eligible: therefore, leaving

to every citizen the right of election, he made[8] the judges eligible

from each of those four classes; but the magistrates he ordered to be

chosen only out of the first three, consisting of persons of easy

fortunes.[9]

As the division of those who have a right of suffrage is a fundamental

law in republics, so the manner of giving this suffrage is another

fundamental.

The suffrage by lot is natural to democracy; as that by choice is to

aristocracy.[10]

The suffrage by lot is a method of electing that offends no one, but

animates each citizen with the pleasing hope of serving his country.

Yet as this method is in itself defective, it has been the endeavour of

the most eminent legislators to regulate and amend it.

Solon made a law at Athens that military employments should be conferred

by choice; but that senators and judges should be elected by lot.

The same legislator ordained that civil magistracies, attended with

great expense, should be given by choice; and the others by lot.

In order, however, to amend the suffrage by lot, he made a rule that

none but those who presented themselves should be elected; that the

person elected should be examined by judges[11] and that every one

should have a right to accuse him if he were unworthy of the office:[12]

this participated at the same time of the suffrage by lot, and of that

by choice. When the time of their magistracy had expired, they were

obliged to submit to another judgment in regard to their conduct.

Persons utterly unqualified must have been extremely backward in giving

in their names to be drawn by lot.

The law which determines the manner of giving suffrage is likewise

fundamental in a democracy. It is a question of some importance whether

the suffrages ought to be public or secret. Cicero observes[13] that the

laws[14] which rendered them secret towards the close of the republic

were the cause of its decline. But as this is differently practised in

different republics, I shall offer here my thoughts concerning this

subject.

The people's suffrages ought doubtless to be public[15] and this should

be considered as a fundamental law of democracy. The lower class ought

to be directed by those of higher rank, and restrained within bounds by

the gravity of eminent personages. Hence, by rendering the suffrages

secret in the Roman republic, all was lost; it was no longer possible to

direct a populace that sought its own destruction. But when the body of

the nobles are to vote in an aristocracy[16] or in a democracy the

senate[17] as the business is then only to prevent intrigues, the

suffrages cannot be too secret.

Intriguing in a senate is dangerous; it is dangerous also in a body of

nobles; but not so among the people, whose nature is to act through

passion. In countries where they have no share in the government, we

often see them as much inflamed on account of an actor as ever they

could be for the welfare of the state. The misfortune of a republic is

when intrigues are at an end; which happens when the people are gained

by bribery and corruption: in this case they grow indifferent to public

affairs, and avarice becomes their predominant passion. Unconcerned

about the government and everything belonging to it, they quietly wait

for their hire.

It is likewise a fundamental law in democracies, that the people should

have the sole power to enact laws. And yet there are a thousand

occasions on which it is necessary the senate should have the power of

decreeing; nay, it is frequently proper to make some trial of a law

before it is established. The constitutions of Rome and Athens were

excellent. The decrees of the senate[18] had the force of laws for the

space of a year, but did not become perpetual till they were ratified by

the consent of the people.

3. Of the Laws in relation to the Nature of Aristocracy. In an

aristocracy the supreme power is lodged in the hands of a certain number

of persons. These are invested both with the legislative and executive

authority; and the rest of the people are, in respect to them, the same

as the subjects of a monarchy in regard to the sovereign.

They do not vote here by lot, for this would be productive of

inconveniences only. And indeed, in a government where the most

mortifying distinctions are already established, though they were to be

chosen by lot, still they would not cease to be odious; it is the

nobleman they envy, and not the magistrate.

When the nobility are numerous, there must be a senate to regulate the

affairs which the body of the nobles are incapable of deciding, and to

prepare others for their decision. In this case it may be said that the

aristocracy is in some measure in the senate, the democracy in the body

of the nobles, and the people are a cipher.

It would be a very happy thing in an aristocracy if the people, in some

measure, could be raised from their state of annihilation. Thus at

Genoa, the bank of St. George being administered by the people[19] gives

them a certain influence in the government, whence their whole

prosperity is derived.

The senators ought by no means to have the right of naming their own

members; for this would be the only way to perpetuate abuses. At Rome,

which in its early years was a kind of aristocracy, the senate did not

fill up the vacant places in their own body; the new members were

nominated by the censors.[20]

In a republic, the sudden rise of a private citizen to exorbitant power

produces monarchy, or something more than monarchy. In the latter the

laws have provided for, or in some measure adapted themselves to, the

constitution; and the principle of government checks the monarch: but in

a republic, where a private citizen has obtained an exorbitant

power,[21] the abuse of this power is much greater, because the laws

foresaw it not, and consequently made no provision against it.

There is an exception to this rule, when the constitution is such as to

have immediate need of a magistrate invested with extraordinary power.

Such was Rome with her dictators, such is Venice with her state

inquisitors; these are formidable magistrates, who restore, as it were

by violence, the state to its liberty. But how comes it that these

magistracies are so very different in these two republics? It is because

Rome supported the remains of her aristocracy against the people;

whereas Venice employs her state inquisitors to maintain her aristocracy

against the nobles. The consequence was that at Rome the dictatorship

could be only of short duration, as the people acted through passion and

not with design. It was necessary that a magistracy of this kind should

be exercised with lustre and pomp, the business being to intimidate, and

not to punish, the multitude. It was also proper that the dictator

should be created only for some particular affair, and for this only

should have an unlimited authority, as he was always created upon some

sudden emergency. On the contrary, at Venice they have occasion for a

permanent magistracy; for here it is that schemes may be set on foot,

continued, suspended, and resumed; that the ambition of a single person

becomes that of a family, and the ambition of one family that of many.

They have occasion for a secret magistracy, the crimes they punish being

hatched in secrecy and silence. This magistracy must have a general

inquisition, for their business is not to remedy known disorders, but to

prevent the unknown. In a word, the latter is designed to punish

suspected crimes; whereas the former used rather menaces than punishment

even for crimes that were openly avowed.

In all magistracies, the greatness of the power must be compensated by

the brevity of the duration. This most legislators have fixed to a year;

a longer space would be dangerous, and a shorter would be contrary to

the nature of government. For who is it that in the management even of

his domestic affairs would be thus confined? At Ragusa[22] the chief

magistrate of the republic is changed every month, the other officers

every week, and the governor of the castle every day. But this can take

place only in a small republic environed[23] by formidable powers, who

might easily corrupt such petty and insignificant magistrates.

The best aristocracy is that in which those who have no share in the

legislature are so few and inconsiderable that the governing party have

no interest in oppressing them. Thus when[24] Antipater made a law at

Athens that whosoever was not worth two thousand drachms should have no

power to vote, he formed by this method the best aristocracy possible;

because this was so small a sum as to exclude very few, and not one of

any rank or consideration in the city.

Aristocratic families ought therefore, as much as possible, to level

themselves in appearance with the people. The more an aristocracy

borders on democracy, the nearer it approaches perfection: and, in

proportion as it draws towards monarchy, the more is it imperfect.

But the most imperfect of all is that in which the part of the people

that obeys is in a state of civil servitude to those who command, as the

aristocracy of Poland, where the peasants are slaves to the nobility.

4. Of the Relation of Laws to the Nature of Monarchical Government. The

intermediate, subordinate, and dependent powers constitute the nature of

monarchical government; I mean of that in which a single person governs

by fundamental laws. I said the intermediate, subordinate, and dependent

powers. And indeed, in monarchies the prince is the source of all power,

political and civil. These fundamental laws necessarily suppose the

intermediate channels through which the power flows: for if there be

only the momentary and capricious will of a single person to govern the

state, nothing can be fixed, and of course there is no fundamental law.

The most natural, intermediate, and subordinate power is that of the

nobility. This in some measure seems to be essential to a monarchy,

whose fundamental maxim is: no monarch, no nobility; no nobility, no

monarch; but there may be a despotic prince.

There are men who have endeavoured in some countries in Europe to

suppress the jurisdiction of the nobility, not perceiving that they were

driving at the very thing that was done by the parliament of England.

Abolish the privileges of the lords, the clergy and cities in a

monarchy, and you will soon have a popular state, or else a despotic

government.

The courts of a considerable kingdom in Europe have, for many ages, been

striking at the patrimonial jurisdiction of the lords and clergy. We do

not pretend to censure these sage magistrates; but we leave it to the

public to judge how far this may alter the constitution. Far am I from

being prejudiced in favour of the privileges of the clergy; however, I

should be glad if their jurisdiction were once fixed. The question is

not whether their jurisdiction was justly established; but whether it be

really established; whether it constitutes a part of the laws of the

country, and is in every respect in relation to those laws: whether

between two powers acknowledged independent, the conditions ought not to

be reciprocal; and whether it be not equally the duty of a good subject

to defend the prerogative of the prince, and to maintain the limits

which from time immemorial have been prescribed to his authority.

Though the ecclesiastic power be so dangerous in a republic, yet it is

extremely proper in a monarchy, especially of the absolute kind. What

would become of Spain and Portugal, since the subversion of their laws,

were it not for this only barrier against the incursions of arbitrary

power? A barrier ever useful when there is no other: for since a

despotic government is productive of the most dreadful calamities to

human nature, the very evil that restrains it is beneficial to the

subject.

In the same manner as the ocean, threatening to overflow the whole

earth, is stopped by weeds and pebbles that lie scattered along the

shore, so monarchs, whose power seems unbounded, are restrained by the

smallest obstacles, and suffer their natural pride to be subdued by

supplication and prayer.

The English, to favour their liberty, have abolished all the

intermediate powers of which their monarchy was composed. They have a

great deal of reason to be jealous of this liberty; were they ever to be

so unhappy as to lose it, they would be one of the most servile nations

upon earth.

Mr. Law, through ignorance both of a republican and monarchical

constitution, was one of the greatest promoters of absolute power ever

known in Europe. Besides the violent and extraordinary changes owing to

his direction, he would fain suppress all the intermediate ranks, and

abolish the political communities. He was dissolving[25] the monarchy by

his chimerical reimbursements, and seemed as if he even wanted to redeem

the constitution.

It is not enough to have intermediate powers in a monarchy; there must

be also a depositary of the laws. This depositary can only be the judges

of the supreme courts of justice, who promulgate the new laws, and

revive the obsolete. The natural ignorance of the nobility, their

indolence and contempt of civil government, require that there should be

a body invested with the power of reviving and executing the laws, which

would be otherwise buried in oblivion. The prince's council are not a

proper depositary. They are naturally the depositary of the momentary

will of the prince, and not of the fundamental laws. Besides, the

prince's council is continually changing; it is neither permanent nor

numerous; neither has it a sufficient share of the confidence of the

people; consequently it is capable of setting them right in difficult

conjunctures, or of reducing them to proper obedience.

Despotic governments, where there are no fundamental laws, have no such

kind of depositary. Hence it is that religion has generally so much

influence in those countries, because it forms a kind of permanent

depositary; and if this cannot be said of religion, it may of the

customs that are respected instead of laws.

5. Of the Laws in relation to the Nature of a despotic Government. From

the nature of despotic power it follows that the single person, invested

with this power, commits the execution of it also to a single person. A

man whom his senses continually inform that he himself is everything and

that his subjects are nothing, is naturally lazy, voluptuous, and

ignorant. In consequence of this, he neglects the management of public

affairs. But were he to commit the administration to many, there would

be continual disputes among them; each would form intrigues to be his

first slave; and he would be obliged to take the reins into his own

hands. It is, therefore, more natural for him to resign it to a

vizir,[26] and to invest him with the same power as himself. The

creation of a vizir is a fundamental law of this government.

It is related of a pope that he had started an infinite number of

difficulties against his election, from a thorough conviction of his

incapacity. At length he was prevailed on to accept of the pontificate,

and resigned the administration entirely to his nephew. He was soon

struck with surprise, and said, "I should never have thought that these

things were so easy." The same may be said of the princes of the East,

who, being educated in a prison where eunuchs corrupt their hearts and

debase their understandings, and where they are frequently kept ignorant

even of their high rank, when drawn forth in order to be placed on the

throne, are at first confounded: but as soon as they have chosen a

vizir, and abandoned themselves in their seraglio to the most brutal

passions; pursuing, in the midst of a prostituted court, every

capricious extravagance, they would never have dreamed that they could

find matters so easy.

The more extensive the empire, the larger the seraglio; and consequently

the more voluptuous the prince. Hence the more nations such a sovereign

has to rule, the less he attends to the cares of government; the more

important his affairs, the less he makes them the subject of his

deliberations.

______

1. Compare Aristotle, Politics, vi. 2.

2. Declamations, 17, 18.

3. See the Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decline of

the Romans, 9.

4. Pp. 691, 693, ed. Wechel, 1596.

5. Bk. i.

6. Bk. iv, art. 15 et seq.

7. See in the Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decline

of the Romans, 9, how this spirit of Servius Tullius was preserved in

the republic.

8. Dionysius Halicarnassus, Eulogium of Isocrates, ii, p. 97, ed.

Wechel. Pollux, viii. 10, art. 130.

9. See Aristotle's Politics, ii. 12.

10. Ibid, iv. 9.

11. See the oration of Demosthenes, De Falsa legat., and the oration

against Timarchus.

12. They used even to draw two tickets for each place, one which gave

the place, and the other which named the person who was to succeed, in

case the first was rejected.

13. De Leg., i, iii.

14. They were called leges tabulares; two tablets were presented to each

citizen, the first marked with an A, for Antique, or I forbid it; and

the other with an U and an R, for Uti rogas, or Be it as you desire.

15. At Athens the people used to lift up their hands.

16. As at Venice.

17. The thirty tyrants at Athens ordered the suffrages of the

Areopagites to be public, in order to manage them as they pleased. --

Lysias, Orat. contra Agorat. 8.

18. See Dionysius Halicarnassus, iv, ix.

19. See Mr. Addison, Travels to Italy, p. 16.

20. They were named at first by the consuls.

21. This is what ruined the republic of Rome. See Considerations on the

Causes of the Grandeur and Decline of the Romans, 14, 16.

22. Tournefort, Voyages.

23. At Lucca the magistrates are chosen only for two months.

24. Diodorus, xviii, p. 601, ed. Rhodoman.

25. Ferdinand, king of Aragon, made himself grand master of the orders,

and that alone changed the constitution.

26. The Eastern kings are never without vizirs, says Sir John Chardin.

Book III. Of the Principles of the Three Kinds of Government

1. Difference between the Nature and Principle of Government. Having

examined the laws in relation to the nature of each government, we must

investigate those which relate to its principle.

There is this difference between the nature and principle[1] of

government, that the former is that by which it is constituted, the

latter that by which it is made to act. One is its particular structure,

and the other the human passions which set it in motion.

Now, laws ought no less to relate to the principle than to the nature of

each government. We must, therefore, inquire into this principle, which

shall be the subject of this third book.

2. Of the Principle of different Governments. I have already observed

that it is the nature of a republican government that either the

collective body of the people, or particular families, should be

possessed of the supreme power; of a monarchy, that the prince should

have this power, but in the execution of it should be directed by

established laws; of a despotic government, that a single person should

rule according to his own will and caprice. This enables me to discover

their three principles; which are thence naturally derived. I shall

begin with a republican government, and in particular with that of

democracy.

3. Of the Principle of Democracy. There is no great share of probity

necessary to support a monarchical or despotic government. The force of

laws in one, and the prince's arm in the other, are sufficient to direct

and maintain the whole. But in a popular state, one spring more is

necessary, namely, virtue.

What I have here advanced is confirmed by the unanimous testimony of

historians, and is extremely agreeable to the nature of things. For it

is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the execution of the

laws generally thinks himself above them, there is less need of virtue

than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the

execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their

direction.

Clear is it also that a monarch who, through bad advice or indolence,

ceases to enforce the execution of the laws, may easily repair the evil;

he has only to follow other advice; or to shake off this indolence. But

when, in a popular government, there is a suspension of the laws, as

this can proceed only from the corruption of the republic, the state is

certainly undone.

A very droll spectacle it was in the last century to behold the impotent

efforts of the English towards the establishment of democracy. As they

who had a share in the direction of public affairs were void of virtue;

as their ambition was inffamed by the success of the most daring of

their members;[2] as the prevailing parties were successively animated

by the spirit of faction, the government was continually changing: the

people, amazed at so many revolutions, in vain attempted to erect a

commonwealth. At length, when the country had undergone the most violent

shocks, they were obliged to have recourse to the very government which

they had so wantonly proscribed.

When Sylla thought of restoring Rome to her liberty, this unhappy city

was incapable of receiving that blessing. She had only the feeble

remains of virtue, which were continually diminishing. Instead of being

roused from her lethargy by Cæsar, Tiberius, Caius Claudius, Nero, and

Domitian, she riveted every day her chains; if she struck some blows,

her aim was at the tyrant, not at the tyranny.

The politic Greeks, who lived under a popular government, knew no other

support than virtue. The modern inhabitants of that country are entirely

taken up with manufacture, commerce, finances, opulence, and luxury.

When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are

disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community. The

objects of their desires are changed; what they were fond of before has

become indifferent; they were free while under the restraint of laws,

but they would fain now be free to act against law; and as each citizen

is like a slave who has run away from his master, that which was a maxim

of equity he calls rigour; that which was a rule of action he styles

constraint; and to precaution he gives the name of fear. Frugality, and

not the thirst of gain, now passes for avarice. Formerly the wealth of

individuals constituted the public treasure; but now this has become the

patrimony of private persons. The members of the commonwealth riot on

the public spoils, and its strength is only the power of a few, and the

licence of many.

Athens was possessed of the same number of forces when she triumphed so

gloriously as when with such infamy she was enslaved. She had twenty

thousand citizens[3] when she defended the Greeks against the Persians,

when she contended for empire with Sparta, and invaded Sicily. She had

twenty thousand when Demetrius Phalereus numbered them[4] as slaves are

told by the head in a market-place. When Philip attempted to lord it

over Greece, and appeared at the gates of Athens[5] she had even then

lost nothing but time. We may see in Demosthenes how difficult it was to

awaken her; she dreaded Philip, not as the enemy of her liberty, but of

her pleasures.[6] This famous city, which had withstood so many defeats,

and having been so often destroyed had as often risen out of her ashes,

was overthrown at Chæronea, and at one blow deprived of all hopes of

resource. What does it avail her that Philip sends back her prisoners,

if he does not return her men? It was ever after as easy to triumph over

the forces of Athens as it had been difficult to subdue her virtue.

How was it possible for Carthage to maintain her ground? When Hannibal,

upon his being made prætor, endeavoured to hinder the magistrates from

plundering the republic, did not they complain of him to the Romans?

Wretches, who would fain be citizens without a city, and be beholden for

their riches to their very destroyers! Rome soon insisted upon having

three hundred of their principal citizens as hostages; she obliged them

next to surrender their arms and ships; and then she declared war.[7]

From the desperate efforts of this defenceless city, one may judge of

what she might have performed in her full vigour, and assisted by

virtue.

4. Of the Principle of Aristocracy. As virtue is necessary in a popular

government, it is requisite also in an aristocracy. True it is that in

the latter it is not so absolutely requisite.

The people, who in respect to the nobility are the same as the subjects

with regard to a monarch, are restrained by their laws. They have,

therefore, less occasion for virtue than the people in a democracy. But

how are the nobility to be restrained? They who are to execute the laws

against their colleagues will immediately perceive that they are acting

against themselves. Virtue is therefore necessary in this body, from the

very nature of the constitution.

An aristocratic government has an inherent vigour, unknown to democracy.

The nobles form a body, who by their prerogative, and for their own

particular interest, restrain the people; it is sufficient that there

are laws in being to see them executed.

But easy as it may be for the body of the nobles to restrain the people,

it is difficult to restrain themselves.[8] Such is the nature of this

constitution, that it seems to subject the very same persons to the

power of the laws, and at the same time to exempt them.

Now such a body as this can restrain itself only in two ways; either by

a very eminent virtue, which puts the nobility in some measure on a

level with the people, and may be the means of forming a great republic;

or by an inferior virtue, which puts them at least upon a level with one

another, and upon this their preservation depends.

Moderation is therefore the very soul of this government; a moderation,

I mean, founded on virtue, not that which proceeds from indolence and

pusillanimity.

5. That Virtue is not the Principle of a Monarchical Government. In

monarchies, policy effects great things with as little virtue as

possible. Thus in the nicest machines, art has reduced the number of

movements, springs, and wheels.

The state subsists independently of the love of our country, of the

thirst of true glory, of self-denial, of the sacrifice of our dearest

interests, and of all those heroic virtues which we admire in the

ancients, and to us are known only by tradition.

The laws supply here the place of those virtues; they are by no means

wanted, and the state dispenses with them: an action performed here in

secret is in some measure of no consequence.

Though all crimes be in their own nature public, yet there is a

distinction between crimes really public and those that are private,

which are so called because they are more injurious to individuals than

to the community.

Now in republics private crimes are more public, that is, they attack

the constitution more than they do individuals; and in monarchies,

public crimes are more private, that is, they are more prejudicial to

private people than to the constitution.

I beg that no one will be offended with what I have been saying; my

observations are founded on the unanimous testimony of historians. I am

not ignorant that virtuous princes are so very rare; but I venture to

affirm that in a monarchy it is extremely difficult for the people to be

virtuous.[9]

Let us compare what the historians of all ages have asserted concerning

the courts of monarchs; let us recollect the conversations and

sentiments of people of all countries, in respect to the wretched

character of courtiers, and we shall find that these are not airy

speculations, but truths confirmed by a sad and melancholy experience.

Ambition in idleness; meanness mixed with pride; a desire of riches

without industry; aversion to truth; flattery, perfidy, violation of

engagements, contempt of civil duties, fear of the prince's virtue, hope

from his weakness, but, above all, a perpetual ridicule cast upon

virtue, are, I think, the characteristics by which most courtiers in all

ages and countries have been constantly distinguished. Now, it is

exceedingly difficult for the leading men of the nation to be knaves,

and the inferior sort to be honest; for the former to be cheats, and the

latter to rest satisfied with being only dupes.

But if there should chance to be some unlucky honest man[10] among the

people. Cardinal Richelieu, in his political testament, seems to hint

that a prince should take care not to employ him.[11] So true is it that

virtue is not the spring of this government! It is not indeed excluded,

but it is not the spring of government.

6. In what Manner Virtue is supplied in a Monarchical Government. But it

is high time for me to have done with this subject, lest I should be

suspected of writing a satire against monarchical government. Far be it

from me; if monarchy wants one spring, it is provided with another.

Honour, that is, the prejudice of every person and rank, supplies the

place of the political virtue of which I have been speaking, and is

everywhere her representative: here it is capable of inspiring the most

glorious actions, and, joined with the force of laws, may lead us to the

end of government as well as virtue itself.

Hence, in well-regulated monarchies, they are almost all good subjects,

and very few good men; for to be a good man[12] a good intention is

necessary,[13] and we should love our country, not so much on our own

account, as out of regard to the community.

7. Of the Principle of Monarchy. A monarchical government supposes, as

we have already observed, pre-eminences and ranks, as likewise a noble

descent. Now since it is the nature of honour to aspire to preferments

and titles, it is properly placed in this government.

Ambition is pernicious in a republic. But in a monarchy it has some good

effects; it gives life to the government, and is attended with this

advantage, that it is in no way dangerous, because it may be continually

checked.

It is with this kind of government as with the system of the universe,

in which there is a power that constantly repels all bodies from the

centre, and a power of gravitation that attracts them to it. Honour sets

all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action

connects them; thus each individual advances the public good, while he

only thinks of promoting his own interest.

True it is that, philosophically speaking, it is a false honour which

moves all the parts of the government; but even this false honour is as

useful to the public as true honour could possibly be to private

persons.

Is it not very exacting to oblige men to perform the most difficult

actions, such as require an extraordinary exertion of fortitude and

resolution, without other recompense than that of glory and applause?

8. That Honour is not the Principle of Despotic Government. Honour is

far from being the principle of despotic government: mankind being here

all upon a level, no one person can prefer himself to another; and as on

the other hand they are all slaves, they can give themselves no sort of

preference.

Besides, as honour has its laws and rules, as it knows not how to

submit; as it depends in a great measure on a man's own caprice, and not

on that of another person; it can be found only in countries in which

the constitution is fixed, and where they are governed by settled laws.

How can despotism abide with honour? The one glories in the contempt of

life; and the other is founded on the power of taking it away. How can

honour, on the other hand, bear with despotism? The former has its fixed

rules, and peculiar caprices; but the latter is directed by no rule, and

its own caprices are subversive of all others.

Honour, therefore, a thing unknown in arbitrary governments, some of

which have not even a proper word to express it,[14] is the prevailing

principle in monarchies; here it gives life to the whole body politic,

to the laws, and even to the virtues themselves.

9. Of the Principle of Despotic Government. As virtue is necessary in a

republic, and in a monarchy honour, so fear is necessary in a despotic

government: with regard to virtue, there is no occasion for it, and

honour would be extremely dangerous.

Here the immense power of the prince devolves entirely upon those whom

he is pleased to entrust with the administration. Persons capable of

setting a value upon themselves would be likely to create disturbances.

Fear must therefore depress their spirits, and extinguish even the least

sense of ambition.

A moderate government may, whenever it pleases, and without the least

danger, relax its springs. It supports itself by the laws, and by its

own internal strength. But when a despotic prince ceases for one single

moment to uplift his arm, when he cannot instantly demolish those whom

he has entrusted with the first employments,[15] all is over: for as

fear, the spring of this government, no longer subsists, the people are

left without a protector.

It is probably in this sense the Cadis maintained that the Grand

Seignior was not obliged to keep his word or oath, when he limited

thereby his authority.[16]

It is necessary that the people should be judged by laws, and the great

men by the caprice of the prince, that the lives of the lowest subject

should be safe, and the pasha's head ever in danger. We cannot mention

these monstrous governments without horror. The Sophi of Persia,

dethroned in our days by Mahomet, the son of Miriveis, saw the

constitution subverted before this resolution, because he had been too

sparing of blood.[17]

History informs us that the horrid cruelties of Domitian struck such a

terror into the governors that the people recovered themselves a little

during his reign.[18] Thus a torrent overflows one side of a country,

and on the other leaves fields untouched, where the eye is refreshed by

the prospect of fine meadows.

10. Difference of Obedience in Moderate and Despotic Governments. In

despotic states, the nature of government requires the most passive

obedience; and when once the prince's will is made known, it ought

infallibly to produce its effect.

Here they have no limitations or restrictions, no mediums, terms,

equivalents, or remonstrances; no change to propose: man is a creature

that blindly submits to the absolute will of the sovereign.

In a country like this they are no more allowed to represent their

apprehensions of a future danger than to impute their miscarriage to the

capriciousness of fortune. Man's portion here, like that of beasts, is

instinct, compliance, and punishment.

Little does it then avail to plead the sentiments of nature, filial

respect, conjugal or parental tenderness, the laws of honour, or want of

health; the order is given, and, that is sufficient.

In Persia, when the king has condemned a person, it is no longer lawful

to mention his name, or to intercede in his favour. Even if the prince

were intoxicated, or non compos, the decree must be executed;[19]

otherwise he would contradict himself, and the law admits of no

contradiction. This has been the way of thinking in that country in all

ages; as the order which Ahasuerus gave, to exterminate the Jews, could

not be revoked, they were allowed the liberty of defending themselves.

One thing, however, may be sometimes opposed to the prince's will,[20]

namely, religion. They will abandon, nay they will slay a parent, if the

prince so commands; but he cannot oblige them to drink wine. The laws of

religion are of a superior nature, because they bind the sovereign as

well as the subject. But with respect to the law of nature, it is

otherwise; the prince is no longer supposed to be a man.

In monarchical and moderate states, the power is limited by its very

spring, I mean by honour, which, like a monarch, reigns over the prince

and his people. They will not allege to their sovereign the laws of

religion; a courtier would be apprehensive of rendering himself

ridiculous. But the laws of honour will be appealed to on all occasions.

Hence arise the restrictions necessary to obedience; honour is naturally

subject to whims, by which the subject's submission will be ever

directed.

Though the manner of obeying be different in these two kinds of

government, the power is the same. On which side soever the monarch

turns, he inclines the scale, and is obeyed. The whole difference is

that in a monarchy the prince receives instruction, at the same time

that his ministers have greater abilities, and are more versed in public

affairs, than the ministers of a despotic government.

11. Reflections on the preceding Chapters. Such are the principles of

the three sorts of government: which does not imply that in a particular

republic they actually are, but that they ought to be, virtuous; nor

does it prove that in a particular monarchy they are actuated by honour,

or in a particular despotic government by fear; but that they ought to

be directed by these principles, otherwise the government is imperfect.

---------

1. This is a very important distinction, whence I shall draw many

consequences; for it is the key of an infinite number of laws.

2. Cromwell.

3. Plutarch, Pericles; Plato, in Critias.

4. She had at that time twenty-one thousand citizens, ten thousand

strangers, and four hundred thousand slaves. See Athenæus, vi.

5. She had then twenty thousand citizens. See Demosthenes in Aristog.

6. They had passed a law, which rendered it a capital crime for any one

to propose applying the money designed for the theatres to military

7. This lasted three years.

8. Public crimes may be punished, because it is here a common concern;

but private crimes will go unpunished, because it is the common interest

not to punish them.

9. I speak here of political virtue, which is also moral virtue as it is

directed to the public good; very little of private moral virtue, and

not at all of that virtue which relates to revealed truths. This will

appear better in v. 2.

10. This is to be understood in the sense of the preceding note.

11. We must not, says he, employ people of mean extraction; they are too

rigid and morose. -- Testament Polit., 4.

12. This word good man is understood here in a political sense only.

13. See Footnote 1.

14. See Perry, p. 447.

15. As it often happens in a military aristocracy.

16. Ricaut on the Ottoman Empire. I, ii.

17. See the history of this revolution by Father du Cerceau.

18. Suetonius, Life of Domitian, viii. His was a military constitution,

which is one of the species of despotic government.

19. See Sir John Chardin.

20. Ibid.

Book IV. That the Laws of Education Ought to Be in Relation to the Principles of Government

1. Of the Laws of Education. The laws of education are the first

impressions we receive; and as they prepare us for civil life, every

private family ought to be governed by the plan of that great household

which comprehends them all.

If the people in general have a principle, their constituent parts, that

is, the several families, will have one also. The laws of education will

be therefore different in each species of government: in monarchies they

will have honour for their object; in republics, virtue; in despotic

governments, fear.

2. Of Education in Monarchies. In monarchies the principal branch of

education is not taught in colleges or academies. It commences, in some

measure, at our setting out in the world; for this is the school of what

we call honour, that universal preceptor which ought everywhere to be

our guide.

Here it is that we constantly hear three rules or maxims, viz., that we

should have a certain nobleness in our virtues, a kind of frankness in

our morals, and a particular politeness in our behaviour.

The virtues we are here taught are less what we owe to others than to

ourselves; they are not so much what draws us towards society, as what

distinguishes us from our fellow-citizens. Here the actions of men are

judged, not as virtuous, but as shining; not as just, but as great; not

as reasonable, but as extraordinary. When honour here meets with

anything noble in our actions, it is either a judge that approves them,

or sophist by whom they are excused.

It allows of gallantry when united with the idea of sensible affection,

or with that of conquest; this is the reason why we never meet with so

strict a purity of morals in monarchies as in republican governments.

It allows of cunning and craft, when joined with the notion of greatness

of soul or importance of affairs; as, for instance, in politics, with

finesses of which it is far from being offended.

It does not forbid adulation, save when separated from the idea of a

large fortune, and connected only with the sense of our mean condition.

With regard to morals, I have observed that the education of monarchies

ought to admit of a certain frankness and open carriage. Truth,

therefore, in conversation is here a necessary point. But is it for the

sake of truth? By no means. Truth is requisite only because a person

habituated to veracity has an air of boldness and freedom. And indeed a

man of this stamp seems to lay a stress only on the things themselves,

not on the manner in which they are received.

Hence it is that in proportion as this kind of frankness is commended,

that of the common people is despised, which has nothing but truth and

simplicity for its object.

In fine, the education of monarchies requires a certain politeness of

behaviour. Man, a sociable animal, is formed to please in society; and a

person that would break through the rules of decency, so as to shock

those he conversed with, would lose the public esteem, and become

incapable of doing any good.

But politeness, generally speaking, does not derive its origin from so

pure a source. It arises from a desire of distinguishing ourselves. It

is pride that renders us polite; we are flattered with being taken

notice of for behaviour that shows we are not of a mean condition, and

that we have not been bred with those who in all ages are considered the

scum of the people.

Politeness, in monarchies, is naturalised at court. One man excessively

great renders everybody else little. Hence that regard which is paid to

our fellow-subjects; hence that politeness, equally pleasing to those by

whom, as to those towards whom, it is practised, because it gives people

to understand that a person actually belongs, or at least deserves to

belong, to the court.

A courtly air consists in quitting a real for a borrowed greatness. The

latter pleases the courtier more than the former. It inspires him with a

certain disdainful modesty, which shows itself externally, but whose

pride insensibly diminishes in proportion to its distance from the

source of this greatness.

At court we find a delicacy of taste in everything -- a delicacy arising

from the constant use of the superfluities of life, from the variety,

and especially the satiety, of pleasures, from the multiplicity and even

confusion of fancies, which, if they are but agreeable, are sure of

being well received.

These are the things which properly fall within the province of

education, in order to form what we call a man of honour, a man

possessed of all the qualities and virtues requisite in this kind of

government.

Here it is that honour interferes with everything, mixing even with

people's manner of thinking, and directing their very principles.

To this whimsical honour it is owing that the virtues are only just what

it pleases; it adds rules of its own invention to everything prescribed

to us; it extends or limits our duties according to its own fancy,

whether they proceed from religion, politics, or morality.

There is nothing so strongly inculcated in monarchies, by the laws, by

religion and honour, as submission to the prince's will; but this very

honour tells us that the prince never ought to command a dishonourable

action, because this would render us incapable of serving him.

Crillon refused to assassinate the Duke of Guise, but offered to fight

him. After the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Charles IX, having sent

orders to the governors in the several provinces for the Huguenots to be

murdered, Viscount Dorte, who commanded at Bayonne, wrote thus to the

king:[1] "Sire, among the inhabitants of this town, and your majesty's

troops, I could not find so much as one executioner; they are honest

citizens and brave soldiers. We jointly, therefore, beseech your majesty

to command our arms and lives in things that are practicable." This

great and generous soul looked upon a base action as a thing impossible.

There is nothing that honour more strongly recommends to the nobility

than to serve their prince in a military capacity. And, indeed, this is

their favourite profession, because its dangers, its success, and even

its miscarriages are the road to grandeur. Yet this very law of its own

making honour chooses to explain: and in case of any affront, it

requires or permits us to retire.

It insists also that we should be at liberty either to seek or to reject

employments, a liberty which it prefers even to an ample fortune.

Honour therefore has its supreme laws, to which education is obliged to

conform.[2] The chief of these are that we are permitted to set a value

upon our fortune, but are absolutely forbidden to set any upon our

lives.

The second is that, when we are raised to a post or preferment, we

should never do or permit anything which may seem to imply that we look

upon ourselves as inferior to the rank we hold.

The third is that those things which honour forbids are more rigorously

forbidden, when the laws do not concur in the prohibition; and those it

commands are more strongly insisted upon, when they happen not to be

commanded by law.

3. Of Education in a Despotic Government. As education in monarchies

tends to raise and ennoble the mind, in despotic governments its only

aim is to debase it. Here it must necessarily be servile; even in power

such an education will be an advantage, because every tyrant is at the

same time a slave.

Excessive obedience supposes ignorance in the person that obeys: the

same it supposes in him that commands, for he has no occasion to

deliberate, to doubt, to reason; he has only to will.

In despotic states, each house is a separate government. As education,

therefore, consists chieflv in social converse, it must be here very

much limited; all it does is to strike the heart with fear, and to

imprint on the understanding a very simple notion of a few principles of

religion. Learning here proves dangerous, emulation fatal; and as to

virtue, Aristotle[3] cannot think that there is any one virtue belonging

to slaves; if so, education in despotic countries is confined within a

very narrow compass.

Here, therefore, education is in some measure needless: to give

something, one must take away everything, and begin with making a bad

subject in order to make a good slave.

For why should education take pains in forming a good citizen, only to

make him share in the public misery? If he loves his country, he will

strive to relax the springs of government; if he miscarries he will be

undone; if he succeeds, he must expose himself, the prince, and his

country to ruin.

4. Difference between the Effects of Ancient and Modern Education. Most

of the ancients lived under governments that had virtue for their

principle; and when this was in full vigour they performed actions

unusual in our times, and at which our narrow minds are astonished.

Another advantage their education possessed over ours was that it never

could be effaced by contrary impressions. Epaminondas, the last year of

his life, said, heard, beheld, and performed the very same things as at

the age in which he received the first principles of his education.

In our days we receive three different or contrary educations, namely,

of our parents, of our masters, and of the world. What we learn in the

latter effaces all the ideas of the former. This, in some measure,

arises from the contrast we experience between our religious and worldly

engagements, a thing unknown to the ancients.

5. Of Education in a Republican Government. It is in a republican

government that the whole power of education is required. The fear of

despotic governments naturally arises of itself amidst threats and

punishments; the honour of monarchies is favoured by the passions, and

favours them in its turn; but virtue is a self-renunciation, which is

ever arduous and painful.

This virtue may be defined as the love of the laws and of our country.

As such love requires a constant preference of public to private

interest, it is the source of all private virtues; for they are nothing

more than this very preference itself.

This love is peculiar to democracies. In these alone the government is

entrusted to private citizens. Now a government is like everything else:

to preserve it we must love it.

Has it ever been known that kings were not fond of monarchy, or that

despotic princes hated arbitrary power?

Everything therefore depends on establishing this love in a republic;

and to inspire it ought to be the principal business of education: but

the surest way of instilling it into children is for parents to set them

an example.

People have it generally in their power to communicate their ideas to

their children; but they are still better able to transfuse their

passions.

If it happens otherwise, it is because the impressions made at home are

effaced by those they have received abroad.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till

those of maturer age are already sunk into corruption.

6. Of some Institutions among the Greeks. The ancient Greeks, convinced

of the necessity that people who live under a popular government should

be trained up to virtue, made very singular institutions in order to

inspire it. Upon seeing in the life of Lycurgus the laws that legislator

gave to the Lacedæmonians, I imagine I am reading the history of the

Sevarambes. The laws of Crete were the model of those of Sparta; and

those of Plato reformed them.

Let us reflect here a little on the extensive genius with which those

legislators must have been endowed, to perceive that by striking at

received customs, and by confounding all manner of virtues, they should

display their wisdom to the universe. Lycurgus, by blending theft with

the spirit of justice, the hardest servitude with excess of liberty, the

most rigid sentiments with the greatest moderation, gave stability to

his city. He seemed to deprive her of all resources, such as arts,

commerce, money, and walls; ambition prevailed among the citizens

without hopes of improving their fortune; they had natural sentiments

without the tie of a son, husband, or father; and chastity was stripped

even of modesty and shame. This was the road that led Sparta to grandeur

and glory; and so infallible were these institutions, that it signified

nothing to gain a victory over that republic without subverting her

polity.[4]

By these laws Crete and Laconia were governed. Sparta was the last that

fell a prey to the Macedonians, and Crete to the Romans.[5]

The Samnites had the same institutions, which furnished those very

Romans with the subject of four-and-twenty triumphs.[6]

A character so extraordinary in the institutions of Greece has shown

itself lately in the dregs and corruptions of modern times.[7] A very

honest legislator has formed a people to whom probity seems as natural

as bravery to the Spartans. Mr. Penn is a real Lycurgus: and though the

former made peace his principal aim, as the latter did war, yet they

resemble one another in the singular way of living to which they reduced

their people, in the ascendant they had over free men, in the prejudices

they overcame, and in the passions which they subdued.

Another example we have from Paraguay. This has been the subject of an

invidious charge against a society that considers the pleasure of

commanding as the only happiness in life: but it will be ever a glorious

undertaking to render a government subservient to human happiness.[8]

It is glorious indeed for this society to have been the first in

pointing out to those countries the idea of religion joined with that of

humanity. By repairing the devastations of the Spaniards, she has begun

to heal one of the most dangerous wounds that the human species ever

received.

An exquisite sensibility to whatever she distinguishes by the name of

honour, joined to her zeal for a religion which is far more humbling in

respect to those who receive than to those who preach its doctrines, has

set her upon vast undertakings, which she has accomplished with success.

She has drawn wild people from their woods, secured them a maintenance,

and clothed their nakedness; and had she only by this step improved the

industry of mankind, it would have been sufficient to eternise her fame.

They who shall attempt hereafter to introduce like institutions must

establish the community of goods as prescribed in Plato's republic; that

high respect he required for the gods; that separation from strangers,

for the preservation of morals; and an extensive commerce carried on by

the community, and not by private citizens: they must give our arts

without our luxury, and our wants without our desires.

They must proscribe money, the effects of which are to swell people's

fortunes beyond the bounds prescribed by nature; to learn to preserve

for no purpose what has been idly hoarded up; to multiply without end

our desires; and to supply the sterility of nature, from whom we have

received very scanty means of inflaming our passions, and of corrupting

each other.

"The Epidamnians,[9] perceiving their morals depraved by conversing with

barbarians, chose a magistrate for making all contracts and sales in the

name and behalf of the city." Commerce then does not corrupt the

constitution, and the constitution does not deprive society of the

advantages of commerce.

7. In what Cases these singular Institutions may be of Service.

Institutions of this kind may be proper in republics, because they have

virtue for their principle; but to excite men to honour in monarchies,

or to inspire fear in despotic governments, less trouble is necessary.

Besides, they can take place but in a small state,[10] in which there is

a possibility of general education, and of training up the body of the

people like a single family.

The laws of Minos, of Lycurgus, and of Plato suppose a particular

attention and care, which the citizens ought to have over one another's

conduct. But an attention of this kind cannot be expected in the

confusion and multitude of affairs in which a large nation is entangled.

In institutions of this kind, money, as we have above observed, must be

banished. But in great societies, the multiplicity, variety,

embarrassment, and importance of affairs, as well as the facility of

purchasing, and the slowness of exchange, require a common measure. In

order to support or extend our power, we must be possessed of the means

to which, by the unanimous consent of mankind, this power is annexed.

8. Explanation of a Paradox of the Ancients in respect to Manners. That

judicious writer, Polybius, informs us that music was necessary to

soften the manners of the Arcadians, who lived in a cold, gloomy

country; that the inhabitants of Cynete, who slighted music, were the

cruellest of all the Greeks, and that no other town was so immersed in

luxury and debauchery. Plato[11] is not afraid to affirm that there is

no possibility of making a change in music without altering the frame of

government. Aristotle, who seems to have written his Politics only in

order to contradict Plato, agrees with him, notwithstanding, in regard

to the power and influence of music over the manners of the people.[12]

This was also the opinion of Theophrastus, of Plutarch[13] and of all

the ancients -- an opinion grounded on mature reflection; being one of

the principles of their polity.[14] Thus it was they enacted laws, and

thus they required that cities should be governed.

This I fancy must be explained in the following manner. It is observable

that in the cities of Greece, especially those whose .principal object

was war, all lucrative arts and professions were considered unworthy of

a freeman. "Most arts," says Xenophon,[15] "corrupt and enervate the

bodies of those that exercise them; they oblige them to sit in the

shade, or near the fire. They can find no leisure, either for their

friends or for the republic." It was only by the corruption of some

democracies that artisans became freemen. This we learn from

Aristotle,[16] who maintains that a well-regulated republic will never

give them the right and freedom of the city.[17]

Agriculture was likewise a servile profession, and generally practised

by the inhabitants of conquered countries, such as the Helotes among the

Lacedæmonians, the Periecians among the Cretans, the Penestes among the

Thessalians, and other conquered[18] people in other republics.

In fine, every kind of low commerce[19] was infamous among the Greeks;

as it obliged a citizen to serve and wait on a slave, on a lodger, or a

stranger. This was a notion that clashed with the spirit of Greek

liberty; hence Plato[20] in his Laws orders a citizen to be punished if

he attempts to concern himself with trade.

Thus in the Greek republics the magistrates were extremely embarrassed.

They would not have the citizens apply themselves to trade, to

agriculture, or to the arts, and yet they would not have them idle.[21]

They found, therefore, employment for them in gymnic and military

exercises; and none else were allowed by their institution.[22] Hence

the Greeks must be considered as a society of wrestlers and boxers. Now,

these exercises having a natural tendency to render people hardy and

fierce, there was a necessity for tempering them with others that might

soften their manners.[23] For this purpose, music, which influences the

mind by means of the corporeal organs, was extremely proper. It is a

kind of medium between manly exercises, which harden the body, and

speculative sciences, which are apt to render us unsociable and sour. It

cannot be said that music inspired virtue, for this would be

inconceivable: but it prevented the effects of a savage institution, and

enabled the soul to have such a share in the education as it could never

have had without the assistance of harmony.

Let us suppose among ourselves a society of men so passionately fond of

hunting as to make it their sole employment; they would doubtless

contract thereby a kind of rusticity and fierceness. But if they happen

to imbibe a taste for music, we should quickly perceive a sensible

difference in their customs and manners. In short, the exercises used by

the Greeks could raise but one kind of passions, viz., fierceness,

indignation, and cruelty. But music excites all these; and is likewise

able to inspire the soul with a sense of pity, lenity, tenderness, and

love. Our moral writers, who declaim so vehemently against the stage,

sufficiently demonstrate the power of music over the mind.

If the society above mentioned were to have no other music than that of

drums, and the sound of the trumpet, would it not be more difficult to

accomplish this end than by the more melting tones of softer harmony?

The ancients were therefore in the right when, under particular

circumstances, they preferred one mode to another in regard to manners.

But some will ask, why should music be pitched upon as preferable to any

other entertainment? It is because of all sensible pleasures there is

none that less corrupts the soul. We blush to read in Plutarch[24] that

the Thebans, in order to soften the manners of their youth, authorised

by law a passion which ought to be proscribed by all nations.

______

1. See d'Aubigny's History.

2. We mention here what actually is, and not what ought to be; honour is

a prejudice, which religion sometimes endeavours to remove, and at other

times to regulate.

3. Politics, i. 13.

4. Philopoemen obliged the Lacedæmonians to change their manner of

educating their children, being convinced that if he did not take this

measure they would always be noted for their magnanimity. -- Plutarch,

Philopoemen. See Livy, xxxviii.

5. She defended her laws and liberty for the space of three years. See

the 98th, 99th, and 100th book of Livy, in Florus's epitome. She made a

braver resistance than the greatest kings.

6. Florus, i. 16.

7. In fece Romuli. -- Cicero, Letters to Atticus, ii. 1.

8. The Indians of Paraguay do not depend on any particular lord; they

pay only a fifth of the taxes, and are allowed the use of firearms to

defend themselves.

9. Plutarch in his Questions Concerning the Greek Affairs, xxix.

10. Such as were formerly the cities of Greece.

11. Republic, iv.

12. Politics, viii. 5.

13. Pelopidas.

14. Plato, in his seventh book of Laws, says that the præfectures of

music and gymnic exercises are the most important employments in the

city; and, in his Republic, iii, Damon will tell you, says he, what

sounds are capable of corrupting the mind with base sentiments, or of

inspiring the contrary virtues.

15. Memorabilia, v.

16. Politics, iii. 4.

17. Diophantes, says Aristotle, Politics, ii. 7, made a law formerly at

Athens, that artisans should be slaves to the republic.

18. Plato, likewise, and Aristotle require slaves to till the land,

Laws, viii. Politics, vii. 10. True it is that agriculture was not

everywhere exercised by slaves: on the contrary, Aristotle observes the

best republics were those in which the citizens themselves tilled the

land: but this was brought about by the corruption of the ancient

governments, which had become democratic: for in earlier times the

cities of Greece were subject to an aristocratic government.

19. Cauponatio.

20. Book v.

21. Aristotle, Politics, vii-viii.

22. Ibid., viii. 3.

23. Aristotle observes that the children of the Lacedæmonians, who began

these exercises at a very tender age, contracted thence too great a

ferocity and rudeness of behaviour. -- Ibid., viii. 4.

24. Pelopidas.

Book V. That the Laws Given by the Legislator Ought to Be in Relation to the Principle of Government

1. Idea of this Book. That the laws of education should relate to the

principle of each government has been shown in the preceding book. Now

the same may be said of those which the legislator gives to the whole

society. The relation of laws to this principle strengthens the several

springs of government; and this principle derives thence, in its turn, a

new degree of vigour. And thus it is in mechanics, that action is always

followed by reaction.

Our design is, to examine this relation in each government, beginning

with the republican state, the principle of which is virtue.

2. What is meant by Virtue in a political State. Virtue in a republic is

a most simple thing: it is a love of the republic; it is a sensation,

and not a consequence of acquired knowledge: a sensation that may be

felt by the meanest as well as by the highest person in the state. When

the common people adopt good maxims, they adhere to them more steadily

than those whom we call gentlemen. It is very rarely that corruption

commences with the former: nay, they frequently derive from their

imperfect light a stronger attachment to the established laws and

customs.

The love of our country is conducive to a purity of morals, and the

latter is again conducive to the former. The less we are able to satisfy

our private passions, the more we abandon ourselves to those of a

general nature. How comes it that monks are so fond of their order? It

is owing to the very cause that renders the order insupportable. Their

rule debars them from all those things by which the ordinary passions

are fed; there remains therefore only this passion for the very rule

that torments them. The more austere it is, that is, the more it curbs

their inclinations, the more force it givfes to the only passion left

them.

3. What is meant by a Love of the Republic in a Democracy. A love of the

republic in a democracy is a love of the democracy; as the latter is

that of equality.

A love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality. Since every

individual ought here to enjoy the same happiness and the same

advantages, they should consequently taste the same pleasures and form

the same hopes, which cannot be expected but from a general frugality.

The love of equality in a democracy limits ambition to the sole desire,

to the sole happiness, of doing greater services to our country than the

rest of our fellow-citizens. They cannot all render her equal services,

but they all ought to serve her with equal alacrity. At our coming into

the world, we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can

never discharge.

Hence distinctions here arise from the principle of equality, even when

it seems to be removed by signal services or superior abilities.

The love of frugality limits the desire of having to the study of

procuring necessaries to our family, and superfluities to our country.

Riches give a power which a citizen cannot use for himself, for then he

would be no longer equal. They likewise procure pleasures which he ought

not to enjoy, because these would be also repugnant to the equality.

Thus well-regulated democracies, by establishing domestic frugality,

made way at the same time for public expenses, as was the case at Rome

and Athens, when magnificence and profusion arose from the very fund of

frugality. And as religion commands us to have pure and unspotted hands

when we make our offerings to the gods, the laws required a frugality of

life to enable them to be liberal to our country.

The good sense and happiness of individuals depend greatly upon the

mediocrity of their abilities and fortunes. Therefore, as a republic,

where the laws have placed many in a middling station, is composed of

wise men, it will be wisely governed; as it is composed of happy men, it

will be extremely happy.

4. In what Manner the Love of Equality and Frugality is inspired. The

love of equality and of a frugal economy is greatly excited by equality

and frugality themselves, in societies where both these virtues are

established by law.

In monarchies and despotic governments, nobody aims at equality; this

does not so much as enter their thoughts; they all aspire to

superiority. People of the very lowest condition desire to emerge from

their obscurity, only to lord it over their fellow-subjects.

It is the same with respect to frugality. To love it, we must practise

and enjoy it. It is not those who are enervated by pleasure that are

fond of a frugal life; were this natural and common, Alcibiades would

never have been the admiration of the universe. Neither is it those who

envy or admire the luxury of the great; people that have present to

their view none but rich men, or men miserable like themselves, detest

their wretched condition, without loving or knowing the real term or

point of misery.

A true maxim it is, therefore, that in order to love equality and

frugality in a republic, these virtues must have been previously

established by law.

5. In what Manner the Laws establish Equality in a Democracy. Some

ancient legislators, as Lycurgus and Romulus, made an equal division of

lands. A settlement of this kind can never take place except upon the

foundation of a new republic; or when the old one is so corrupt, and the

minds of the people are so disposed, that the poor think themselves

obliged to demand, and the rich obliged to consent to a remedy of this

nature.

If the legislator, in making a division of this kind, does not enact

laws at the same time to support it, he forms only a temporary

constitution; inequality will break in where the laws have not precluded

it, and the republic will be utterly undone.

Hence for the preservation of this equality it is absolutely necessary

there should be some regulation in respect to women's dowries,

donations, successions, testamentary settlements, and all other forms of

contracting. For were we once allowed to dispose of our property to whom

and how we pleased, the will of each individual would disturb the order

of the fundamental law.

Solon, by permitting the Athenians, upon failure of issue[1] to leave

their estates to whom they pleased, acted contrary to the ancient laws,

by which the estates were ordered to continue in the family of the

testator;[2] and even contrary to his own laws, for by abolishing debts

he had aimed at equality.

The law which prohibited people having two inheritances[3] was extremely

well adapted for a democracy. It derived its origin from the equal

distribution of lands and portions made to each citizen. The law would

not permit a single man to possess more than a single portion.

From the same source arose those laws by which the next relative was

ordered to marry the heiress. This law was given to the Jews after the

like distribution. Plato,[4] who grounds his laws on this division, made

the same regulation which had been received as a law by the Athenians.

At Athens there was a law whose spirit, in my opinion, has not been

hitherto rightly understood. It was lawful to marry a sister only by the

father's side, but it was not permitted to espouse a sister by the same

venter.[5] This custom was originally owing to republics, whose spirit

would not permit that two portions of land, and consequently two

inheritances, should devolve on the same person. A man who married his

sister only by the father's side could inherit but one estate, namely,

that of his father; but by espousing his sister by the same venter, it

might happen that this sister's father, having no male issue, might

leave her his estate, and consequently the brother who married her might

be possessed of two.

Little will it avail to object to what Philo says,[6] that although the

Athenians were allowed to marry a sister by the father's side, and not

by the mother's, yet the contrary practice prevailed among the

Lacedæmonians, who were permitted to espouse a sister by the mother's

side, and not by the father's. For I find in Strabo[7] that at Sparta,

whenever a woman was married to her brother she had half his portion for

her dowry. Plain is it that this second law was made in order to prevent

the bad consequences of the former. That the estate belonging to the

sister's family might not devolve on the brother's, they gave half the

brother's estate to the sister for her dowry.

Seneca[8] speaking of Silanus, who had married his sister, says that the

permission was limited at Athens, but general at Alexandria. In a

monarchical government there was very little concern about any such

thing as a division of estates.

Excellent was that law which, in order to maintain this division of

lands in a democracy, ordained that a father who had several children

should pitch upon one of them to inherit his portion,[9] and leave the

others to be adopted, to the end that the numbers of citizens might

always be kept upon an equality with that of the divisions.

Phaleas of Chalcedon[10] contrived a very extraordinary method of

rendering all fortunes equal, in a republic where there was the greatest

inequality. This was that the rich should give fortunes with their

daughters to the poor, but receive none themselves; and that the poor

should receive money for their daughters, instead of giving them

fortunes. But I do not remember that a regulation of this kind ever took

place in any republic. It lays the citizens under such hard and

oppressive conditions as would make them detest the very equality which

they designed to establish. It is proper sometimes that the laws should

not seem to tend so directly to the end they propose.

Though real equality be the very soul of a democracy, it is so difficult

to establish that an extreme exactness in this respect would not be

always convenient. Sufficient is it to establish a census[11] which

shall reduce or fix the differences to a certain point: it is afterwards

the business of particular laws to level, as it were, the inequalities,

by the duties laid upon the rich, and by the ease afforded to the poor.

It is moderate riches alone that can give or suffer this sort of

compensation; for as to men of overgrown estates, everything which does

not contribute to advance their power and honour is considered by them

as an injury.

All inequality in democracies ought to be derived from the nature of the

government, and even from the principle of equality. For example, it may

be apprehended that people who are obliged to live by their labour would

be too much impoverished by a public employment, or neglect the duties

attending it; that artisans would grow insolent, and that too great a

number of freemen would overpower the ancient citizens. In this case the

equality[12] in a democracy may be suppressed for the good of the state.

But this is only an apparent equality; for a man ruined by a public

employment would be in a worse condition than his fellow-citizens; and

this same man, being obliged to neglect his duty, would reduce the rest

to a worse condition than himself, and so on.

6. In what Manner the Laws ought to maintain Frugality in a Democracy.

It is not sufficient in a well-regulated democracy that the divisions of

land be equal; they ought also to be small, as was customary among the

Romans. "God forbid," said Curius to his soldiers,[13] "that a citizen

should look upon that as a small piece of land which is sufficient to

maintain him."

As equality of fortunes supports frugality, so the latter maintains the

former. These things, though in themselves different, are of such a

nature as to be unable to subsist separately; they reciprocally act upon

each other; if one withdraws itself from a democracy, the other surely

follows it.

True is it that when a democracy is founded on commerce, private people

may acquire vast riches without a corruption of morals.

This is because the spirit of commerce is naturally attended with that

of frugality, economy, moderation, labour, prudence, tranquillity,

order, and rule. So long as this spirit subsists, the riches it produces

have no bad effect. The mischief is, when excessive wealth destroys the

spirit of commerce, then it is that the inconveniences of inequality

begin to be felt.

In order to support this spirit, commerce should be carried on by the

principal citizens; this should be their sole aim and study; this the

chief object of the laws: and these very laws, by dividing the estates

of individuals in proportion to the increase of commerce, should set

every poor citizen so far at his ease as to be able to work like the

rest, and every wealthy citizen in such a mediocrity as to be obliged to

take some pains either in preserving or acquiring a fortune.

It is an excellent law in a trading republic to make an equal division

of the paternal estate among the children. The consequence of this is

that how great soever a fortune the father has made, his children, being

not so rich as he, are induced to avoid luxury, and to work as he has

done. I speak here only of trading republics; as to those that have no

commerce, the legislator must pursue quite different measures.[14]

In Greece there were two sorts of republics: the one military, like

Sparta; the other commercial, as Athens. In the former, the citizens

were obliged to be idle; in the latter, endeavours were used to inspire

them with the love of industry and labour. Solon made idleness a crime,

and insisted that each citizen should give an account of his manner of

getting a livelihood. And, indeed, in a well-regulated democracy, where

people's expenses should extend only to what is necessary, every one

ought to have it; for how should their wants be otherwise supplied?

7. Other Methods of favouring the Principle of Democracy. An equal

division of lands cannot be established in all democracies. There are

some circumstances in which a regulation of this nature would be

impracticable, dangerous, and even subversive of the constitution. We

are not always obliged to proceed to extremes. If it appears that this

division of lands, which was designed to preserve the people's morals,

does not suit the democracy, recourse must be had to other methods.

If a permanent body be established to serve as a rule and pattern of

manners; a senate, to which years, virtue, gravity, and eminent services

procure admittance; the senators, by being exposed to public view like

the statues of the gods, must naturally inspire every family with

sentiments of virtue.

Above all, this senate must steadily adhere to the ancient institutions,

and mind that the people and the magistrates never swerve from them.

The preservation of the ancient customs is a very considerable point in

respect to manners. Since a corrupt people seldom perform any memorable

actions, seldom establish societies, build cities, or enact laws; on the

contrary, since most institutions are derived from people whose manners

are plain and simple, to keep up the ancient customs is the way to

preserve the original purity of morals.

Besides, if by some revolution the state has happened to assume a new

form, this seldom can be effected without infinite pains and labour, and

hardly ever by idle and debauched persons. Even those who had been the

instruments of the revolution were desirous it should be relished, which

is difficult to compass without good laws. Hence it is that ancient

institutions generally tend to reform the people's manners, and those of

modern date to corrupt them. In the course of a long administration, the

descent to vice is insensible; but there is no reascending to virtue

without making the most generous efforts.

It has been questioned whether the members of the senate we are speaking

of ought to be for life or only chosen for a time. Doubtless they ought

to be for life, as was the custom at Rome,[15] at Sparta,[16] and even

at Athens. For we must not confound the senate at Athens, which was a

body that changed every three months, with the Areopagus, whose members,

as standing patterns, were established for life.

Let this be therefore a general maxim; that in a senate designed to be a

rule, and the depository, as it were, of manners, the members ought to

be chosen for life: in a senate intended for the administration of

affairs, the members may be changed.

The spirit, says Aristotle, waxes old as well as the body. This

reflection holds good only in regard to a single magistrate, but cannot

be applied to a senatorial assembly.

At Athens, besides the Areopagus, there were guardians of the public

morals, as well as of the laws.[17] At Sparta, all the old men were

censors. At Rome, the censorship was committed to two particular

magistrates. As the senate watched over the people, the censors were to

have an eye over the people and the senate. Their office was to reform

the corruptions of the republic, to stigmatise indolence, to censure

neglects, and to correct mistakes; as to flagrant crimes, these were

left to the punishment of the laws.

That Roman law which required the accusations in cases of adultery to be

public was admirably well calculated for preserving the purity of

morals; it intimidated married women, as well as those who were to watch

over their conduct.

Nothing contributes more to the preservation of morals than an extreme

subordination of the young to the old. Thus they are both restrained,

the former by their respect for those of advanced age, and the latter by

their regard for themselves.

Nothing gives a greater force to the law than a perfect subordination

between the citizens and the magistrate. "The great difference which

Lycurgus established between Sparta and the other cities," says

Xenophon,[18] "consists chiefly in the obedience the citizens show to

their laws; they run when the magistrate calls them. But at Athens a

rich man would be highly displeased to be thought dependent on the

magistrate."

Paternal authority is likewise of great use towards the preservation of

morals. We have already observed that in a republic there is not so

coercive a force as in other governments. The laws must therefore

endeavour to supply this defect by some means or other; and this is done

by paternal authority.

Fathers at Rome had the power of life and death over their children.[19]

At Sparta, every father had a right to correct another man's child.

Paternal authority ended at Rome together with the republic. In

monarchies, where such a purity of morals is not required, they are

controlled by no other authority than that of the magistrates.

The Roman laws, which accustomed young people to dependence, established

a long minority. Perhaps we are mistaken in conforming to this custom;

there is no necessity for so much constraint in monarchies.

This very subordination in a republic might make it necessary for the

father to continue in the possession of his children's fortune during

life, as was the custom at Rome. But this is not agreeable to the spirit

of monarchy.

8. In what Manner the Laws should relate to the Principle of Government

in an Aristocracy. If the people are virtuous in an aristocracy, they

enjoy very nearly the same happiness as in a popular government, and the

state grows powerful. But as a great share of virtue is very rare where

men's fortunes are so unequal, the laws must tend as much as possible to

infuse a spirit of moderation, and endeavour to re-establish that

equality which was necessarily removed by the constitution.

The spirit of moderation is what we call virtue in an aristocracy; it

supplies the place of the spirit of equality in a popular state.

As the pomp and splendour with which kings are surrounded form a part of

their power, so modesty and simplicity of manners constitute the

strength of an aristocratic nobility.[20] When they affect no

distinction, when they mix with the people, dress like them, and with

them share all their pleasures, the people are apt to forget their

subjection and weakness.

Every government has its nature and principle. An aristocracy must not

therefore assume the nature and principle of monarchy; which would be

the case were the nobles to be invested with personal privileges

distinct from those of their body; privileges ought to be for the

senate, and simple respect for the senators.

In aristocratic governments there are two principal sources of disorder:

excessive inequality between the governors and the governed; and the

same inequality between the different members of the body that governs.

From these two inequalities, hatreds and jealousies arise, which the

laws ought ever to prevent or repress.

The first inequality is chiefly when the privileges of the nobility are

honourable only as they are ignominious to the people. Such was the law

at Rome by which the patricians were forbidden to marry plebeians;[21] a

law that had no other effect than to render the patricians on the one

side more haughty, and on the other more odious. The reader may see what

advantages the tribunes derived thence in their harangues.

This inequality occurs likewise when the condition of the citizens

differs with regard to taxes, which may happen in four different ways:

when the nobles assume the privilege of paying none; when they commit

frauds to exempt themselves;[22] when they engross the public money,

under pretence of rewards or appointments for their respective

employments; in fine, when they render the common people tributary, and

divide among their own body the profits arising from the several

subsidies. This last case is very rare; an aristocracy so instituted

would be the most intolerable of all governments.

While Rome inclined towards aristocracy, she avoided all these

inconveniences. The magistrates never received any emoluments from their

office. The chief men of the republic were taxed like the rest, nay,

more heavily; and sometimes the taxes fell upon them alone. In fine, far

from sharing among themselves the revenues of the state, all they could

draw from the public treasure, and all the wealth that fortune flung

into their laps, they bestowed freely on the people, to be excused from

accepting public honours.[23]

It is a fundamental maxim that largesses are pernicious to the people in

a democracy, but salutary in an aristocratic government. The former make

them forget they are citizens, the latter bring them to a sense of it.

If the revenues of the state are not distributed among the people, they

must be convinced at least of their being well administered: to feast

their eyes with the public treasure is with them the same thing almost

as enjoying it. The golden chain displayed at Venice, the riches

exhibited at Rome in public triumphs, the treasures preserved in the

temple of Saturn, were in reality the wealth of the people.

It is a very essential point in an aristocracy that the nobles

themselves should not levy the taxes. The first order of the state in

Rome never concerned themselves with it; the levying of the taxes was

committed to the second, and even this in process of time was attended

with great inconveniences. In an aristocracy of this kind, where the

nobles levied the taxes, the private people would be all at the

discretion of persons in public employments; and there would be no such

thing as a superior tribunal to check their power. The members appointed

to remove the abuses would rather enjoy them. The nobles would be like

the princes of despotic governments, who confiscate whatever estates

they please.

Soon would the profits hence arising be considered as a patrimony, which

avarice would enlarge at pleasure. The farms would be lowered, and the

public revenues reduced to nothing. This is the reason that some

governments, without having ever received any remarkable shock, have

dwindled away to such a degree as not only their neighbours, but even

their own subjects, have been surprised at it.

The laws should likewise forbid the nobles all kinds of commerce:

merchants of such unbounded credit would monopolise all to themselves.

Commerce is a profession of people who are upon an equality; hence among

despotic states the most miserable are those in which the prince applies

himself to trade.

The laws of Venice debar[24] the nobles from commerce, by which they

might even innocently acquire exorbitant wealth.

The laws ought to employ the most effectual means for making the nobles

do justice to the people. If they have not established a tribune, they

ought to be a tribune themselves.

Every sort of asylum in opposition to the execution of the laws destroys

aristocracy, and is soon succeeded by tyranny. They ought always to

mortify the lust of dominion. There should be either a temporary or

perpetual magistrate to keep the nobles in awe, as the Ephori at Sparta

and the State Inquisitors at Venice -- magistrates subject to no

formalities. This sort of government stands in need of the strongest

springs: thus a mouth of stone[25] is open to every informer at Venice

-- a mouth to which one would be apt to give the appellation of tyranny.

These arbitrary magistrates in an aristocracy bear some analogy to the

censorship in democracies, which of its own nature is equally

independent. And, indeed, the censors ought to be subject to no inquiry

in relation to their conduct during their office; they should meet with

a thorough confidence, and never be discouraged. In this respect the

practice of the Romans deserved admiration; magistrates of all

denominations were accountable for their administration,[26] except the

censors.[27]

There are two very pernicious things in an aristocracy -- excess either

of poverty, or of wealth in the nobility. To prevent their poverty, it

is necessary, above all things, to oblige them to pay their debts in

time. To moderate the excess of wealth, prudent and gradual regulations

should be made; but no confiscations, no agrarian laws, no expunging of

debts; these are productive of infinite mischief.

The laws ought to abolish the right of primogeniture among the

nobles[28] to the end that by a continual division of the inheritances

their fortunes may be always upon a level.

There should be no substitutions, no powers of redemption, no rights of

Majorasgo, or adoption. The contrivances for perpetuating the grandeur

of families in monarchical governments ought never to be employed in

aristocracies.[29]

When the laws have compassed the equality of families, the next thing is

to preserve a proper harmony and union among them. The quarrels of the

nobility ought to be quickly decided; otherwise the contests of

individuals become those of families. Arbiters may terminate, or even

prevent, the rise ot disputes.

In fine, the laws must not favour the distinctions raised by vanity

among families, under pretence that they are more noble or ancient than

others. Pretences of this nature ought to be ranked among the weaknesses

of private persons.

We have only to cast an eye upon Sparta; there we may see how the Ephori

contrived to check the foibles of the kings, as well as those of the

nobility and common people.

9. In what Manner the Laws are in relation to their Principle in

Monarchies. As honour is the principle of a monarchical government, the

laws ought to be in relation to this principle.

They should endeavour to support the nobility, in respect to whom honour

may be, in some measure, deemed both child and parent.

They should render the nobility hereditary, not as a boundary between

the power of the prince and the weakness of the people, but as the link

which connects them both.

In this government, substitutions which preserve the estates of families

undivided are extremely useful, though in others not so proper.

Here the power of redemption is of service, as it restores to noble

families the lands that had been alienated by the prodigality of a

parent.

The land of the nobility ought to have privileges as well as their

persons. The monarch's dignity is inseparable from that of his kingdom;

and-the dignity of the nobleman from that of his fief.

All these privileges must be peculiar to the nobility, and

incommunicable to the people, unless we intend to act contrary to the

principle of government, and to diminish the power of the nobles

together with that of the people.

Substitutions are a restraint to commerce, the power of redemption

produces an infinite number of processes; every estate in land that is

sold throughout the kingdom is in some measure without an owner for the

space of a year. Privileges annexed to fiefs give a power very

burdensome to those governments which tolerate them. These are the

inconveniences of nobility -- inconveniences, however, that vanish when

confronted with its general utility: but when these privileges are

communicated to the people, every principle of government is wantonly

violated.

In monarchies a person may leave the bulk of his estate to one of his

children -- a permission improper in any other government.

The laws ought to favour all kinds of commerce[30] consistent with the

constitution, to the end that the subjects may, without ruining

themselves, be able to satisfy the continual cravings of the prince and

his court.

They should establish some regulation that the manner of collecting the

taxes may not be more burdensome than the taxes themselves.

The weight of duties produces labour, labour weariness, and weariness

the spirit of indolence.

10. Of the Expedition peculiar to the Executive Power in Monarchies.

Great is the advantage which a monarchical government has over a

republic: as the state is conducted by a single person, the executive

power is thereby enabled to act with greater expedition. But as this

expedition may degenerate into rapidity, the laws should use some

contrivance to slacken it. They ought not only to favour the nature of

each constitution, but likewise to remedy the abuses that might result

from this very nature.

Cardinal Richelieu[31] advises monarchs to permit no such things as

societies or communities that raise difficulties upon every trifle. If

this man's heart had not been bewitched with the love of despotic power,

still these arbitrary notions would have filled his head.

The bodies entrusted with the deposition of the laws are never more

obedient than when they proceed slowly, and use that reflection in the

prince's affairs which can scarcely be expected from the ignorance of a

court, or from the precipitation of its councils.[32]

What would have become of the finest monarchy in the world if the

magistrates, by their delays, their complaints, and entreaties, had not

checked the rapidity even of their princes' virtues, when these

monarchs, consulting only the generous impulse of their minds, would

fain have given a boundless reward to services performed with an

unlimited courage and fidelity?

11. Of the Excellence of a Monarchical Government. Monarchy has a great

advantage over a despotic government. As it naturally requires there

should be several orders or ranks of subjects, the state is more

permanent, the constitution more steady, and the person of him who

governs more secure.

Cicero is of opinion that the establishing of the tribunes preserved the

republic. "And indeed," says he, "the violence of a headless people is

more terrible. A chief or head is sensible that the affair depends upon

himself, and therefore he thinks; but the people in their impetuosity

are ignorant of the danger into which they hurry themselves." This

reflection may be applied to a despotic government, which is a people

without tribunes; and to a monarchy, where the people have some sort of

tribunes.

Accordingly it is observable that in the commotions of a despotic

government, the people, hurried away by their passions, are apt to push

things as far as they can go. The disorders they commit are all extreme;

whereas in monarchies matters are seldom carried to excess. The chiefs

are apprehensive on their own account; they are afraid of being

abandoned, and the intermediate dependent powers do not choose that the

populace should have too much the upper hand. It rarely happens that the

states of the kingdom are entirely corrupted: the prince adheres to

these; and the seditious, who have neither will nor hopes to subvert the

government, have neither power nor will to dethrone the prince.

In these circumstances men of prudence and authority interfere; moderate

measures are first proposed, then complied with, and things at length

are redressed; the laws resume their vigour, and command submission.

Thus all our histories are full of civil wars without revolutions, while

the histories of despotic governments abound with revolutions without

civil wars.

The writers of the history of the civil wars of some countries, even

those who fomented them, sufficiently demonstrate the little foundation

princes have to suspect the authority with which they invest particular

bodies of men; since, even under the unhappy circumstance of their

errors, they sighed only after the laws and their duty; and restrained,

more than they were capable of inflaming, the impetuosity of the

revolted.[33] Cardinal Richelieu, reflecting perhaps that he had too

much reduced the states of the kingdom, has recourse to the virtues of

the prince and of his ministers for the support[34] of government: but

he requires so many things, that indeed there is none but an angel

capable of such attention, such resolution and knowledge; and scarcely

can we flatter ourselves that we shall ever see such a prince and

ministers while monarchy subsists.

As people who live under a good government are happier than those who

without rule or leaders wander about the forests, so monarchs who live

under the fundamental laws of their country are far happier than

despotic princes who have nothing to regulate, neither their own

passions nor those of their subjects.

12. The same Subject continued. Let us not look for magnanimity in

despotic governments; the prince cannot impart a greatness which he has

not himself; with him there is no such thing as glory.

It is in monarchies that we behold the subjects encircling the throne,

and cheered by the irradiancy of the sovereign; there it is that each

person filling, as it were, a larger space, is capable of exercising

those virtues which adorn the soul, not with independence, but with true

dignity and greatness.

13. An Idea of Despotic Power. When the savages of Louisiana are

desirous of fruit, they cut the tree to the root, and gather the

fruit.[35] This is an emblem of despotic government.

14. In what Manner the Laws are in relation to the Principles of

Despotic Government. The principle of despotic government is fear; but a

timid, ignorant, and faint-spirited people have no occasion for a great

number of laws.

Everything ought to depend here on two or three ideas; hence there is no

necessity that any new notions should be added. When we want to break a

horse, we take care not to let him change his master, his lesson, or his

pace. Thus an impression is made on his brain by two or three motions,

and no more.

If a prince is shut up in a seraglio, he cannot leave his voluptuous

abode without alarming those who keep him confined. Thev will not bear

that his person and power should pass into other hands. He seldom

therefore wages war in person, and hardly ventures to entrust the

command to his generals.

A prince of this stamp, unaccustomed to resistance in his palace, is

enraged to see his will opposed by armed force; hence he is generally

governed by wrath or vengeance. Besides, he can have no notion of true

glory. War therefore is carried on under such a government in its full

natural fury, and less extent is given to the law of nations than in

other states.

Such a prince has so many imperfections that they are afraid to expose

his natural stupidity to public view. He is concealed in his palace, and

the people are ignorant of his situation. It is lucky for him that the

inhabitants of those countries need only the name of a prince to govern

them.

When Charles XII was at Bender, he met with some opposition from the

senate of Sweden; upon which he wrote word home that he would send one

of his boots to command them. This boot would have governed like a

despotic prince.

If the prince is a prisoner, he is supposed to be dead, and another

mounts the throne. The treaties made by the prisoner are void, his

successor will not ratify them; and indeed, as he is the law, the state,

and the prince: when he is no longer a prince, he is nothing: were he

not therefore deemed to be deceased, the state would be subverted.

One thing which chiefly determined the Turks to conclude a separate

peace with Peter I was the Muscovites telling the Vizir that in Sweden

another prince had been placed upon the throne.[36]

The preservation of the state is only the preservation of the prince, or

rather of the palace where he is confined. Whatever does not directly

menace this palace or the capital makes no impression on ignorant,

proud, and prejudiced minds; and as for the concatenation of events,

they are unable to trace, to foresee, or even to conceive it. Politics,

with its several springs and laws, must here be very much limited; the

political government is as simple as the civil.[37]

The whole is reduced to reconciling the political and civil

administration to the domestic government, the officers of state to

those of the seraglio.

Such a state is happiest when it can look upon itself as the only one in

the world, when it is environed with deserts, and separated from those

people whom they call Barbarians. Since it cannot depend on the militia,

it is proper it should destroy a part of itself.

As fear is the principle of despotic government, its end is

tranquillity; but this tranquillity cannot be called a peace: no, it is

only the silence of those towns which the enemy is ready to invade.

Since strength does not lie in the state, but in the army that founded

it, in order to defend the state the army must be preserved, how

formidable soever to the prince. How, then, can we reconcile the

security of the government to that of the prince's person?

Observe how industriously the Russian government endeavours to temper

its arbitrary power, which it finds more burdensome than the people

themselves. They have broken their numerous guards, mitigated criminal

punishments, erected tribunals, entered into a knowledge of the laws,

and instructed the people. But there are particular causes that will

probably once more involve them in the very misery which they now

endeavour to avoid.

In those states religion has more influence than anywhere else; it is

fear added to fear. In Mahomedan countries, it is partly from their

religion that the people derive the surprising veneration they have for

their prince.

It is religion that amends in some measure the Turkish constitution. The

subjects, who have no attachment of honour to the glory and grandeur of

the state, are connected with it by the force and principle of religion.

Of all despotic governments there is none that labours more under its

own weight than that wherein the prince declares himself proprietor of

all the lands, and heir to all his subjects. Hence the neglect of

agriculture arises; and if the prince intermeddles likewise in trade,

all manner of industry is ruined.

Under this sort of government, nothing is repaired or improved.[38]

Houses are built only for the necessity of habitation; there is no

digging of ditches or planting of trees; everything is drawn from, but

nothing restored to, the earth; the ground lies untilled, and the whole

country becomes a desert.

Is it to be imagined that the laws which abolish the property of land

and the succession of estates will diminish the avarice and cupidity of

the great? By no means. They will rather stimulate this cupidity and

avarice. The great men will be prompted to use a thousand oppressive

methods, imagining they have no other property than the gold and silver

which they are able to seize upon by violence, or to conceal.

To prevent, therefore, the utter ruin of the state, the avidity of the

prince ought to be moderated by some established custom. Thus, in

Turkey, the sovereign is satisfied with the right of three per cent on

the value of inheritances.[39] But as he gives the greatest part of the

lands to his soldiery, and disposes of them as he pleases; as he seizes

on all the inheritances of the officers of the empire at their decease;

as he has the property of the possessions of those who die without

issue, and the daughters have only the usufruct; it thence follows that

the greatest part of the estates of the country are held in a precarious

manner.

By the laws of Bantam,[40] the king seizes on the whole inheritance,

even wife, children, and habitation. In order to elude the cruelest part

of this law, they are obliged to marry their children at eight, nine, or

ten years of age, and sometimes younger, to the end that they may not be

a wretched part of the father's succession.

In countries where there are no fundamental laws, the succession to the

empire cannot be fixed. The crown is then elective, and the right of

electing is in the prince, who names a successor either of his own or of

some other family. In vain would it be to establish here the succession

of the eldest son; the prince might always choose another. The successor

is declared by the prince himself, or by a civil war. Hence a despotic

state is, upon another account, more liable than a monarchical

government to dissolution.

As every prince of the royal family is held equally capable of being

chosen, hence it follows that the prince who ascends the throne

immediately strangles his brothers, as in Turkey; or puts out their

eyes, as in Persia; or bereaves them of their understanding, as in the

Mogul's country; or if these precautions are not used, as in Morocco,

the vacancy of the throne is always attended with the horrors of a civil

war.

By the constitution of Russia[41] the Czar may choose whom he has a mind

for his successor, whether of his own or of a strange family. Such a

settlement produces a thousand revolutions, and renders the throne as

tottering as the succession is arbitrary. The right of succession being

one of those things which are of most importance to the people to know,

the best is that which most sensibly strikes them. Such as a certain

order of birth. A settlement of this kind puts a stop to intrigues, and

stifles ambition; the mind of a weak prince is no longer enslaved, nor

is he made to speak his will as he is just expiring.

When the succession is established by a fundamental law, only one prince

is the successor, and his brothers have neither a real nor apparent

right to dispute the crown with him. They can neither pretend to nor

take any advantage of the will of a father. There is then no more

occasion to confine or kill the king's brother than any other subject.

But in despotic governments, where the prince's brothers are equally his

slaves and his rivals, prudence requires that their persons be secured;

especially in Mahomedan countries, where religion considers victory or

success as a divine decision in their favour; so that they have no such

thing as a monarch de jure, but only de facto.

There is a far greater incentive to ambition in countries where the

princes of the blood are sensible that if they do not ascend the throne

they must be either imprisoned or put to death, than among us, where

they are placed in such a station as may satisfy, if not their ambition,

at least their moderate desires.

The princes of despotic governments have ever perverted the use of

marriage. They generally take a great many wives, especially in that

part of the world where absolute power is in some measure naturalised,

namely, Asia. Hence they come to have such a multitude of children that

they can hardly have any great affection for them, nor the children for

one another.

The reigning family resembles the state; it is too weak itself, and its

head too powerful; it seems very numerous and extensive, and yet is

suddenly extinct. Artaxerxes[42] put all his children to death for

conspiring against him.

It is not at all probable that fifty children would conspire against

their father, and much less that this conspiracy would be owing to his

having refused to resign his concubine to his eldest son. It is more

natural to believe that the whole was an intrigue of those oriental

seraglios, where fraud, treachery, and deceit reign in silence and

darkness; and where an old prince, grown every day more infirm, is the

first prisoner of the palace.

After what has been said, one would imagine that human nature should

perpetually rise up against despotism. But notwithstanding the love of

liberty, so natural to mankind, notwithstanding their innate detestation

of force and violence, most nations are subject to this very government.

This is easily accounted for. To form a moderate government, it is

necessary to combine the several powers; to regulate, temper, and set

them in motion; to give, as it were, ballast to one, in order to enable

it to counterpoise the other. This is a masterpiece of legislation;

rarely produced by hazard, and seldom attained by prudence. On the

contrary, a despotic government offers itself, as it were, at first

sight; it is uniform throughout; and as passions only are requisite to

establish it, this is what every capacity may reach.

15. The same Subject continued. In warm climates, where despotic power

generally prevails, the passions disclose themselves earlier, and are

sooner extinguished;[43] the understanding is sooner ripened; they are

less in danger of squandering their fortunes; there is less facility of

distinguishing themselves in the world; less communication between young

people, who are confined at home; they marry much earlier, and

consequently may be sooner of age than in our European climates. In

Turkey they are of age at fifteen.[44]

They have no such thing as a cession of goods; in a government where

there is no fixed property, people depend rather on the person than on

his estate.

The cession of goods is naturally admitted in moderate governments,[45]

but especially in republics, because of the greater confidence usually

placed in the probity of the citizens, and the lenity and moderation

arising from a form of government which every subject seems to nave

preferred to all others.

Had the legislators of the Roman republic established the cession of

goods,[46] they never would have been exposed to so many seditions and

civil discords; neither would they have experienced the danger of the

evils, nor the inconvenience of the remedies.

Poverty and the precariousness of property in a despotic state render

usury natural, each person raising the value of his money in proportion

to the danger he sees in lending it. Misery therefore pours from all

parts into those unhappy countries; they are bereft of everything, even

of the resource of borrowing.

Hence it is that a merchant under this government is unable to carry on

an extensive commerce; he lives from hand to mouth; and were he to

encumber himself with a large quantity of merchandise, he would lose

more by the exorbitant interest he must give for money than he could

possibly get by the goods. Hence they have no laws here relating to

commerce; they are all reduced to what is called the bare police.

A government cannot be unjust without having hands to exercise its

injustice. Now, it is impossible but that these hands will be grasping

for themselves. The embezzling of the public money is therefore natural

in despotic states.

As this is a common crime under such a government, confiscations are

very useful. By these the people are eased; the money drawn by this

method being a considerable tribute which could hardly be raised on the

exhausted subject: neither is there in those countries any one family

which the prince would be glad to preserve.

In moderate governments it is quite a different thing. Confiscations

would render property uncertain, would strip innocent children, would

destroy a whole family, instead of punishing a single criminal. In

republics they would be attended with the mischief of subverting

equality, which is the very soul of this government, by depriving a

citizen of his necessary subsistence.[47]

There is a Roman law[48] against confiscations, except in the case of

crimen majestatis, or high treason of the most heinous nature. It would

be a prudent thing to follow the spirit of this law, and to limit

confiscations to particular crimes. In countries where a local custom

has rendered real estates alienable, Bodin very justly observes that

confiscations should extend only to such as are purchased or

acquired.[49]

16. Of the Communication of Power. In a despotic government the power is

communicated entire to the person entrusted with it. The vizir himself

is the despotic prince; and each particular officer is the vizir. In

monarchies the power is less immediately applied, being tempered by the

monarch as he gives it.[50] He makes such a distribution of his

authority as never to communicate a part of it without reserving a

greater share to himself.

Hence in monarchies the governors of towns are not so dependent on the

governor of the province as not to be still more so on the prince; and

the private officers or military bodies are not so far subject to their

general as not to owe still a greater subjection to their sovereign.

In most monarchies it has been wisely regulated that those who have an

extensive command should not belong to any military corps; so that as

they have no authority but through the prince's pleasure, and as they

may be employed or not, they are in some measure in the service, and in

some measure out of it.

This is incompatible with a despotic government. For if those who are

not actually employed were still invested with privileges and titles,

the consequence must be that there would be men in the state who might

be said to be great of themselves; a thing directly opposite to the

nature of this government.

Were the governor of a town independent of the pasha, expedients would

be daily necessary to make them agree; which is highly absurd in a

despotic state. Besides, if a particular governor should refuse to obey,

how could the other answer for his province with his head?

In this kind of government, authority must ever be wavering; nor is that

of the lowest magistrate more steady than that of the despotic prince.

Under moderate governments, the law is prudent in all its parts, and

perfectly well known, so that even the pettiest magistrates are capable

of following it. But in a despotic state, where the prince's will is the

law, though the prince were wise, yet how could the magistrate follow a

will he does not know? He must certainly follow his own.

Again, as the law is only the prince's will, and as the prince can only

will what he knows, the consequence is that there are an infinite number

of people who must will for him, and make their wills keep pace with

his. In fine, as the law is the momentary will of the prince, it is

necessary that those who will for him should follow his sudden manner of

willing.

17. Of Presents. It is a received custom in despotic countries never to

address any superior whomsoever, not excepting their kings, without

making them a present. The Mogul[51] never receives the petitions of his

subjects if they come with empty hands. These princes spoil even their

own favours.

But thus it must ever be in a government where no man is a citizen;

where they have all a notion that a superior is under no obligation to

an inferior; where men imagine themselves bound by no other tie than the

chastisements inflicted by one party upon another; where, in fine, there

is very little to do, and where the people have seldom an occasion of

presenting themselves before the great, of offering their petitions, and

much less their complaints.

In a republic, presents are odious, because virtue stands in no need of

them. In monarchies, honour is a much stronger incentive than presents.

But in a despotic government, where there is neither honour nor virtue,

people cannot be determined to act but through hope of the conveniences

of life.

It is in conformity with republican ideas that Plato[52] ordered those

who received presents for doing their duty to be punished with death.

"They must not take presents," says he, "neither for good nor for evil

actions."

A very bad law was that among the Romans[53] which gave the magistrates

leave to accept small presents[[54] provided they did not exceed one

hundred crowns in the whole year. They who receive nothing expect

nothing; they who receive a little soon covet more, till at length their

desires swell to an exorbitant height.

Besides, it is much easier to convict a man who knows himself obliged to

accept no present at all, and yet will accept something, than a person

who takes more when he ought to take less, and who always finds

pretexts, excuses, and plausible reasons in justification of his

conduct.

18. Of Rewards conferred by the Sovereign. In despotic governments,

where, as we have already observed, the principal motive of action is

the hope of the conveniences of life, the prince who confers rewards has

nothing to bestow but money. In monarchies, where honour alone

predominates, the prince's rewards would consist only of marks of

distinction, if the distinctions established by honour were not attended

with luxury, which necessarily brings on its wants: the prince therefore

is obliged to confer such honours as lead to wealth. But in a republic

where virtue reigns -- a motive self-sufficient, and which excludes all

others -- the recompenses of the state consist only of public

attestations of this virtue.

It is a general rule that great rewards in monarchies and republics are

a sign of their decline; because they are a proof of their principles

being corrupted, and that the idea of honour has no longer the same

force in a monarchy, nor the title of citizen the same weight in a

republic.

The very worst Roman emperors were those who were most profuse in their

largesses; for example, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Otho, Vitellius,

Commodus, Heliogabalus, and Caracalla. The best, as Augustus, Vespasian,

Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Pertinax, were economists. Under

good emperors the state resumed its principles; all other treasures were

supplied by that of honour.

19. New Consequences of the Principles of the three Governments. I

cannot conclude this book without making some applications of my three

principles.

1st Question.] It is a question whether the laws ought to oblige a

subject to accept a public employment. My opinion is that they ought in

a republic, but not in a monarchical government. In the former, public

employments are attestations of virtue, depositions with which a citizen

is entrusted by his country, for whose sake alone he ought to live, to

act, and to think, consequently lie cannot refuse them.[55] In the

latter, public offices are testimonials of honour; now such is the

capriciousness of honour that it chooses to accept none of these

testimonies but when and in what manner it pleases.

The late King of Sardinia[56] inflicted punishments on his subjects who

refused the dignities and public offices of the state. In this he

unknowingly followed republican ideas: but his method of governing in

other respects sufficiently proves that this was not his intention.

2nd Question.] Secondly, it is questioned whether a subject should be

obliged to accept a post in the army inferior to that which he held

before. Among the Romans it was usual to see a captain serve the next

year under his lieutenant.[57] This is because virtue in republics

requires a continual sacrifice of our persons and of our repugnances for

the good of the state. But in monarchies, honour, true or false, will

never bear with what it calls degrading itself.

In despotic governments, where honour, posts, and ranks are equally

abused, they indiscriminately make a prince a scullion, and a scullion a

prince.

3rd Question.] Thirdly, it may be inquired, whether civil and military

employments should be conferred on the same person. In republics I think

they should be joined, but in monarchies separated. In the former it

would be extremely dangerous to make the profession of arms a particular

state, distinct from that of civil functions; and in the latter, no less

dangerous would it be to confer these two employments on the same

person.

In republics a person takes up arms only with a view to defend his

country and its laws; it is because he is a citizen he makes himself for

a while a soldier. Were these two distinct states, the person who under

arms thinks himself a citizen would soon be made sensible he is only a

soldier.

In monarchies, they whose condition engages them in the profession of

arms have nothing but glory, or at least honour or fortune, in view. To

men, therefore, like these, the prince should never give any civil

employments; on the contrary, they ought to be checked by the civil

magistrate, that the same persons may not have at the same time the

confidence of the people and the power to abuse it.[58]

We have only to cast an eye on a nation that may be justly called a

republic, disguised under the form of monarchy, and we shall see how

jealous they are of making a separate order of the profession of arms,

and how the military state is constantly allied with that of the

citizen, and even sometimes of the magistrate, to the end that these

qualities may be a pledge for their country, which should never be

forgotten.

The division of civil and military employments, made by the Romans after

the extinction of the republic, was not an arbitrary thing. It was a

consequence of the change which happened in the constitution of Rome; it

was natural to a monarchical government; and what was only commenced

under Augustus[59] succeeding emperors[60] were obliged to finish, in

order to temper the military government.

Procopius, therefore, the competitor of Valens the emperor, was very

much to blame when, conferring the pro-consular dignity[61] upon

Hormisdas, a prince of the blood royal of Persia, he restored to this

magistracy the military command of which it had been formerly possessed;

unless indeed he had very particular reasons for so doing. A person that

aspires to the sovereignty concerns himself less about what is

serviceable to the state than what is likely to promote his own

interest.

4th Question.] Fourthly, it is a question whether public employments

should be sold. They ought not, I think, in despotic governments, where

the subjects must be instantaneously placed or displaced by the prince.

But in monarchies this custom is not at all improper, by reason it is an

inducement to engage in that as a family employment which would not be

undertaken through a motive of virtue; it fixes likewise every one in

his duty, and renders the several orders of the kingdom more permanent.

Suidas very justly observes that Anastasius had changed the empire into

a kind of aristocracy, by selling all public employments.

Plato[62] cannot bear with this prostitution: "This is exactly," says

he, "as if a person were to be made a mariner or pilot of a ship for his

money. Is it possible that this rule should be bad in every other

employment of life, and hold good only in the administration of a

republic?" But Plato speaks of a republic founded on virtue, and we of a

monarchy. Now, in monarchies (where, though there were no such thing as

a regular sale of public offices, still the indigence and avidity of the

courtier would equally prompt him to expose them to sale) chance will

furnish better subjects than the prince's choice. In short, the method

of attaining to honours through riches inspires and cherishes

industry,[63] a thing extremely wanting in this kind of government.

5th Question.] The fifth question is in what kind of government censors

are necessary. My answer is, that they are necessary in a republic,

where the principle of government is virtue. We must not imagine that

criminal actions only are destructive of virtue; it is destroyed also by

omissions, by neglects, by a certain coolness in the love of our

country, by bad examples, and by the seeds of corruption: whatever does

not openly violate but elude the laws, does not subvert but weaken them,

ought to fall under the inquiry and correction of the censors.

We are surprised at the punishment of the Areopagite for killing a

sparrow which, to escape the pursuit of a hawk, had taken shelter in his

bosom. Surprised we are also that an Areopagite should put his son to

death for putting out the eyes of a little bird. But let us reflect that

the question here does not relate to a criminal sentence, but to a

judgment concerning manners in a republic founded on manners.

In monarchies there should be no censors; the former are founded on

honour, and the nature of honour is to have the whole world for its

censor. Every man who fails in this article is subject to the reproaches

even of those who are void of honour.

Here the censors would be spoiled by the very people whom they ought to

correct: they could not prevail against the corruption of a monarchy;

the corruption rather would be too strong against them.

Hence it is obvious that there ought to be no censors in despotic

governments. The example of China seems to derogate from this rule; but

we shall see, in the course of this work, the particular reasons of that

institution.

______

1. Plutarch, Solon.

2. Ibid.

3. Philolaus of Corinth made a law at Athens that the number of the

portions of land and that of inheritances should be always the same. --

Aristotle, Politics, ii. 7, 12.

4. Laws, xi.

5. Cornelius Nepos, preface. This custom began in the earliest times.

Thus Abraham says of Sarah, "She is my sister, my father's daughter, but

not my mother's." The same reasons occasioned the establishing the same

law among different nations.

6. De specialibus legibus quæ pertinent ad præceptar Decalogi.

7. Book x.

8. Athenis dimidium licet, Alexandriæ totum. -- Seneca, De Morte

Claudii.

9. Plato has a law of this kind. Laws, v.

10. Aristotle. ii. 7.

11. Solon made four classes: the first, of those who had an income of

500 minas either in corn or liquid fruits; the second, of those who had

300, and were able to keep a horse; the third, of such as had only 200;

the fourth, of all those who lived by their manual labour. -- Plutarch,

Solon.

12. Solon excludes from public employments all those of the fourth

class.

13. They insisted upon a larger division of the conquered lands. --

Plutarch, Lives of the ancient Kings and Commanders.

14. In these, the portions or fortunes of women ought to be very much

limited.

15. The magistrates there were annual, and the senators for life.

16. Lycurgus, says Xenophon, De Repub. Lacedæm., 10. § 1, 2, ordained

that the senators should be chosen from amongst the old men, to the end

that they might not be neglected in the decline of life; thus by making

them judges of the courage of young people, he rendered the old age of

the former more honourable than the strength and vigour of the latter.

17. Even the Areopagus itself was subject to their censure.

18. De Repub. Lacedæm., 8.

19. We may see in the Roman History how useful this power was to the

republic. I shall give an instance even in the time of its greatest

corruption. Aulus Fulvius was set out on his journey in order to join

Catiline; his father called him back, and put him to death. -- Sallust,

De Bello Catil., xxxiv.

20. In our days the Venetians, who in many respects may be said to have

a very wise government, decided a dispute between a noble Venetian and a

gentleman of Terra Firma in respect to precedency in a church, by

declaring that out of Venice a noble Venetian had no pre-eminence over

any other citizen.

21. It was inserted by the decemvirs in the two last tables. See

Dionysius Helicarnassus, x.

22. As in some aristocracies in our time; nothing is more prejudicial to

the government.

23. See in Strabo, xiv., in what manner the Rhodians behaved in this

respect.

24. Amelot de la Houssaye, Of the Government of Venice, part III. The

Claudian law forbade the senators to have any ship at sea that held

above forty bushels. -- Livy, xxi. 63.

25. The informers throw their scrolls into it.

26. See Livy, xlix. A censor could not be troubled even by a censor;

each made his remark without taking the opinion of his colleague; and

when it otherwise happened, the censorship was in a manner abolished.

27. At Athens the Logistæ, who made all the magistrates accountable for

their conduct, gave no account themselves.

28. It is so practised at Venice. -- Amelot de la Houssaye, pp. 30, 31.

29. The main design of some aristocracies seems to be less the support

of the state than of their nobility.

30. It is tolerated only in the common people. See Leg. 3, Cod. de comm.

et mercatoribus, which is full of good sense.

31. Testament polit.

32. Barbaris cunctatio servilis, statim exequi regium videtur. --

Tacitus, Annals., v. 32.

33. Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, and other histories.

34. Testament polit.

35. Edifying Letters, coll. ii, p. 315.

36. Continuation of Pufendorf, Introduction to the History of Europe, in

the article on Sweden, 10.

37. According to Sir John Chardin, there is no council of state in

Persia.

38. See Ricaut, State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 196.

39. See concerning the inheritances of the Turks, Ancient and Modern

Sparta. See also Ricaut on the Ottoman empire.

40. Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the Establishment of the

East India Company, i. The law of Pegu is less cruel; if there happen to

be children, the king succeeds only to two-thirds. Ibid., iii, p. 1.

41. See the different constitutions, especially that of 1722.

42. See Justin.

43. See the book of laws as relative to the nature of the climate. Book

xiv, below.

44. Laquilletiere, Ancient and Modern Sparta, p. 463.

45. The same may be said of compositions in regard to fair bankrupts.

46. There was no such establishment made till the Julian law, De

Cessione bonorum; which preserved them from prison and from an

ignominious division of their goods. -- Cod., ii. tit. 12.

47 They seem to have been too fond of confiscations in the republic of

Athens.

48. Authentica bona damnatorum. -- Cod. de bon. proscript. seu damn.

49. De la Republique, v. 3.

50. Ut esse Phoebi dulcius lumen solet Jamjam cadentis -- Seneca, Troas,

V. i. 1.

51. Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the Establishment of the

East India Company, i, p. 80.

52. Laws, xii.

53. Leg. 6, § 2; Dig. ad leg. Jul. repet.

54. Munuscula.

55. Plato, in his Republic, viii, ranks these refusals among the marks

of the corruption of a republic. In his Laws, vi, he orders them to be

punished by a fine; at Venice they are punished with banishment.

56. Victor Amadeus.

57. Some centurions having appealed to the people for the employments

which they had before enjoyed, "It is just, my comrades," said a

centurion, "that you should look upon every post as honourable in which

you have an opportunity of defending the republic." -- Livy, dec. 5,

xlii, 34.

58. Ne imperium ad optimos nobilium transferretur, Senatum militia

vetuit Gallienus, etiam adire exercitum. -- Aurelius Victor, De

Cæsaribus.

59. Augustus deprived the senators, proconsuls, and governors of the

privilege of wearing arms. -- Dio, xxxiii.

60. Constantine. See Zozimus, ii.

61. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvi, Et Civilia, more veterum, et bella

recturo.

62. Republic, viii.

63. We see the laziness of Spain, where all public employments are given

away.

Book VIII. Of the Corruption of the Principles of the Three Governments

1. General Idea of this Book. The corruption of this government

generally begins with that of the principles.

2. Of the Corruption of the Principles of Democracy. The principle of

democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is extinct,

but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality, and when

each citizen would fain be upon a level with those whom he has chosen to

command him. Then the people, incapable of bearing the very power they

have delegated, want to manage everything themselves, to debate for the

senate, to execute for the magistrate, and to decide for the judges.

When this is the case, virtue can no longer subsist in the republic. The

people are desirous of exercising the functions of the magistrates, who

cease to be revered. The deliberations of the senate are slighted; all

respect is then laid aside for the senators, and consequently for old

age. If there is no more respect for old age, there will be none

presently for parents; deference to husbands will be likewise thrown

off, and submission to masters. This licence will soon become general,

and the trouble of command be as fatiguing as that of obedience. Wives,

children, slaves will shake off all subjection. No longer will there be

any such thing as manners, order, or virtue.

We find in Xenophon's Banquet a very lively description of a republic in

which the people abused their equality. Each guest gives in his turn the

reason why he is satisfied. "Content I am," says Chamides, "because of

my poverty. When I was rich, I was obliged to pay my court to informers,

knowing I was more liable to be hurt by them than capable of doing them

harm. The republic constantly demanded some new tax of me; and I could

not decline paying. Since I have grown poor, I have acquired authority;

nobody threatens me; I rather threaten others. I can go or stay where I

please. The rich already rise from their seats and give me the way. I am

a king, I was before a slave: I paid taxes to the republic, now it

maintains me: I am no longer afraid of losing: but I hope to acquire."

The people fall into this misfortune when those in whom they confide,

desirous of concealing their own corruption, endeavour to corrupt them.

To disguise their own ambition, they speak to them only of the grandeur

of the state; to conceal their own avarice, they incessantly flatter

theirs.

The corruption will increase among the corruptors, and likewise among

those who are already corrupted. The people will divide the public money

among themselves, and, having added the administration of affairs to

their indolence, will be for blending their poverty with the amusements

of luxury. But with their indolence and luxury, nothing but the public

treasure will be able to satisfy their demands.

We must not be surprised to see their suffrages given for money. It is

impossible to make great largesses to the people without great

extortion: and to compass this, the state must be subverted. The greater

the advantages they seem to derive from their liberty, the nearer they

approach towards the critical moment of losing it. Petty tyrants arise

who have all the vices of a single tyrant. The small remains of liberty

soon become insupportable; a single tyrant starts up, and the people are

stripped of everything, even of the profits of their corruption.

Democracy has, therefore, two excesses to avoid -- the spirit of

inequality, which leads to aristocracy or monarchy, and the spirit of

extreme equality, which leads to despotic power, as the latter is

completed by conquest.

True it is that those who corrupted the Greek republics did not always

become tyrants. This was because they had a greater passion for

eloquence than for the military art. Besides there reigned an implacable

hatred in the breasts of the Greeks against those who subverted a

republican government; and for this reason anarchy degenerated into

annihilation, instead of being changed into tyranny.

But Syracuse being situated in the midst of a great number of petty

states, whose government had been changed from oligarchy to tyranny,[1]

and being governed by a senate[2] scarcely ever mentioned in history,

underwent such miseries as are the consequence of a more than ordinary

corruption. This city, ever a prey to licentiousness[3] or oppression,

equally labouring under the sudden and alternate succession of liberty

and servitude, and notwithstanding her external strength, constantly

determined to a revolution by the least foreign power -- this city, I

say, had in her bosom an immense multitude of people, whose fate it was

to have always this cruel alternative, either of choosing a tyrant to

govern them, or of acting the tyrant themselves.

3. Of the Spirit of extreme Equality. As distant as heaven is from

earth, so is the true spirit of equality from that of extreme equality.

The former does not imply that everybody should command, or that no one

should be commanded, but that we obey or command our equals. It

endeavours not to shake off the authority of a master, but that its

masters should be none but its equals.

In the state of nature, indeed, all men are born equal, but they cannot

continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover

it only by the protection of the laws.

Such is the difference between a well-regulated democracy and one that

is not so, that in the former men are equal only as citizens, but in the

latter they are equal also as magistrates, as senators, as judges, as

fathers, as husbands, or as masters.

The natural place of virtue is near to liberty; but it is not nearer to

excessive liberty than to servitude.

4. Particular Cause of the Corruption of the People. Great success,

especially when chiefly owing to the people, intoxicates them to such a

degree that it is impossible to contain them within bounds. Jealous of

their magistrates, they soon became jealous likewise of the magistracy;

enemies to those who govern, they soon prove enemies also to the

constitution. Thus it was that the victory over the Persians in the

straits of Salamis corrupted the republic of Athens;[4] and thus the

defeat of the Athenians ruined the republic of Syracuse.[5]

Marseilles never experienced those great transitions from lowness to

grandeur; this was owing to the prudent conduct of that republic, which

always preserved her principles.

5. Of the Corruption of the Principle of Aristocracy. Aristocracy is

corrupted if the power of the nobles becomes arbitrary: when this is the

case, there can no longer be any virtue either in the governors or the

governed.

If the reigning families observe the laws, it is a monarchy with several

monarchs, and in its own nature one of the most excellent; for almost

all these monarchs are tied down by the laws. But when they do not

observe them, it is a despotic state swayed by a great many despotic

princes.

In the latter case, the republic consists only in the nobles. The body

governing is the republic; and the body governed is the despotic state;

which forms two of the most heterogeneous bodies in the world.

The extremity of corruption is when the power of the nobles becomes

hereditary;[6] for then they can hardly have any moderation. If they are

only a few, their power is greater, but their security less: if they are

a larger number, their power is less, and their security greater,

insomuch that power goes on increasing, and security diminishing, up to

the very despotic prince who is encircled with excess of power and

danger.

The great number, therefore, of nobles in an hereditary aristocracy

renders the government less violent: but as there is less virtue, they

fall into a spirit of supineness and negligence, by which the state

loses all its strength and activity.[7]

An aristocracy may maintain the full vigour of its constitution if the

laws be such as are apt to render the nobles more sensible of the perils

and fatigues than of the pleasure of command: and if the government be

in such a situation as to have something to dread, while security

shelters under its protection, and uncertainty threatens from abroad.

As a certain kind of confidence forms the glory and stability of

monarchies, republics, on the contrary, must have something to

apprehend.[8] A fear of the Persians supported the laws of Greece.

Carthage and Rome were alarmed, and strengthened by each other. Strange,

that the greater security those states enjoyed, the more, like stagnated

waters, they were subject to corruption!

6. Of the Corruption of the Principle of Monarchy. As democracies are

subverted when the people despoil the senate, the magistrates, the

judges of their functions, so monarchies are corrupted when the prince

insensibly deprives societies or cities of their privileges. In the

former case the multitude usurp the power, in the latter it is usurped

by a single person.

"The destruction of the dynasties of Tsin and Soui," says a Chinese

author, "was owing to this: the princes, instead of confining

themselves, like their ancestors, to a general inspection, the only one

worthy of a sovereign, wanted to govern everything immediately by

themselves."[9] The Chinese author gives us in this instance the cause

of the corruption of almost all monarchies.

Monarchy is destroyed when a prince thinks he shows a greater exertion

of power in changing than in conforming to the order of things; when he

deprives some of his subjects of their hereditary employments to bestow

them arbitrarily upon others; and when he is fonder of being guided by

fancy than judgment.

Again, it is destroyed when the prince, directing everything entirely to

himself, calls the state to his capital, the capital to his court, and

the court to his own person.

It is destroyed, in fine, when the prince mistakes his authority, his

situation and the love of his people, and when he is not fully persuaded

that a monarch ought to think himself secure, as a despotic prince ought

to think himself in danger.

7. The same Subject continued. The principle of monarchy is corrupted

when the first dignities are marks of the first servitude, when the

great men are deprived of public respect, and rendered the low tools of

arbitrary power.

It is still more corrupted when honour is set up in contradiction to

honours, and when men are capable of being loaded at the very same time

with infamy[10] and with dignities.

It is corrupted when the prince changes his justice into severity; when

he puts, like the Roman emperors, a Medusa's head on his breast;[11] and

when he assumes that menacing and terrible air which Commodus ordered to

be given to his statues.[12]

Again, it is corrupted when mean and abject souls grow vain of the pomp

attending their servitude, and imagine that the motive which induces

them to be entirely devoted to their prince exempts them from all duty

to their country.

But if it be true (and indeed the experience of all ages has shown it)

that in proportion as the power of the monarch becomes boundless and

immense, his security diminishes, is the corrupting of this power, and

the altering of its very nature, a less crime than that of high treason

against the prince?

8. Danger of the Corruption of the Principle of monarchical Government.

The danger is not when the state passes from one moderate to another

moderate government, as from a republic to a monarchy, or from a

monarchy to a republic; but when it is precipitated from a moderate to a

despotic government.

Most of the European nations are still governed by the principles of

morality. But if from a long abuse of power or the fury of conquest,

despotic sway should prevail to a certain degree, neither morals nor

climate would be able to withstand its baleful influence: and then human

nature would be exposed, for some time at least, even in this beautiful

part of the world, to the insults with which she has been abused in the

other three.

9. How ready the Nobility are to defend the Throne. The English nobility

buried themselves with Charles the First under the ruins of the throne;

and before that time, when Philip the Second endeavoured to tempt the

French with the allurement of liberty, the crown was constantly

supported by a nobility who think it an honour to obey a king, but

consider it as the lowest disgrace to share the power with the people.

The house of Austria has ever used her endeavours to oppress the

Hungarian nobility; little thinking how serviceable that very nobility

would be one day to her. She would fain have drained their country of

money, of which they had no plenty; but took no notice of the men, with

whom it abounded. When princes combined to dismember her dominions, the

several parts of that monarchy fell motionless, as it were one upon

another. No life was then to be seen but in those very nobles, who,

resenting the affronts offered to the sovereign, and forgetting the

injuries done to themselves, took up arms to avenge her cause, and

considered it the highest glory bravely to die and to forgive.

10. Of the Corruption of the Principle of despotic Government. The

principle of despotic government is subject to a continual corruption,

because it is even in its nature corrupt. Other governments are

destroyed by particular accidents, which do violence to the principles

of each constitution; this is ruined by its own intrinsic imperfections,

when some accidental causes do not prevent the corrupting of its

principles. It maintains itself therefore only when circumstances, drawn

from the climate, religion, situation, or genius of the people, oblige

it to conform to order, and to admit of some rule. By these things its

nature is forced without being changed; its ferocity remains; and it is

made tame and tractable only for a time.

11. Natural Effects of the Goodness and Corruption of the Principles of

Government. When once the principles of government are corrupted, the

very best laws become bad, and turn against the state: but when the

principles are sound, even bad laws have the same effect as good; the

force of the principle draws everything to it.

The inhabitants of Crete used a very singular method to keep the

principal magistrates dependent on the laws, which was that of

Insurrection. Part of the citizens rose up in arms,[13] put the

magistrates to flight, and obliged them to return to a private life.

This was supposed to be done in consequence of the law. One would have

imagined that an institution of this nature, which established sedition

to hinder the abuse of power, would have subverted any republic

whatsoever; and yet it did not subvert that of Crete. The reason is

this.[14]

When the ancients would cite a people that had the strongest affection

for their country, they were sure to mention the inhabitants of Crete:

"Our Country," said Plato,[15] "a name so dear to the Cretans." They

called it by a name which signifies the love of a mother for her

children.[16] Now the love of our country sets everything right.

The laws of Poland have likewise their Insurrection: but the

inconveniences thence arising plainly show that the people of Crete

alone were capable of using such a remedy with success.

The gymnic exercises established among the Greeks had the same

dependence on the goodness of the principle of government. "It was the

Lacedæmonians and Cretans," said Plato,[17] "that opened those

celebrated academies which gave them so eminent a rank in the world.

Modesty at first was alarmed; but it yielded to the public utility." In

Plato's time these institutions were admirable:[18] as they bore a

relation to a very important object, which was the military art. But

when virtue fled from Greece, the military art was destroyed by these

institutions; people appeared then on the arena, not for improvement,

but for debauch.[19] Plutarch informs us[20] that the Romans in his time

were of opinion that those games had been the principal cause of the

slavery into which the Greeks had fallen. On the contrary, it was the

slavery of the Greeks that corrupted those exercises. In Plutarch's

time,[21] their fighting naked in the parks, and their wrestling,

infected the young people with a spirit of cowardice, inclined them to

infamous passions, and made them mere dancers. But under Epaminondas the

exercise of wrestling made the Thebans win the famous battle of

Leuctra.[22]

There are very few laws which are not good, while the state retains its

principles: here I may apply what Epicurus said of riches. "It is not

the liquor, but the vessel that is corrupted."

12. The same Subject continued. In Rome the judges were chosen at first

from the order of senators. This privilege the Gracchi transferred to

the knights; Drusus gave it to the senators and knights; Sulla to the

senators only: Cotta to the senators, knights, and public treasurers;

Cæsar excluded the latter; Antony made decuries of senators, knights,

and centurions.

When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying

any of the growing evils, but by removing the corruption and restoring

its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new

evil. While Rome preserved her principles entire, the judicial power

might without any abuse be lodged in the hands of senators; but as soon

as this city became corrupt, to whatsoever body that power was

transferred, whether to the senate, to the knights, to the treasurers,

to two of those bodies, to all three together, or to any other, matters

still went wrong. The knights had no more virtue than the senate, the

treasurers no more than the knights, and these as little as the

centurions.

After the people of Rome had obtained the privilege of sharing the

magistracy with the patricians, it was natural to think that their

flatterers would immediately become arbiters of the government. But no

such thing ever happened. -- It was observable that the very people who

had rendered the plebeians capable of public offices ever fixed their

choice upon the patricians. Because they were virtuous, they were

magnanimous; and because they were free, they had a contempt of power.

But when their morals were corrupted, the more power they were possessed

of, the less prudent was their conduct, till at length, upon becoming

their own tyrants and slaves, they lost the strength of liberty to fall

into the weakness and impotency of licentiousness.

13. The Effect of an Oath among virtuous People. There is no nation,

says Livy,[23] that has been longer uncorrupted than the Romans; no

nation where moderation and poverty have been longer respected.

Such was the influence of an oath among those people that nothing bound

them more strongly to the laws. They often did more for the observance

of an oath than they would ever have performed for the thirst of glory

or for the love of their country.

When Quintus Cincinnatus, the consul, wanted to raise an army in the

city against the Æqui and the Volsci, the tribunes opposed him. "Well,"

said he, "let all those who have taken an oath to the consul of the

preceding year march under my banner."[24] In vain did the tribunes cry

out that this oath was no longer binding, and that when they took it

Quintus was but a private person: the people were more religious than

those who pretended to direct them; they would not listen to the

distinctions or equivocations of the tribunes.

When the same people thought of retiring to the Sacred Mount, they felt

some remorse from the oath they had taken to the consuls, that they

would follow them into the field.[25] They entered then into a design of

killing the consuls; but dropped it when they were given to understand

that their oath would still be binding. Now it is easy to judge of the

notion they entertained of the violation of an oath from the crime they

intended to commit.

After the battle of Cannæ, the people were seized with such a panic that

they would fain have retired to Sicily. But Scipio having prevailed upon

them to swear they would not stir from Rome, the fear of violating this

oath surpassed all other apprehensions. Rome was a ship held by two

anchors, religion and morality, in the midst of a furious tempest.

14. How the smallest Change of the Constitution is attended with the

Ruin of its Principles. Aristotle mentions the city of Carthage as a

well-regulated republic. Polybius tells us[26] that there was this

inconvenience at Carthage in the second Punic war, that the senate had

lost almost all its authority. We are informed by Livy that when

Hannibal returned to Carthage he found that the magistrates and the

principal citizens had abused their power, and converted the public

revenues to their private emolument. The virtue, therefore, of the

magistrates, and the authority of the senate, both fell at the same

time; and all was owing to the same cause.

Every one knows the wonderful effects of the censorship among the

Romans. There was a time when it grew burdensome; but still it was

supported because there was more luxury than corruption. Claudius[27]

weakened its authority, by which means the corruption became greater

than the luxury, and the censorship dwindled away of itself.[28] After

various interruptions and resumptions, it was entirely laid aside, till

it became altogether useless, that is, till the reigns of Augustus and

Claudius.

15. Sure Methods of preserving the three Principles. I shall not be able

to make myself rightly understood till the reader has perused the four

following chapters.

16. Distinctive Properties of a Republic. It is natural for a republic

to have only a small territory; otherwise it cannot long subsist. In an

extensive republic there are men of large fortunes, and consequently of

less moderation; there are trusts too considerable to be placed in any

single subject; he has interests of his own; he soon begins to think

that he may be happy and glorious, by oppressing his fellow-citizens;

and that he may raise himself to grandeur on the ruins of his country.

In an extensive republic the public good is sacrificed to a thousand

private views; it is subordinate to exceptions, and depends on

accidents. In a small one, the interest of the public is more obvious,

better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses

have less extent, and of course are less protected.

The long duration of the republic of Sparta was owing to her having

continued in the same extent of territory after all her wars. The sole

aim of Sparta was liberty; and the sole advantage of her liberty, glory.

It was the spirit of the Greek republics to be as contented with their

territories as with their laws. Athens was first fired with ambition and

gave it to Lacedæmon; but it was an ambition rather of commanding a free

people than of governing slaves; rather of directing than of breaking

the union. All was lost upon the starting up of monarchy -- a government

whose spirit is more turned to increase of dominion.

Excepting particular circumstances,[29] it is difficult for any other

than a republican government to subsist longer in a single town. A

prince of so petty a state would naturally endeavour to oppress his

subjects, because his power would be great, while the means of enjoying

it or of causing it to be respected would be inconsiderable. The

consequence is, he would trample upon his people. On the other hand,

such a prince might be easily crushed by a foreign or even a domestic

force; the people might any instant unite and rise up against him. Now

as soon as the sovereign of a single town is expelled, the quarrel is

over; but if he has many towns, it only begins.

17. Distinctive Properties of a Monarchy. A monarchical state ought to

be of moderate extent. Were it small, it would form itself into a

republic; were it very large, the nobility, possessed of great estates,

far from the eye of the prince, with a private court of their own, and

secure, moreover, from sudden executions by the laws and manners of the

country -- such a nobility, I say, might throw off their allegiance,

having nothing to fear from too slow and too distant a punishment.

Thus Charlemagne had scarcely founded his empire when he was obliged to

divide it; whether the governors of the provinces refused to obey; or

whether, in order to keep them more under subjection, there was a

necessity of parcelling the empire into several kingdoms.

After the decease of Alexander his empire was divided. How was it

possible for those Greek and Macedonian chiefs, who were each of them

free and independent, or commanders at least of the victorious bands

dispersed throughout that vast extent of conquered land -- how was it

possible, I say, for them to obey?

Attila's empire was dissolved soon after his death; such a number of

kings, who were no longer under restraint, could not resume their

fetters.

The sudden establishment of unlimited power is a remedy, which in those

cases may prevent a dissolution: but how dreadful the remedy, which

after the enlargement of dominion opens a new scene of misery!

The rivers hasten to mingle their waters with the sea; and monarchies

lose themselves in despotic power.

18. Particular Case of the Spanish Monarchy. Let not the example of

Spain be produced against me, it rather proves what I affirm. To

preserve America she did what even despotic power itself does not

attempt: she destroyed the inhabitants. To preserve her colony, she was

obliged to keep it dependent even for its subsistence.

In the Netherlands, she essayed to render herself arbitrary; and as soon

as she abandoned the attempt, her perplexity increased. On the one hand

the Walloons would not be governed by Spaniards; and on the other, the

Spanish soldiers refused to submit to Walloon officers.[30]

In Italy she maintained her ground, merely by exhausting herself and by

enriching that country. For those who would have been pleased to have

got rid of the king of Spain were not in a humour to refuse his gold.

19. Distinctive Properties of a despotic Government. A large empire

supposes a despotic authority in the person who governs. It is necessary

that the quickness of the prince's resolutions should supply the

distance of the places they are sent to; that fear should prevent the

remissness of the distant governor or magistrate; that the law should be

derived from a single person, and should shift continually, according to

the accidents which necessarily multiply in a state in proportion to its

extent.

20. Consequence of the preceding Chapters. If it be, therefore, the

natural property of small states to be governed as a republic, of

middling ones to be subject to a monarch, and of large empires to be

swayed by a despotic prince; the consequence is, that in order to

preserve the principles of the established government, the state must be

supported in the extent it has acquired, and that the spirit of this

state will alter in proportion as it contracts or extends its limits.

21. Of the Empire of China. Before I conclude this book, I shall answer

an objection that may be made to the foregoing doctrine.

Our missionaries inform us that the government of the vast empire of

China is admirable, and that it has a proper mixture of fear, honour,

and virtue. Consequently I must have given an idle distinction in

establishing the principles of the three governments.

But I cannot conceive what this honour can be among a people who act

only through fear of being bastinadoed.[31]

Again, our merchants are far from giving us any such accounts of the

virtue so much talked of by the missionaries; we need only consult them

in relation to the robberies and extortions of the mandarins.[32] I

likewise appeal to another unexceptional witness, the great Lord Anson.

Besides, Father Perennin's letters concerning the emperor's proceedings

against some of the princes of the blood[33] who had incurred his

displeasure by their conversion, plainly show us a settled plan of

tyranny, and barbarities committed by rule, that is, in cold blood.

We have likewise Monsieur de Mairan's, and the same Father Perennin's,

letters on the government of China. I find therefore that after a few

proper questions and answers the whole mystery is unfolded.

Might not our missionaries have been deceived by an appearance of order?

Might not they have been struck with that constant exercise of a single

person's will -- an exercise by which they themselves are governed, and

which they are so pleased to find in the courts of the Indian princes;

because as they go thither only in order to introduce great changes, it

is much easier to persuade those princes that there are no bounds to

their power, than to convince the people that there are none to their

submission.[34]

In fine, there is frequently some kind of truth even in errors

themselves. It may be owing to particular and, perhaps, very

extraordinary circumstances that the Chinese government is not so

corrupt as one might naturally expect. The climate and some other

physical causes may, in that country, have had so strong an influence on

their morals as in some measure to produce wonders.

The climate of China is surprisingly favourable to the propagation of

the human species.[35] The women are the most prolific in the whole

world. The most barbarous tyranny can put no stop to the progress of

propagation. The prince cannot say there like Pharaoh, "Let us deal

wisely with them, lest they multiply." He would be rather reduced to

Nero's wish, that mankind had all but one head. In spite of tyranny,

China by the force of its climate will be ever populous, and triumph

over the tyrannical oppressor.

China, like all other countries that live chiefly upon rice, is subject

to frequent famines. When the people are ready to starve, they disperse

in order to seek for nourishment; in consequence of which, gangs of

robbers are formed on every side. Most of them are extirpated in their

very infancy; others swell, and are likewise suppressed. And yet in so

great a number of such distant provinces, some band or other may happen

to meet with success. In that case they maintain their ground,

strengthen their party, form themselves into a military body, march up

to the capital, and place their leader on the throne.

From the very nature of things, a bad administration is here immediately

punished. The want of subsistence in so populous a country produces

sudden disorders. The reason why the redress of abuses in other

countries is attended with such difficulty is because their effects are

not immediately felt; the prince is not informed in so sudden and

sensible a manner as in China.

The Emperor of China is not taught like our princes that if he governs

ill he will be less happy in the other life, less powerful and less

opulent in this. He knows that if his government be not just he will be

stripped both of empire and life.

As China grows every day more populous, notwithstanding the exposing of

children,[36] the inhabitants are incessantly employed in tilling the

lands for their subsistence. This requires a very extraordinary

attention in the government. It is their perpetual concern that every

man should have it in his power to work, without the apprehension of

being deprived of the fruits of his labour. Consequently this is not so

much a civil as a domestic government.

Such has been the origin of those regulations which have been so greatly

extolled. They wanted to make the laws reign in conjunction with

despotic power; but whatever is joined to the latter loses all its

force. In vain did this arbitrary sway, labouring under its own

inconveniences, desire to be fettered; it armed itself with its chains,

and has become still more terrible.

China is therefore a despotic state, whose principle is fear. Perhaps in

the earliest dynasties, when the empire had not so large an extent, the

government might have deviated a little from this spirit; but the case

is otherwise at present.

______

1. See Plutarch in Timoleon and Dion.

2. It was that of the Six Hundred, of whom mention is made by Diodorus,

xix. 5.

3. Upon the expulsions of the tyrants, they made citizens of strangers

and mercenary troops, which gave rise to civil wars. -- Aristotle,

Politics, v. 3. The people having been the cause of the victory over the

Athenians, the republic was changed. -- Ibid., 4. The passion of two

young magistrates, one of whom carried off the other's boy, and in

revenge the other debauched his wife, was attended with a change in the

form of this republic. -- Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. The aristocracy is changed into an oligarchy.

7. Venice is one of those republics that has enacted the best laws for

correcting the inconveniences of an hereditary aristocracy.

8. Justin attributes the extinction of Athenian virtue to the death of

Epaminondas. Having no further emulation, they spent their revenues in

feasts, frequentius coenam, quam castra visentes. Then it was that the

Macedonians emerged from obscurity, 9, 1. 6.

9. Compilation of works made under the Mings, related by Father Du

Halde, Description of China, ii, p. 648.

10. During the reign of Tiberius statues were erected to, and triumphal

ornaments conferred on, informers; which debased these honours to such a

degree that those who had really merited them disdained to accept them.

Frag. of Dio, lviii. 14, taken from the Extract of Virtues and Vices, by

Constantine Porphyrogenitus. See in Tacitus in what manner Nero, on the

discovery and punishment of a pretended conspiracy, bestowed triumphal

ornaments on Petronius Turpilianus, Nerva, and Tigellinus. -- Annals,

xiv. 72. See likewise how the generals refused to serve, because they

condemned the military honours: pervulgatis triumphi insignibus --

Ibid., xiii. 53.

11. In this state the prince knew extremely well the principle of his

government.

12. Herodian.

13. Aristotle, Politics, ii. 10.

14. They always united immediately against foreign enemies, which was

called Syncretism. -- Plutarch Moralia, p. 88.

15. Republic, ix.

16. Plutarch, Whether a Man Advanced in Years Ought to Meddle with

Public Affairs.

17. Republic, v.

18. The Gymnic art was divided into two parts, dancing and wrestling. In

Crete they had the armed dances of the Curetes; at Sparta they had those

of Castor and Pollux; at Athens the armed dances of Pallas, which were

extremely proper for those that were not yet of age for military

service. Wrestling is the image of war, said Plato Laws, vii. He

commends antiquity for having established only two dances, the pacific

and the Pyrrhic. See how the latter dance was applied to the military

art, Plato, ibid.

19. Aut libidinosce. Ladæas Lacedamonis palæstras. -- Mutual, iv, 55.

20. Plutarch, in the treatise entitled Questions Concerning the Affairs

of the Romans, question 40.

21. Ibid.

22. Plutarch, Table Propositions, book ii, question 5.

23. Book i, pref.

24. Livy, iii. 20.

25. Ibid., 32.

26. About a hundred years after.

27. See xi, 12.

28. See Dio, xxxviii, Cicero in Plutarch, Cicero to Atticus, iv. 10, 15.

Asconius on Cicero, De Divinatione.

29. As when a petty sovereign supports himself between two great powers

by means of their mutual jealousy; but then he has only a precarious

existence.

30. See M. Le Clerc, the History of the United Provinces.

31. "It is the cudgel that governs China," says Father Du Halde, Disc.

de la Chine, ii, p. 134.

32. Among others, De Lange's account.

33. Of the Family of Sourniama, Edifying Letters, coll. xviii.

34. See in Father Du Halde how the missionaries availed themselves of

the authority of Canhi to silence the mandarins, who constantly declared

that by the laws of the country no foreign worship could be established

in the empire.

35. See Lettres persanes, 210.

36. See the order of Tsongtou for tilling the land, in the Edifying

Letters, coll. xxi.

Book XI. Of the Laws Which Establish Political Liberty, with Regard to the Constitution

1. A general Idea. I make a distinction between the laws that establish

political liberty, as it relates to the constitution, and those by which

it is established, as it relates to the citizen. The former shall be the

subject of this book; the latter I shall examine in the next.

2. Different Significations of the word Liberty. There is no word that

admits of more various significations, and has made more varied

impressions on the human mind, than that of liberty. Some have taken it

as a means of deposing a person on whom they had conferred a tyrannical

authority; others for the power of choosing a superior whom they are

obliged to obey; others for the right of bearing arms, and of being

thereby enabled to use violence; others, in fine, for the privilege of

being governed by a native of their own country, or by their own

laws.[1] A certain nation for a long time thought liberty consisted in

the privilege of wearing a long beard.[2] Some have annexed this name to

one form of government exclusive of others: those who had a republican

taste applied it to this species of polity; those who liked a

monarchical state gave it to monarchy.[3] Thus they have all applied the

name of liberty to the government most suitable to their own customs and

inclinations: and as in republics the people have not so constant and so

present a view of the causes of their misery, and as the magistrates

seem to act only in conformity to the laws, hence liberty is generally

said to reside in republics, and to be banished from monarchies. In

fine, as in democracies the people seem to act almost as they please,

this sort of government has been deemed the most free, and the power of

the people has been confounded with their liberty.

3. In what Liberty consists. It is true that in democracies the people

seem to act as they please; but political liberty does not consist in an

unlimited freedom. In governments, that is, in societies directed by

laws, liberty can consist only in the power of doing what we ought to

will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will.

We must have continually present to our minds the difference between

independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws

permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would be no longer

possessed of liberty, because all his fellow-citizens would have the

same power.

4. The same Subject continued. Democratic and aristocratic states are

not in their own nature free. Political liberty is to be found only in

moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is

there only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience

shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to

carry his authority as far as it will go. Is it not strange, though

true, to say that virtue itself has need of limits?

To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the very nature of things

that power should be a check to power. A government may be so

constituted, as no man shall be compelled to do things to which the law

does not oblige him, nor forced to abstain from things which the law

permits.

5. Of the End or View of different Governments. Though all governments

have the same general end, which is that of preservation, yet each has

another particular object. Increase of dominion was the object of Rome;

war, that of Sparta; religion, that of the Jewish laws; commerce, that

of Marseilles; public tranquillity, that of the laws of China:[4]

navigation, that of the laws of Rhodes; natural liberty, that of the

policy of the Savages; in general, the pleasures of the prince, that of

despotic states; that of monarchies, the prince's and the kingdom's

glory; the independence of individuals is the end aimed at by the laws

of Poland, thence results the oppression of the whole.[5]

One nation there is also in the world that has for the direct end of its

constitution political liberty. We shall presently examine the

principles on which this liberty is founded; if they are sound, liberty

will appear in its highest perfection.

To discover political liberty in a constitution, no great labour is

requisite. If we are capable of seeing it where it exists, it is soon

found, and we need not go far in search of it.

6. Of the Constitution of England. In every government there are three

sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things

dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters

that depend on the civil law.

By virtue of the first, the prince or magistrate enacts temporary or

perpetual laws, and amends or abrogates those that have been already

enacted. By the second, he makes peace or war, sends or receives

embassies, establishes the public security, and provides against

invasions. By the third, he punishes criminals, or determines the

disputes that arise between individuals. The latter we shall call the

judiciary power, and the other simply the executive power of the state.

The political liberty of the subject is a tranquillity of mind arising

from the opinion each person has of his safety. In order to have this

liberty, it is requisite the government be so constituted as one man

need not be afraid of another.

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person,

or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because

apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact

tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from

the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the

life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control;

for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the

executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.

There would be an end of everything, were the same man or the same body,

whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers,

that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of

trying the causes of individuals.

Most kingdoms in Europe enjoy a moderate government because the prince

who is invested with the two first powers leaves the third to his

subjects. In Turkey, where these three powers are united in the Sultan's

person, the subjects groan under the most dreadful oppression.

In the republics of Italy, where these three powers are united, there is

less liberty than in our monarchies. Hence their government is obliged

to have recourse to as violent methods for its support as even that of

the Turks; witness the state inquisitors,[6] and the lion's mouth into

which every informer may at all hours throw his written accusations.

In what a situation must the poor subject be in those republics! The

same body of magistrates are possessed, as executors of the laws, of the

whole power they have given themselves in quality of legislators. They

may plunder the state by their general determinations; and as they have

likewise the judiciary power in their hands, every private citizen may

be ruined by their particular decisions.

The whole power is here united in one body; and though there is no

external pomp that indicates a despotic sway, yet the people feel the

effects of it every moment.

Hence it is that many of the princes of Europe, whose aim has been

levelled at arbitrary power, have constantly set out with uniting in

their own persons all the branches of magistracy, and all the great

offices of state.

I allow indeed that the mere hereditary aristocracy of the Italian

republics does not exactly answer to the despotic power of the Eastern

princes. The number of magistrates sometimes moderates the power of the

magistracy; the whole body of the nobles do not always concur in the

same design; and different tribunals are erected, that temper each

other. Thus at Venice tlie legislative power is in the council, the

executive in the pregadi, and the judiciary in the quarantia. But the

mischief is, that these different tribunals are composed of magistrates

all belonging to the same body; which constitutes almost one and the

same power.

The judiciary power ought not to be given to a standing senate; it

should be exercised by persons taken from the body of the people[7] at

certain times of the year, and consistently with a form and manner

prescribed by law, in order to erect a tribunal that should last only so

long as necessity requires.

By this method the judicial power, so terrible to mankind, not being

annexed to any particular state or profession, becomes, as it were,

invisible. People have not then the judges continually present to their

view; they fear the office, but not the magistrate.

In accusations of a deep and criminal nature, it is proper the person

accused should have the privilege of choosing, in some measure, his

judges, in concurrence with the law; or at least he should have a right

to except against so great a number that the remaining part may be

deemed his own choice.

The other two powers may be given rather to magistrates or permanent

bodies, because they are not exercised on any private subject; one being

no more than the general will of the state, and the other the execution

of that general will.

But though the tribunals ought not to be fixed, the judgments ought; and

to such a degree as to be ever conformable to the letter of the law.

Were they to be the private opinion of the judge, people would then live

in society, without exactly knowing the nature of their obligations.

The judges ought likewise to be of the same rank as the accused, or, in

other words, his peers; to the end that he may not imagine he is fallen

into the hands of persons inclined to treat him with rigour.

If the legislature leaves the executive power in possession of a right

to imprison those subjects who can give security for their good

behaviour, there is an end of liberty; unless they are taken up, in

order to answer without delay to a capital crime, in which case they are

really free, being subject only to the power of the law.

But should the legislature think itself in danger by some secret

conspiracy against the state, or by a correspondence with a foreign

enemy, it might authorise the executive power, for a short and limited

time, to imprison suspected persons, who in that case would lose their

liberty only for a while, to preserve it for ever.

And this is the only reasonable method that can be substituted to the

tyrannical magistracy of the Ephori, and to the state inquisitors of

Venice, who are also despotic.

As in a country of liberty, every man who is supposed a free agent ought

to be his own governor; the legislative power should reside in the whole

body of the people. But since this is impossible in large states, and in

small ones is subject to many inconveniences, it is fit the people

should transact by their representatives what they cannot transact by

themselves.

The inhabitants of a particular town are much better acquainted with its

wants and interests than with those of other places; and are better

judges of the capacity of their neighbours than of that of the rest of

their countrymen. The members, therefore, of the legislature should not

be chosen from the general body of the nation; but it is proper that in

every considerable place a representative should be elected by the

inhabitants.[8]

The great advantage of representatives is, their capacity of discussing

public affairs. For this the people collectively are extremely unfit,

which is one of the chief inconveniences of a democracy.

It is not at all necessary that the representatives who have received a

general instruction from their constituents should wait to be directed

on each particular affair, as is practised in the diets of Germany. True

it is that by this way of proceeding the speeches of the deputies might

with greater propriety be called the voice of the nation; but, on the

other hand, this would occasion infinite delays; would give each deputy

a power of controlling the assembly; and, on the most urgent and

pressing occasions, the wheels of government might be stopped by the

caprice of a single person.

When the deputies, as Mr. Sidney well observes, represent a body of

people, as in Holland, they ought to be accountable to their

constituents; but it is a different thing in England, where they are

deputed by boroughs.

All the inhabitants of the several districts ought to have a right of

voting at the election of a representative, except such as are in so

mean a situation as to be deemed to have no will of their own.

One great fault there was in most of the ancient republics, that the

people had a right to active resolutions, such as require some

execution, a thing of which they are absolutely incapable. They ought to

have no share in the government but for the choosing of representatives,

which is within their reach. For though few can tell the exact degree of

men's capacities, yet there are none but are capable of knowing in

general whether the person they choose is better qualified than most of

his neighbours.

Neither ought the representative body to be chosen for the executive

part of government, for which it is not so fit; but for the enacting of

laws, or to see whether the laws in being are duly executed, a thing

suited to their abilities, and which none indeed but themselves can

properly perform.

In such a state there are always persons distinguished by their birth,

riches, or honours: but were they to be confounded with the common

people, and to have only the weight of a single vote like the rest, the

common liberty would be their slavery, and they would have no interest

in supporting it, as most of the popular resolutions would be against

them. The share they have, therefore, in the legislature ought to be

proportioned to their other advantages in the state; which happens only

when they form a body that has a right to check the licentiousness of

the people, as the people have a right to oppose any encroachment of

theirs.

The legislative power is therefore committed to the body of the nobles,

and to that which represents the people, each having their assemblies

and deliberations apart, each their separate views and interests.

Of the three powers above mentioned, the judiciary is in some measure

next to nothing: there remain, therefore, only two; and as these have

need of a regulating power to moderate them, the part of the legislative

body composed of the nobility is extremely proper for this purpose.

The body of the nobility ought to be hereditary. In the first place it

is so in its own nature; and in the next there must be a considerable

interest to preserve its privileges -- privileges that in themselves are

obnoxious to popular envy, and of course in a free state are always in

danger.

But as a hereditary power might be tempted to pursue its own particular

interests, and forget those of the people, it is proper that where a

singular advantage may be gained by corrupting the nobility, as in the

laws relating to the supplies, they should have no other share in the

legislation than the power of rejecting, and not that of resolving.

By the power of resolving I mean the right of ordaining by their own

authority, or of amending what has been ordained by others. By the power

of rejecting I would be understood to mean the right of annulling a

resolution taken by another; which was the power of the tribunes at

Rome. And though the person possessed of the privilege of rejecting may

likewise have the right of approving, yet this approbation passes for no

more than a declaration that he intends to make no use of his privilege

of rejecting, and is derived from that very privilege.

The executive power ought to be in the hands of a monarch, because this

branch of government, having need of despatch, is better administered by

one than by many: on the other hand, whatever depends on the legislative

power is oftentimes better regulated by many than by a single person.

But if there were no monarch, and the executive power should be

committed to a certain number of persons selected from the legislative

body, there would be an end then of liberty; by reason the two powers

would be united, as the same persons would sometimes possess, and would

be always able to possess, a share in both.

Were the legislative body to be a considerable time without meeting,

this would likewise put an end to liberty. For of two things one would

naturally follow: either that there would be no longer any legislative

resolutions, and then the state would fall into anarchy; or that these

resolutions would be taken by the executive power, which would render it

absolute.

It would be needless for the legislative body to continue always

assembled. This would be troublesome to the representatives, and,

moreover, would cut out too much work for the executive power, so as to

take off its attention to its office, and oblige it to think only of

defending its own prerogatives, and the right it has to execute.

Again, were the legislative body to be always assembled, it might happen

to be kept up only by filling the places of the deceased members with

new representatives; and in that case, if the legislative body were once

corrupted, the evil would be past all remedy. When different legislative

bodies succeed one another, the people who have a bad opinion of that

which is actually sitting may reasonably entertain some hopes of the

next: but were it to be always the same body, the people upon seeing it

once corrupted would no longer expect any good from its laws; and of

course they would either become desperate or fall into a state of

indolence.

The legislative body should not meet of itself. For a body is supposed

to have no will but when it is met; and besides, were it not to meet

unanimously, it would be impossible to determine which was really the

legislative body; the part assembled, or the other. And if it had a

right to prorogue itself, it might happen never to be prorogued; which

would be extremely dangerous, in case it should ever attempt to encroach

on the executive power. Besides, there are seasons, some more proper

than others, for assembling the legislative body: it is fit, therefore,

that the executive power should regulate the time of meeting, as well as

the duration of those assemblies, according to the circumstances and

exigencies of a state known to itself.

Were the executive power not to have a right of restraining the

encroachments of the legislative body, the latter would become despotic;

for as it might arrogate to itself what authority it pleased, it would

soon destroy all the other powers.

But it is not proper, on the other hand, that the legislative power

should have a right to stay the executive. For as the execution has its

natural limits, it is useless to confine it; besides, the executive

power is generally employed in momentary operations. The power,

therefore, of the Roman tribunes was faulty, as it put a stop not only

to the legislation, but likewise to the executive part of government;

which was attended with infinite mischief.

But if the legislative power in a free state has no right to stay the

executive, it has a right and ought to have the means of examining in

what manner its laws have been executed; an advantage which this

government has over that of Crete and Sparta, where the Cosmi[9] and the

Ephori[10] gave no account of their administration.

But whatever may be the issue of that examination, the legislative body

ought not to have a power of arraigning the person, nor, of course, the

conduct, of him who is entrusted with the executive power. His person

should be sacred, because as it is necessary for the good of the state

to prevent the legislative body from rendering themselves arbitrary, the

moment he is accused or tried there is an end of liberty.

In this case the state would be no longer a monarchy, but a kind of

republic, though not a free government. But as the person entrusted with

the executive power cannot abuse it without bad counsellors, and such as

have the laws as ministers, though the laws protect them as subjects,

these men may be examined and punished -- an advantage which this

government has over that of Gnidus, where the law allowed of no such

thing as calling the Amymones[11] to an account, even after their

administration;[12] and therefore the people could never obtain any

satisfaction for the injuries done them.

Though, in general, the judiciary power ought not to be united with any

part of the legislative, yet this is liable to three exceptions, founded

on the particular interest of the party accused.

The great are always obnoxious to popular envy; and were they to be

judged by the people, they might be in danger from their judges, and

would, moreover, be deprived of the privilege which the meanest subject

is possessed of in a free state, of being tried by his peers. The

nobility, for this reason, ought not to be cited before the ordinary

courts of judicature, but before that part of the legislature which is

composed of their own body.

It is possible that the law, which is clearsighted in one sense, and

blind in another, might, in some cases, be too severe. But as we have

already observed, the national judges are no more than the mouth that

pronounces the words of the law, mere passive beings, incapable of

moderating either its force or rigour. That part, therefore, of the

legislative body, which we have just now observed to be a necessary

tribunal on another occasion, is also a necessary tribunal in this; it

belongs to its supreme authority to moderate the law in favour of the

law itself, by mitigating the sentence.

It might also happen that a subject entrusted with the administration of

public affairs may infringe the rights of the people, and be guilty of

crimes which the ordinary magistrates either could not or would not

punish. But, in general, the legislative power cannot try causes: and

much less can it try this particular case, where it represents the party

aggrieved, which is the people. It can only, therefore, impeach. But

before what court shall it bring its impeachment? Must it go and demean

itself before the ordinary tribunals, which are its inferiors, and,

being composed, moreover, of men who are chosen from the people as well

as itself, will naturally be swayed by the authority of so powerful an

accuser? No: in order to preserve the dignity of the people, and the

security of the subject, the legislative part which represents the

people must bring in its charge before the legislative part which

represents the nobility, who have neither the same interests nor the

same passions.

Here is an advantage which this government has over most of the ancient

republics, where this abuse prevailed, that the people were at the same

time both judge and accuser.

The executive power, pursuant of what has been already said, ought to

have a share in the legislature by the power of rejecting, otherwise it

would soon be stripped of its prerogative. But should the legislative

power usurp a share of the executive, the latter would be equally

undone.

If the prince were to have a part in the legislature by the power of

resolving, liberty would be lost. But as it is necessary he should have

a share in the legislature for the support of his own prerogative, this

share must consist in the power of rejecting.

The change of government at Rome was owing to this, that neither the

senate, who had one part of the executive power, nor the magistrates,

who were entrusted with the other, had the right of rejecting, which was

entirely lodged in the people.

Here then is the fundamental constitution of the government we are

treating of. The legislative body being composed of two parts, they

check one another by the mutual privilege of rejecting. They are both

restrained by the executive power, as the executive is by the

legislative.

These three powers should naturally form a state of repose or inaction.

But as there is a necessity for movement in the course of human affairs,

they are forced to move, but still in concert.

As the executive power has no other part in the legislative than the

privilege of rejecting, it can have no share in the public debates. It

is not even necessary that it should propose, because as it may always

disapprove of the resolutions that shall be taken, it may likewise

reject the decisions on those proposals which were made against its

will.

In some ancient commonwealths, where public debates were carried on by

the people in a body, it was natural for the executive power to propose

and debate in conjunction with the people, otherwise their resolutions

must have been attended with a strange confusion.

Were the executive power to determine the raising of public money,

otherwise than by giving its consent, liberty would be at an end;

because it would become legislative in the most important point of

legislation.

If the legislative power was to settle the subsidies, not from year to

year, but for ever, it would run the risk of losing its liberty, because

the executive power would be no longer dependent; and when once it was

possessed of such a perpetual right, it would be a matter of

indifference whether it held it of itself or of another. The same may be

said if it should come to a resolution of entrusting, not an annual, but

a perpetual command of the fleets and armies to the executive power.

To prevent the executive power from being able to oppress, it is

requisite that the armies with which it is entrusted should consist of

the people, and have the same spirit as the people, as was the case at

Rome till the time of Marius. To obtain this end, there are only two

ways, either that the persons employed in the army should have

sufficient property to answer for their conduct to their

fellow-subjects, and be enlisted only for a year, as was customary at

Rome: or if there should be a standing army, composed chiefly of the

most despicable part of the nation, the legislative power should have a

right to disband them as soon as it pleased; the soldiers should live in

common with the rest of the people; and no separate camp, barracks, or

fortress should be suffered.

When once an army is established, it ought not to depend immediately on

the legislative, but on the executive, power; and this from the very

nature of the thing, its business consisting more in action than in

deliberation.

It is natural for mankind to set a higher value upon courage than

timidity, on activity than prudence, on strength than counsel. Hence the

army will ever despise a senate, and respect their own officers. They

will naturally slight the orders sent them by a body of men whom they

look upon as cowards, and therefore unworthy to command them. So that as

soon as the troops depend entirely on the legislative body, it becomes a

military government; and if the contrary has ever happened, it has been

owing to some extraordinary circumstances. It is because the army was

always kept divided; it is because it was composed of several bodies

that depended each on a particular province; it is because the capital

towns were strong places, defended by their natural situation, and not

garrisoned with regular troops. Holland, for instance, is still safer

than Venice; she might drown or starve the revolted troops; for as they

are not quartered in towns capable of furnishing them with necessary

subsistence, this subsistence is of course precarious.

In perusing the admirable treatise of Tacitus On the Manners of the

Germans,[13] we find it is from that nation the English have borrowed

the idea of their political government. This beautiful system was

invented first in the woods.

As all human things have an end, the state we are speaking of will lose

its liberty, will perish. Have not Rome, Sparta, and Carthage perished?

It will perish when the legislative power shall be more corrupt than the

executive.

It is not my business to examine whether the English actually enjoy this

liberty or not. Sufficient it is for my purpose to observe that it is

established by their laws; and I inquire no further.

Neither do I pretend by this to undervalue other governments, nor to say

that this extreme political liberty ought to give uneasiness to those

who have only a moderate share of it. How should I have any such design,

I who think that even the highest refinement of reason is not always

desirable, and that mankind generally find their account better in

mediums than in extremes?

Harrington, in his Oceana, has also inquired into the utmost degree of

liberty to which the constitution of a state may be carried. But of him

indeed it may be said that for want of knowing the nature of real

liberty he busied himself in pursuit of an imaginary one; and that he

built a Chalcedon, though he had a Byzantium before his eyes.

7. Of the Monarchies we are acquainted with. The monarchies we are

acquainted with have not, like that we have been speaking of, liberty

for their direct view: the only aim is the glory of the subject, of the

state, and of the sovereign. But hence there results a spirit of

liberty, which in those states is capable of achieving as great things,

and of contributing as much perhaps to happiness as liberty itself.

Here the three powers are not distributed and founded on the model of

the constitution above-mentioned; they have each a particular

distribution, according to which they border more or less on political

liberty; and if they did not border upon it, monarchy would degenerate

into despotic government.

8. Why the Ancients had not a clear Idea of Monarchy. The ancients had

no notion of a government founded on a body of nobles, and much less on

a legislative body composed of the representatives of the people. The

republics of Greece and Italy were cities that had each their own form

of government, and convened their subjects within their walls. Before

Rome had swallowed up all the other republics, there was scarcely

anywhere a king to be found, no, not in Italy, Gaul, Spain, or Germany;

they were all petty states or republics. Even Africa itself was subject

to a great commonwealth: and Asia Minor was occupied by Greek colonies.

There was, therefore, no instance of deputies of towns or assemblies of

the states; one must have gone as far as Persia to find a monarchy.

I am not ignorant that there were confederate republics; in which

several towns sent deputies to an assembly. But I affirm there was no

monarchy on that model.

The first plan, therefore, of the monarchies we are acquainted with was

thus formed. The German nations that conquered the Roman empire were

certainly a free people. Of this we may be convinced only by reading

Tacitus On the Manners of the Germans. The conquerors spread themselves

over all the country; living mostly in the fields, and very little in

towns. When they were in Germany, the whole nation was able to assemble.

This they could no longer do when dispersed through the conquered

provinces. And yet as it was necessary that the nation should deliberate

on public affairs, pursuant to their usual method before the conquest,

they had recourse to representatives. Such is the origin of the Gothic

government amongst us. At first it was mixed with aristocracy and

monarchy -- a mixture attended with this inconvenience, that the common

people were bondmen. The custom afterwards succeeded of granting letters

of enfranchisement, and was soon followed by so perfect a harmony

between the civil liberty of the people, the privileges of the nobility

and clergy, and the prince's prerogative, that I really think there

never was in the world a government so well tempered as that of each

part of Europe, so long as it lasted. Surprising that the corruption of

the government of a conquering nation should have given birth to the

best species of constitution that could possibly be imagined by man!

9. Aristotle's Manner of Thinking. Aristotle is greatly puzzled in

treating of monarchy.[14] He makes five species; and he does not

distinguish them by the form of constitution, but by things merely

accidental, as the virtues and vices of the prince; or by things

extrinsic, such as tyranny usurped or inherited.

Among the number of monarchies he ranks the Persian empire and the

kingdom of Sparta. But is it not evident that the one was a despotic

state and the other a republic?

The ancients, who were strangers to the distribution of the three powers

in the government of a single person, could never form a just idea of

monarchy.

10. What other Politicians thought. To temper monarchy, Arybas, king of