strong sensibility resigns itself either to a love which rises and is incessantly laid in a seraglio, or to a passion which leaves women in a greater independence, and is consequently exposed to a thousand inquietudes. In northern regions a machine ro- bust and heavy finds pleasure in whatever is apt to throw the spirits into motion, such as hunting, travelling, war, and wine. If we travel towards the North, we meet with people who have few vices, many virtues, and a great share of frankness and sin- cerity. If we draw near the South, we fancy ourselves entirely removed from the verge of morality; here the strongest pas- sions are productive of all manner of crimes, each man en- deavoring, let the means be what they will, to indulge his in- ordinate desires. In temperate climates we find the inhabitants inconstant in their manners, as well as in their vices and virtues: the climate has not a quality determinate enough to fix them. The heat of the climate may be so excessive as to deprive the body of all vigor and strength. Then the faintness is com- municated to the mind; there is no curiosity, no enterprise, no generosity of sentiment; the inclinations are all passive; in- dolence constitutes the utmost happiness; scarcely any punishment is so severe as mental employment; and slavery is more supportable than the force and vigor of mind necessary for human conduct.
3. — Contradiction in the Tempers of some Southern Nations The Indians^ are naturally a pusillanimous people; even the children/^ of Europeans born in India lose the courage peculiar to their own climate. But how shall we reconcile this with their customs and penances so full of barbarity? The men volun- tarily undergo the greatest hardships, and the women burn themselves: here we find a very odd compound of fortitude and weakness.
Nature, having framed those people of a texture so weak as to fill them with timidity, has formed them at the same time of an imagination so lively that every object makes the strong- est impression upon them. That delicacy of organs which renders them apprehensive of death contributes likewise to e " One hundred European soldiers," f Even the Persians who settle in the says Tavernier, " would without any Indies contract in the third generation great difficulty beat a thousand Indian the indolence and cowardice of the soldiers." Indians. See Bernier on the " Mogul," THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 225 make them dread a thousand things more than death: the very same sensibiHty induces them to fly and dare all dangers.
As a good education is more necessary to children than to such as have arrived at maturity of understanding, so the in- habitants of those countries have much greater need than the European nations of a wiser legislator. The greater their sen- sibility, the more it behooves them to receive proper impres- sions, to imbibe no prejudices, and to let themselves be directed by reason.
At the time of the Romans the inhabitants of the north of Europe were destitute of arts, education, and almost of laws; and yet the good sense annexed to the gross fibres of those climates enabled them to make an admirable stand against the power of Rome, till the memorable period in which they quitted their woods to subvert that great empire.
4. — Cause af the Immutability of Religion, Manners, Customs, and Laws in the Eastern Countries If to that delicacy of organs which renders the eastern na- tions so susceptible of every impression you add likewise a sort of indolence of mind, naturally connected with that of the body, by means of which they grow incapable of any exertion or effort, it is easy to comprehend that when once the soul has received an impression it cannot change it. This is the reason that the laws, manners, and customs,g: even those which seem quite indifferent, such as their mode of dress, are the same to this very day in eastern countries as they were a thousand years ago.
5. — That those are had Legislators who favor the Vices of the Climate, and good Legislators who oppose those Vices The Indians believe that repose and non-existence are the foundation of all things, and the end in which they terminate. Hence they consider entire inaction as the most perfect of all states, and the object of their desires. To the Supreme Being they give the title of immovable.^ The inhabitants of Siam g We find by a fragment of Nicolaus a Governor who had given any displeas- Damascenus, collected by Constantine ure; it was in the time of the Medes.
Porphyrogenitus, that it was an ancient h Panamanack: See Kircher. custom in the East to send to strangle 2 26 MONTESQUIEU believe that their utmost happiness* consists in not being obHged to animate a machine or to give motion to a body.
In those countries where the excess of heat enervates and exhausts the body, rest is so dehcious, and motion so painful, that this system of metaphysics seems natural; and Foe,;' the legislator of the Indies, was directed by his own sensations when he placed mankind in a state extremely passive; but his doctrine arising from the laziness of the climate favored it also in its turn; which has been the source of an infinite deal of mis- chief.
The legislators of China were more rational when, consider- ing men not in the peaceful state which they are to enjoy here- after, but in the situation proper for discharging the several duties of life, they made their religion, philosophy, and laws all practical. The more the physical causes incHne mankind to inaction, the more the moral causes should estrange them from it.
6. — Of Agriculture in warm Climates Agriculture is the principal labor of man. The more the climate inclines him to shun this labor, the more the religion and laws of the country ought to incite him to it. Thus the Indian laws, which give the lands to the prince, and destroy the spirit of property among the subjects, increase the bad effects of the climate, that is, their natural indolence.
7. — Of Monkery The very same mischiefs result from monkery: it had its rise in the warm countries of the East, where they are less inclined to action than to speculation.
In Asia the number of dervishes or monks seems to increase together with the warmth of the climate. The Indies, where the heat is excessive, are full of them; and the same difference is found in Europe.
In order to surmount the laziness of the climate, the laws ought to endeavor to remove all means of subsisting without »■ La Loubiere, " Relation of Siam," etc., but perfection requires that these p. 446. members should be inactive." This is ;■ Foe endeavored to reduce the heart taken from the dialogue of a Chinese to a mere vacuum: " We have eyes and philosopher, cjuoted by Father Du ears, but perfection consists in neither Halde, torn. iii. seeing nor hearing; a mouth, hands.
» THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 227 labor: but in the southern parts of Europe they act quite the reverse. To those who want to live in a state of indolence, they afford retreats the most proper for a speculative life, and endow them with immense revenues. These men who live in the midst of plenty which they know not how to enjoy, are in the right to give their superfluities away to the common people. The poor are bereft of property; and these men indemnify them by supporting them in idleness, so as to make them even grow fond of their misery.
8. — An excellent Custom of China The historical relations^ of China mention a ceremony^ of opening the ground which the emperor performs every year. The design of this public and solemn act is to excite the peo- ple to tillage.^* Further, the emperor is every year informed of the hus- bandman who has distinguished himself most in his profession; and he makes him a mandarin of the eighth order.
Among the ancient Persians^ the kings quitted their gran- deur and pomp on the eighth day of the month, called Chor- rem-ruz, to eat with the husbandmen. These institutions were admirably calculated for the encouragement of agriculture.
9. — Means of encouraging Industry We shall show, in the nineteenth book, that lazy nations are generally proud. Now the effect might well be turned against the cause, and laziness be destroyed by pride. In the south of Europe, where people have such a high notion of the point of honor, it would be right to give prizes to husbandmen who had excelled in agriculture; or to artists who had made the greatest improvements in their several professions. This prac- tice has succeeded in our days in Ireland, where it has estabr. lished one of the most considerable linen manufactures in, Eu- rope.
k Father Du Halde, " History of m Venty, the third Emperor of the China," torn. i. p. 72. third dynasty, tilled the lands himself, / Several of the kings of India do the and made the Empress and his wives same. " Relation of the Kingdom, oi employ their time in the silkworks ir^ Siam," by La Loubiere, p. 69^ ' his palace. '• History of China."
2 28 MONTESQUIEU lo. — Of the Laws in relation to the Sobriety of the People In warm countries the aqueous part of the blood loses itself greatly by perspiration;o it must, therefore, be supplied by a like liquid. Water is there of admirable use; strong liquors would congeal the globules^ of blood that remain after the tran- suding of the aqueous humor.
In cold countries the aqueous part of the blood is very little evacuated by perspiration. They may, therefore, make use of spirituous Hquors, without which the blood would congeal. They are full of humors; consequently strong liquors, which give a motion to the blood, are proper for those countries.
The law of Mahomet, which prohibits the drinking of wine, is, therefore, fitted to the climate of Arabia: and, indeed, before Mahomet's time, water was the common drink of the Arabs. The lawcf which forbade the Carthaginians to drink wine was a law of the climate; and, indeed, the climate of those two countries is pretty nearly the same.
Such a law would be improper for cold countries, where the climate seems to force them to a kind of national intemperance, very different from personal ebriety. Drunkenness predomi- nates throughout the world, in proportion to the coldness and humidity of the climate. Go from the equator to the north pole, and you will find this vice increasing together with the degree of latitude. Go from the equator again to the south pole, and you will find the same vice travelling south,& exactly in the same proportion.
It is very natural that where wine is contrary to the climate, and consequently to health, the excess of it should be more severely punished than in countries where intoxication pro- duces very few bad effects to the person, fewer to the society, and where it does not make people frantic and wild, but only stupid and heavy. Hence those lawsc which inflicted a double 0 Monsieur Bernier, travelling from a Plato, book II. of "Laws"; Aris- Lahore to Cashmere, wrote thus: "My totle, of the care of domestic affairs; body is a sieve; scarcely have I swal- Eusebius's " Evangelical Preparation," lowed a pint of water, but I see it tran- book XII. chap. xvii.
sude like dew out of all my limbs, even b This is seen in the Hottentots, and to my fingers' ends. I drink ten pints the inhabitants of the most southern a day, and it does me no manner of part of Chili.
harm." — Bernier's " Travels," tom. ii. c As Pittacus did, according to Arisp. 261. totle, " Polit." lib. I. cap. iii. He lived p In the blood there are red globules, in a climate where drunkenness is not fibrous parts, white globule$, an4 water, a national vice, in which the whole swims.
- THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 229 punishment for crimes committed in drunkenness were ap- plicable only to a personal, and not to a national, ebriety. A German drinks through custom, and a Spaniard by choice.
In warm countries the relaxing of the fibres produces a great evacuation of the liquids, but the soUd parts are less transpired. The fibres, which act but faintly, and have very little elasticity, are not much impaired; and a small quantity of nutritious juice is sufficient to repair them; for which reason they eat very lit- tle.
It is the variety of wants in different climates that first occa- sioned a difference in the manner of living, and this gave rise to a variety of laws. Where people are very communicative there must be particular laws, and others where there is but little communication.
II. — Of the Laws in relation to the Distempers of the Climate Herodotusc? informs us that the Jewish laws concerning the leprosy were borrowed from the practice of the Egyptians. And, indeed, the same distemper required the same remedies. The Greeks and the primitive Romans were strangers to these laws, as well as to the disease. The climate of Egypt and Palestine rendered them necessary; and the facility with which this disease is spread is sufficient to make us sensible of the wisdom and sagacity of those laws.
Even we ourselves have felt the effects of them. The Cru- sades brought the leprosy amongst us; but the wise regula- tions made at that time hindered it from infecting the mass of the people.
We find by the law of the Lombards^ that this disease was spread in Italy before the Crusades, and merited the attention of the legislature. Rotharis ordained that a leper should be expelled from his house, banished to a particular place, and rendered incapable of disposing of his property; because from the very moment he had been turned out of his house he was reckoned dead in the eye of the law. In order to prevent all communication with lepers, they were rendered incapable of civil acts.
I am apt to think that this disease was brought into Italy d Book II. e Book II. tit. i, sec. 3, and tit. 18, sec. i.
2 30 MONTESQUIEU by the conquests of the Greek emperors, in whose armies there might be some soldiers from Palestine or Egypt. Be that as it may, the progress of it was stopped till the time of the Cru- sades.
It is related that Pompey's soldiers returning from Syria brought a distemper home with them not unlike the leprosy. We have no account of any regulation made at that time; but it is highly probable that some such step was taken, since the distemper was checked till the time of the Lombards.
It is now two centuries since a disease unknown to our an- cestors was first transplanted from the new world to ours, and came to attack human nature even in the very source of life and pleasure. Most of the principal families in the south of Europe were seen to perish by a distemper that had grown too common to be ignominious, and was considered in no other light than in that of its being fatal. It was the thirst of gold that propagated this disease; the Europeans went continually to America, and always brought back a new leaven of it/ Reasons drawn from religion seemed to require that this punishment of guilt should be permitted to continue; but the infection had reached the bosom of matrimony, and given the vicious taint even to guiltless infants.
As it is the business of legislators to watch over the health of the citizens, it would have been a wise part in them to have stopped this communication by laws made on the plan of those of Moses.
The plague is a disease whose infectious progress is much more rapid. Egypt is its principal seat, whence it spreads over the whole globe. Most countries in Europe have made exceed- ingly good regulations to prevent this infection, and in our times an admirable method has been contrived to stop it; this is by forming a line of troops round the infected country, which cuts of? all manner of communication.
The Turks,^' who have no such regulations, see the Christians escape this infection in the same town, and none but themselves perish; they buy the clothes of the infected, wear them, and proceed in their old way, as if nothing had happened. The f It has been thought that this mal- g Ricaut on the " Ottoman Empire," ady has a still more ancient origin, and p. 284. that it is probable the Spaniards carried it to America at the start.— Ed.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 231 doctrine of a rigid fate, which directs their whole conduct, ren- ders the magistrate a quiet spectator; he thinks that every- thing comes from the hand of God, and that man has nothing more to do than to submit.
12. — Of the Laws against Suicides We do not find in history that the Romans ever killed them- selves without a cause; but the English are apt to commit suicide most unaccountably; they destroy themselves even in the bosom of happiness. This action among the Romans was the effect of education, being connected with their principles and customs; among the English it is the consequence of a dis- temper,/» being connected with the physical state of the ma- chine, and independent of every other cause.
In all probability it is a defect of the filtration of the nervous juice: the machine, whose motive faculties are often unex- erted, is weary of itself; the soul feels no pain, but a certain uneasiness in existing. Pain is a local sensation, which leads us to the desire of seeing an end of it; the burden of life, which prompts us to the desire of ceasing to exist, is an evil confined to no particular part.
It is evident that the civil laws of some countries may have reasons for branding suicide with infamy: but in England it cannot be punished without punishing the effects of madness.
13. — Effects arising from the Climate of England In a nation so distempered by the climate as to have a dis- relish of everything, nay, even of life, it is plain that the gov- ernment most suitable to the inhabitants is that in which they cannot lay their uneasiness to any single person's charge, and in which, being under the direction rather of the laws than of the prince, it is impossible for them to change the government without subverting the laws themselves.
And if this nation has likewise derived from the climate a certain impatience of temper, which renders them incapable of bearing the same train of things for any long continuance, h It may be complicated with the unsupportable to himself. See Pirard's scnp'v, whi<"h. in some countries es- " Voyages," part II. chap. xxi. pecially, renders a man whimsical and 232 MONTESQUIEU it is obvious that the government above mentioned is the fittest for them.
This impatience of temper is not very considerable of itself; but it may become so when joined with courage.
It is quite a different thing from levity, which makes people undertake or drop a project without cause; it borders more upon obstinacy, because it proceeds from so lively a sense of misery that it is not weakened even by the habit of suffering.
This temper in a free nation is extremely proper for discon- certing the projects of tyranny,* which is always slow and feeble in its commencement, as in the end it is active and lively; which at first only stretches out a hand to assist, and exerts afterwards a multitude of arms to oppress.
Slavery is ever preceded by sleep. But a people who find no rest in any situation, who continually explore every part, and feel nothing but pain, can hardly be lulled to sleep.
Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by a slow progression. Now the people of whom we have been speaking are incapable of bearing the delays, the details, and the coolness of negotiations: in these they are more unlikely to succeed than any other nation; hence they are apt to lose by treaties what they obtain by their arms.
14. — Other Effects of the Climate Our ancestors, the ancient Germans, lived in a climate where the passions were extremely calm. Their laws decided only in such cases where the injury was visible to the eye, and went no farther. And as they judged of the outrages done to men from the greatness of the wound, they acted with no other delicacy in respect to the injuries done to women. The law of the Alemans/ on this subject is very extraordinary. If a per- son uncovers a woman's head, he pays a fine of fifty sous; if he uncovers her leg up to the knee, he pays the same; and double from the knee upwards. One would think that the law measured the insults offered to women as we measure a figure in geometry; it did not punish the crime of the imagination, but that of the eye. But upon the migration of a German na- « Here I take this word for the design is the signification in which it was un- of subverting the established power, derstood by the Greeks and Romans, and especially that of democracy; this /Chap. Iviii. sees, i and 2.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 233 tion into Spain, the climate soon found a necessity for different laws. The law of the Visigoths inhibited the surgeons to bleed a free woman, except either her father, mother, brother, son, or uncle was present. As the imagination of the people grew warm, so did that of the legislators; the law suspected every- thing when the people had become suspicious.
These laws had, therefore, a particular regard for the two sexes. But in their punishments they seem rather to humor the revengeful temper of private persons than to administer public justice. Thus, in most cases, they reduced both the crim- inals to be slaves to the offended relatives or to the injured husband; a free-born woman^ who had yielded to the embraces of a married man was delivered up to his wife to dispose of her as she pleased. They obliged the slaves,^ if they found their master's wife in adultery, to bind her and carry her to her hus- band; they even permitted her children^ to be her accusers, and her slaves to be tortured in order to convict her. Thus their laws were far better adapted to refine, even to excess, a certain point of honor than to form a good civil administration. We must not, therefore, be surprised if Count Julian was of opinion that an affront of that kind ought to be expiated by the ruin of his king and country: we must not be surprised if the Moors, with such a conformity of manners, found it so easy to settle and to maintain themselves in Spain, and to retard the fall of their empire.
15. — Of the different Confidence which the Laws have in the People, according to the Difference of Climates The people of Japan are of so stubborn and perverse a tem- per that neither their legislators nor magistrates can put any confidence in them: they set nothing before their eyes but judgments, menaces, and chastisements; every step they take is subject to the inquisition of the civil magistrate. Those laws which out of five heads of families establish one as a magistrate over the other four; those laws which punish a family or a whole ward for a single crime; those laws, In fine, which find nobody innocent where one may happen to be guilty, are made with a design to implant in the people a mutual distrust, and k " Law of the Visigoths," book III. / Ibid, book III. tit. 4, sec. 6.
tit. 4, sec. 9. m Ibid, book III. tit. 4, sec. 13.
234 MONTESQUIEU to make every man the inspector, witness, and judge of his neighbor's conduct.
On the contrary, the people of India are mild,w tender, and compassionate. Hence their legislators repose great confi- dence in them. They have established^ very few punishments; these are not severe, nor are they rigorously executed. They have subjected nephews to their uncles, and orphans to their guardians, as in other countries they are subjected to their fathers; they have regulated the succession by the acknowl- edged merit of the successor. They seem to think that every individual ought to place entire confidence in the good nature of his fellow-subjects./' They enfranchise their slaves without difficulty, they marry them, they treat them as their children.9 Happy climate which gives birth to innocence, and produces a lenity in the laws!
n See Bernier, torn. ii. p. 140. organisms under the equator is errone- 0 See in the 14th collection of the ous. — Ed.
" Edifying Letters," p. 403, the prin- q I had once thought that the lenity cipal laws or customs of the inhabitants of slavery in India had made Diodorus of the peninsula on this side the say that there was neither master nor Ganges. slave in that country; but Diodorus has p See " Edifying Letters," IX. 378. attributed to the whole continent of Great exception has been taken to India what, according to Strabo, lib.
Montesquieu's abuse upon the effects XV,, belonged only to a particular of climate physically; it is Servan who nation, avers that the weakness attributed to BOOK XV IN WHAT MANNER THE LAWS OF CIVIL SLA- VERY RELATE TO THE NATURE OF THE CLI- MATE I. — Of civil Slavery SLAVERY, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over an- other as renders him absolute master of his life and for- tune. The state of slavery is in its own nature bad. It is neither useful to the master nor to the slave; not to the slave, because he can do nothing through a motive of virtue; nor to the master, because by having an unlimited authority over his slaves he insensibly accustoms himself to the want of all moral virtues, and thence becomes fierce, hasty, severe, chol- eric, voluptuous, and cruel.
In despotic countries, where they are already in a state of political servitude, civil slavery is more tolerable than in other governments. Every one ought to be satisfied in those coun- tries with necessaries and life. Hence the condition of a slave is hardly more burdensome than that of a subject.
But in a monarchical government, where it is of the utmost importance that human nature should not be debased or dispir- ited, there ought to be no slavery. In democracies, where they are all upon equality; and in aristocracies, where the laws ought to use their utmost endeavors to procure as great an equality as the nature of the government will permit, slavery is contrary to the spirit of the constitution: it only contributes to give a power and luxury to the citizens which they ought not to have.o a Montesquieu seems to have forgot- adopted domestic servitude as the basis ten that all the democracies of Greece of social independence. — Ed.
236 MONTESQUIEU 2. — Origin of the Right of Slavery among the Roman Civilians One would never have imagined that slavery should owe its birth to pity, and that this should have been excited in three different ways> The law of nations to prevent prisoners from being put to death has allowed them to be made slaves. The civil law of the Romans empowered debtors, who were subject to be ill used by their creditors, to sell themselves. And the law of nature requires that children whom a father in a state of servi- tude is no longer able to maintain should be reduced to the same state as the father.
These reasons of tlie civilians are all false. It is false that killing in war is lawful, unless in a case of absolute necessity: but when a man has made another his slave, he cannot be said to have been under a necessity of taking away his life, since he actually did not take it away. War gives no other right over prisoners than to disable them from doing any further harm by securing their persons. All nations c concur in de- testing the murdering of prisoners in cold blood.
Neither is it true that a freeman can sell himself. Sale im- plies a price; now when a person sells himself, his whole substance immediately devolves to his master; the master, therefore, in that case, gives nothing, and the slave receives nothing. You will say he has a peculium. But this peculimn goes along with the person. If it is not lawful for a man to kill himself because he robs his country of his person, for the same reason he is not allowed to barter his freedom. The freedom of every citizen constitutes a part of the public liberty, and in a democratic state is even a part of the sovereignty. To sell one's freedom d is so repugnant to all reason as can scarcely be supposed in any man. If liberty may be rated with respect to the buyer, it is beyond all price to the seller. The civil law, which authorizes a division of goods among men, cannot be thought to rank among such goods a part of the men who were to make this division. The same law annuls all iniquitous con- tracts; surely then it affords redress in a contract where the grievance is most enormous.
b Justinian's " Institutes," book I. dl mean slavery in a strict sense, as c Excepting a few cannibals. formerly among the Romans, and at present in our colonies.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 237