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,w "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, who maintains that a well-regulated republic will never give them the right and freedom of the city.y 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 people in other republics. In fine, every kind of low commercea 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 Platob 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. They found, therefore, employment for them in gymnic and military exercises; and none else were allowed by their institution.d Hence the Greeks must be con gymnic exercises are the most impor- w Book 5th of "Memorable Sayings." y Diophantes, says Aristotle, "Polit." z Plato, likewise, and Aristotle require slaves to till the land. ("Laws," book V., "Polit." book VII., chap. x.) True it is that agriculture was not everywhere sidered 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.e 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 v 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 Plutarchf that the Thebans, in order to soften the manners of their youth, authorized by law a passion which ought to be proscribed by all nations. e 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 behavior." Polit." lib. VIII. cap. iv. "Life of Pelopidas.” BOOK V THAT THE LAWS GIVEN BY THE LEGISLATOR T 1.-Idea of this Book HAT 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 vigor. 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 gives 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. Simering biking in his. 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 chan upon the mediocrity of their abilities and fortunes. Therefore, ކ * 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 a Voltaire takes exception to this adulation of Alcibiades, and holds that Plutarch and Montesquieu do not pre vail, since his standard of admiration is filled by such men as Cato and Marcus Aurelius.-Ed. |