IV. 1 BOOK others that might soften their manners*. For this Chap. 8. purpose, mufic, which influences the mind by means of the corporeal organs, was extremely proper. It is a kind of a medium between the bodily exercises that render men fierce and hardy, and fpeculative sciences that render them unfociable and four. It cannot be said that music inspired virtue, for this would be inconceivable: but it prevented the effects of a favage inftitution, and enabled the foul to have fuch a fhare in the education, as it could never have had without the affiftance of harmony. Let us fuppofe among ourselves a fociety of men fo paffionately fond of hunting, as to make it their fole employment: these people would doubtless contract thereby a kind of rufticity and fiercenefs. But if they happened to receive a tafte for mufic, we fhould quickly perceive a fenfible difference in their customs and manners. In short the exercises used by the Greeks excited only one kind of paffions, viz. fiercenefs, anger, and cruelty. But mufic excites them all; it is able to inspire the foul with a sense of pity, lenity, tenderness, and love. Our moral writers who declaim so vehemently against the ftage, fufficiently demonstrate the power of mufic over the foul. If the fociety abovementioned were to have no other mufic than that of drums and the found of the trumpet; would it not be more difficult to accomplish this end, than by the more melting tones Ariftotle obferves that the children of the Lacedemonians, who began these exercises at a very tender age, contracted from thence too great a ferocity and rudeness of behaviour. of IV. of fofter harmony? The ancients were therefore Boox in the right, when under particular circumstances they preferred one mode to another in regard to manners. Chap. 8. But some will afk, why fhould mufic be pitched upon preferable to any other entertainment? It is because of all fenfible pleasures, there is none that lefs corrupts the foul. We blush to read in Plutarch (1) that the Thebans, in order to foften the () Life of manners of their youth, authorised by law a paf- Pelopidas. fion, that ought to be profcribed by all nations... BOOK Book Chap. 1. $ 2. That the Laws given by the Legiflator ought to be relative to the Principle of Government. T CHA P. I. Idea of this Book. HAT the laws of education ought to be relative to the principle of each government, has been fhewn in the preceding book. Now the fame may be faid of thofe which the legiflator gives to the whole fociety. This relation of laws to this principle, ftrengthens the several springs of government, and this principle receives from thence, in its turn, a new degree of fength. Thus it is that in physical movements action is always followed by reaction. Our defign is to examine this relation in each government, beginning with the republican state whose principle is virtue. CHA P. II. What is meant by Virtue in a Political State. IRTUE in a republic is a most fimple thing, it is a love for the republic; it is a fenfation, and not a confequence of acquired knowledge a fenfation that may be felt by the meaneft as well as by the highest perfon in the state. When V. When the common people adopt good maxims, Book they adhere to them fteadier than those we call Chap. 3. gentlemen. It is very rare that corruption commences with the former; nay they frequently derive from their imperfect light a ftronger 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 love of our country. The lefs we are able to fatisfy our particular paffions, the more we abandon ourselves to thofe of a general nature. How comes it that monks are fo fond of their order? It is owing to the very cause that renders the order infupportable. Their rule debars them of all those things by which the ordinary paffions are fed; there remains therefore only this paffion for the very rule that torments them. The more auftere it is, that is, the more it curbs their incli nations, the more force it gives to the only paffion it leaves them. CHA P. III. What is meant by 'Love of the Republic in a L OVE of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; love of the democracy is that of equality. 1 Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality. As every individual ought to have here the fame happiness and the fame advantages, they ought confequently to tafte the fame pleasures and to form the fame hopes; which cannot be expected but from a general frugality, The Воок V. Chap. 3. The love of equality in a democracy limits ambition to the fole defire, to the fole happiness of doing greater services to our country than the reft of our fellow citizens. They cannot all render her equal fervices, but they ought all to ferve her with equal alacrity. At our coming into the world, we contract an immenfe debt to our country, which we can never discharge. Hence diftinctions arife here from the principle of equality, even when it seems to be removed by fignal fervices, or fuperior abilities. The love of frugality limits the defire of having to the attention requifite for procuring neceffaries to our family, and fuperfluities to our country. Riches give a power which a citizen cannot ufe for himfelf, for then he would be no longer equal. They likewife procure pleasures which he ought not to enjoy, because these would also fubvert the equality. Thus well policied democracies, by establishing domestic frugality, made way at the fame time for public expences, as was the cafe at Rome and Athens, when magnificence and profufion arofe from the very fund of frugality. And as religion requires us to have pure and unfpotted hands when we make our offerings to the Gods, the laws require a frugality of life to enable us to be liberal to our country. The good fenfe and happiness of individuals depend greatly on the mediocrity of their talents and fortunes. Therefore as a republic, where the laws have placed many in a middling station, is compofed of wife men, it will be wifely governed; as it is compofed of happy men, it will be extreme ly happy. СНАР, |