Next to a sense of his weakness, man would foon find that of his wants. Hence another law of nature would prompt him to feek for nourishment.

Fear, I have observed, would incline men to fhun one another; but the marks of this fear being reciprocal, would foon induce them to affociate. Befides, this affociation would quickly follow from the very pleasure one animal feels at the approach of another of the fame fpecies. Again, the attraction arifing from the different fexes would enhance this pleasure, and the natural inclination they have for each other, would form a third law.

Befide the sense or inftinct which man has in common with brutes, he has the advantage of attaining to acquired knowledge; and thereby has a fecond tie which brutes have not. Mankind have therefore a new motive of uniting, and a fourth law of nature arifes from the defire of living in fociety.

CHA P. III.

Of Pofitive Laws.

As foon as mankind enter into a state of fociety, they lose the fenfe of their weakness; the equality ceafes, and then commences the ftate of war.

Each particular fociety begins to feel its ftrength, whence arifes a ftate of war betwixt different nations. I he individuals likewife of each fociety become fenfible of their ftrength; hence the principal advantages of this fociety they endeavor to convert to their own emolument, which conftitutes between them a state of war.

Thefe two different kinds of hoftile ftates give rise to human laws. Confidered as inhabitants of fo great a planet, which neceffarily implies a variety of nations, they have laws relative to their mutual intercourfe, which is what we call the LAW OF NATIONS. Confidered as members of a fociety that must be properly fupported, they have laws relative to the governors and the governed; and this we call POLITICAL LAW. They have alfo another fort of laws relating to the mutual communication of citizens; by which is understood the CIVIL LAW.

3

The

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 harm as poffible, without prejudicing their real interests.

The object of war is victory: Victory aims at conqueft; conqueft at 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 fend and receive ambaffadors, and understand the rights of war and peace. The mifchief is, that their law of nations is not founded on true principles.

The

Befides the law of nations relating to all focieties, there is a POLITIC LAW for each particularly confidered. No fociety can fubfift without a form of government. conjunction of the particular forces of individuals, as Gravina well obferves, conftitutes what we call a POLITICAL

STATE.

The general force may be in the hands of a fingle perfon, or of many. Some think that nature having establifhed paternal authority, the government of a fingle perfon was moft conformable to nature. But the example of paternal authority proves nothing. For if the power of a father is relative to a fingle government, that of brothers after the death of a father, or that of coufin germans after the decease of brothers, are relative to a government of many. The political power neceffarily comprehends the union of several families.

Better is it to say that the government moft conformable to nature, is that whofe particular difpofition beft agrees with the humor and difpofition of the people in whose favor it is eftablished.

The particular force of individuals cannot be united without a conjunction of all their wills. The conjunction of thofe wills, as Gravina again very juftly observes, is what we call the CIVIL STATE.

Law in general is human reafon, in as much as it gov erns all the inhabitants of the earth, the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cafes in which this human reafon is applied.

They

They should be adapted in fuch a manner to the people for whom they are made, as to render it very unlikely for thofe of one nation to be proper for another.

They fhould be relative to the nature and principle of the actual or intended government; whether they form it, as in the cafe of political laws, or whether they support it, as may be faid of civil inftitutions.

They fhould be relative to the climate of each country, to the quality of the foil, to its fituation and extent, to the manner of living of the natives, whether husbandmen, huntsmen or fhepherds; they fhould have a relation to the degree of liberty which the conftitution will bear; to the religion of the inhabitants, to their inclinations, riches, number, commerce, manners and cuftoms. In fine, they have relations to each other, as alfo to their origin, to the intent of the legiflator, and to the order of things on which they are established; in all which different lights they ought to be confidered.

This is what I have undertaken to perform in the following work. These relations I fhall examine, fince all thefe together form what I call the SPIRIT OF LAWS.

I have not separated the political from the civil laws; for as I do not pretend to treat of laws, but of their fpirit, and as this fpirit confifts in the various relations which the laws may have to different things, it is not fo much my bufinefs to follow the natural order of laws, as that of these relations and things.

I fhall firft examine the relation which laws have to the nature and principle of each government; and as this principle has a strong influence on laws, I fhall make it my business to understand it thoroughly; and if I can but once establish it, the laws will foon appear to flow from thence as from their fource. I fhall proceed afterwards to other more particular relations.

14

BOOK

BOOK II.

NATUR.

OF LAWS DIRECTLY DERIVED FROM THE NATURE OF GOVERNMENT.

CHAP. I.

Of the Nature of the Three different Governments.

THERE are three fpecies of government; the republican, monarchical and defpotic. In order to discov er their nature, it is fufficient to recollect the common notion, which fuppofes three definitions, or rather three facts: That a republican government is that in which the body, or only a part of the people, is poffeffed of the fupreme power; a monarchical, that in which a single perfon governs by fixed and established laws; a defpotic government that in which a fingle perfon, without law and without rule, directs every thing by his own will and caprice.

This is what I call the nature of each government; we muft examine now which are thofe laws that follow this nature directly, and consequently are the first fundamental laws.

CHA P. II.

Of the Republican Government, and the Laws relative to De

mocracy.

WHEN the body of a people in a republic are poffeffed of the fupreme power, this is called a democracy. When the fupreme 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 foyereign, and in others the fubject.

They can no way exercife fovereignty but by their fuffrages, which are their own will; now, the fovereign's will is the fovereign himself. The laws therefore which

establish

eftablish the right of fuffrage, are fundamental to this government. In fact, it is as important to regulate in a republic, in what manner, by whom, to whom, and concerning what fuffrages are to be given, as it is in a mon, archy to know who is the prince, and after what manner he ought to govern.

Libanius fays, that at Athens a ftranger who intermeddled in the affemblies of the people, was punished with death. This is because fuch a man ufurped the rights of fovereignty.

It is an effential point, to fix the number of citizens who are to form the public affemblies; otherwife it might be uncertain whether they had the votes of the whole, or of only a part of the people. At Sparta the number was fixed to ten thousand. But at Rome, a city defigned by providence to rife from the weakest beginnings to the highest pitch of grandeur; at Rome, a city doomed to experience all the viciffitudes of fortune; at Rome, who had fometimes all her inhabitants without her walls, and fometimes all Italy and a confiderable part of the world within them; at Rome, I fay, this number was never fixed,+ and this was one of the principal caufes of her ruin.

The people in whom the fupreme power refides, ought to do of themfelves whatever conveniently they can; and what they themselves cannot rightly perform, they must do by their minifters.

The minifters are not properly theirs, unless they have the nomination of them; it is therefore a fundamental max im in this government, That the people fhould choose their minifters; that is, their magiftrates.

They have occafion as well as monarchs, and even more than them, to be directed by a council or fenate. But to have a proper confidence in thefe, they fhould have the choofing of the members; and this whether the election. be made by themselves, as at Athens; or by fome magiftrate deputed for that purpose, as on certain occafions was cuftomary at Rome.

The people are extremely well qualified for choofing those whom they are to entrust with a part of their authority.

*Declam. 17 & 28.

+ See the Confiderations on the causes of the grandeur and decline of the Romans.