Thus it was they enacted laws, and thus they required that cities fhould be governed.

This I fancy may be explained in the following manner. It is obfervable, that in the cities of Greece, efpecially those whole principal object was war, all lucrative arts and profeffions were confidered as unworthy of a freeman. Moft arts, fays Xenophon,* corrupt and enervate the bodies of thofe that exercife them; they oblige them to fit under a fhade or near the fire. They can find no leifure, either for their friends or for the republic. It was only by the corruption of fome democracies that artifans became freemen, This we learn from Ariftotle,t who maintains, that a well regulated republic will never give them the right and freedom of the city.

Agriculture was likewife a fervile profeffion, and generally practifed by the inhabitants of conquered countries. Such as the Helotes among the Lacedæmonians, the Periecians among the Cretans, the Peneftes among the Thef-. falians, and other conquered people in other republics.

In fine, every kind of low commerce was infamous among the Greeks; as it obliged a citizen to serve and wait on a flave, on a lodger, on a ftranger. This was a notion that clashed with the spirit of Greek liberty; hence Plato¶ in his laws orders a citizen to be punished if he attempted to concern himself with trade.

Thus in Greek republics the magiftrates were extremely embarraffed. 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 gymnaftic and military exercises ; and none else were allowed by their inftitution.+ Hence

the

*Book v. of memorable fayings. + Polit. book iii. ch. 4. Diophantes, fays Ariftotle, Polit, chap. 7, made a law formerly at Athens, that artifans fhould be flaves to the republic.

§ Plato likewife and Ariftotle require faves to till the land. Laws, b. v. Pol. b. vii. c. 10. It is true that agriculture was not every where exercised by flaves; on the contrary, Ariftotle obferves, the best republics were thofe in which the citizens themselves tilled the land; but this was brought about by the corruption of the ancient governments, which were become democratical; for in earlier times the cities of Greece were fubject to an aristocratic government. Arift. Polit. lib. 10. + Ars corporum exercendorum gymnaflica, variis certaminibus terendorum padotribica. Ariftot. Polit. lib. viii, c. 3.

Cauponatio.

I Book ii.

the Greeks must be confidered as a fociety of wrestlers and boxers. Now, these exercises having a natural tendency to render people hardy and fierce, there was a neceffity for tempering them with others that might foften their manners.* For this purpose, music, 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 speculative sciences that render them unfociable and four; it cannot be faid that mufic 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 doubtlefs contract thereby a kind of rufticity and fierceness. But if they happened to receive a tafte for mufic, we should quickly perceive a fenfible difference in their cuftoms 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; and is able to inspire the foul with a sense of pity, lenity, tenderness and love. Our moral writers, who declaim fo vehemently against the ftage, fufficiently demonftrate 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 of fofter harmony? The ancients were therefore in the right, when under particular circumstances they preferred one mode to another in regard to manners.

But fome will afk, why should mufic be pitched upon preferable to any other entertainment? It is becaufe, of all fenfible pleasures, there is none that lefs corrupts the foul. We blush to read in Plutarch,† that the Thebans, in order to soften the manners of their youth, authorised by law a paffion that ought to be profcribed by all nations.

BOOK

* Ariftotle obferves, that the children of the Lacedæmonians, who began these exerciles at a very tender age, contracted from thence too great a ferocity and rudeness of behavior.

+ Life of Pelopidas.

BOOK V.

THAT THE LAWS GIVEN BY THE LEGISLATOR OUGHT TO BE RELATIVE TO THE PRINCIPLE OF GOVERNMENT.

CHAP. I.

Idea of this Book.

THAT 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 those which the legiflator gives to the whole fociety. This relation of laws to this principle, ftrengthens the several fprings of government, and this principle receives from thence, in its turn, a new degree of ftrength. And thus it is in phyfics, action is always followed by reaction.

Our defign is to examine this relation in each government, beginning with the republican ftate, whose principle is virtue.

CHA P. II,

What is meant by Virtue in a Political State.

VIRTUE in a republic is a moft fimple thing;

it is a love for the republic; it is a sensation, and not a confequence of acquired knowledge; a sensation that may be felt by the meanest as well as by the highest person in the flate. When the common people adopt good maxims, they adhere to them steadier than those we call 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 cuftoms.

The

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 those 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 to them felves. Their rule debars them of all thofe 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 inclinations, the more force it gives to the only paffion it leaves them.

CHA P. III.

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; a love of the democracy is that of equality.

A love of the democracy is likewife 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 love of equality in a democracy limits ambition to the fole defire, the fole happiness of doing greater fervices 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 difcharge.

Hence diftinctions arife here from the principle of equality, even when it feems to be removed by fignal fervices, or fuperior abilities.

The love of frugality limits the defire of wealth to the attention requifite for procuring neceffaries to our family, and fuperfluities to our country. Riches give a power which a citizen cannot use for himself, for then he would be no longer equal. They likewife procure pleafures which he ought not to enjoy, because these would also subvert the equality.

Thus

Thus well regulated democracies, by establishing domeftic frugality, made way at the fame time for public expenses, as was the cafe at Rome and Athens when munificence and profufion arose 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 a republic, where the laws have placed many in a middling ftation, as it is compofed of wife men, it will be wifely governed; as it is compofed of happy men, it will be extremely happy.

CHA P. IV.

In what Manner the Love of Equality and Frugality is infpired.

THE love of equality and of a frugal economy is greatly excited by equality and frugality themselves, in focieties where both these virtues are established by law.

In monarchies and defpotic governments, no body aims at equality; this does not so much as enter their thoughts; they all afpire to fuperiority. People of the very lowest condition defire to emerge from their obfcurity, only to lord it over their fellow fubjects.

It is the fame with refpect to frugality. To love it we muft practise and enjoy it. It is not thofe who are enervated with 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 thofe who envy and admire the luxury of the great; people that have present to their view none but rich men or rich men miferable like themselves, deteft their miserable condition, without loving or knowing the real term or point of mifery.

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.

CHAP.