Part 6 (1/2)
It is now two centuries since a disease unknown to our ancestors 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 princ.i.p.al 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.22 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 princ.i.p.al seat, whence it spreads over the whole globe. Most countries in Europe have made exceedingly 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 off all manner of communication.
The Turks,23 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 doctrine of a rigid fate, which directs their whole conduct, renders the magistrate a quiet spectator; he thinks that everything comes from the hand of G.o.d, 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 themselves 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 distemper,24 being connected with the physical state of the machine, 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 unexerted, 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 punis.h.i.+ng the effects of madness.
13.-Effects arising from the Climate of England In a nation so distempered by the climate as to have a disrelish of everything, nay, even of life, it is plain that the government 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, 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 disconcerting the projects of tyranny,25 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 a.s.sist, and exerts afterwards a mult.i.tude 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 pa.s.sions 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 Alemans26 on this subject is very extraordinary. If a person 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 nation 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 everything when the people had become suspicious.
These laws had, therefore, a particular regard for the two s.e.xes. 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 criminals to be slaves to the offended relatives or to the injured husband; a free-born woman27 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,28 if they found their master's wife in adultery, to bind her and carry her to her husband; they even permitted her children29 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 r.e.t.a.r.d 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 j.a.pan are of so stubborn and perverse a temper that neither their legislators nor magistrates can put any confidence in them: they set nothing before their eyes but judgments, menaces, and chastis.e.m.e.nts; 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 n.o.body innocent where one may happen to be guilty, are made with a design to implant in the people a mutual distrust, and to make every man the inspector, witness, and judge of his neighbor's conduct.
On the contrary, the people of India are mild,30 tender, and compa.s.sionate. Hence their legislators repose great confidence in them. They have established31 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 acknowledged merit of the successor. They seem to think that every individual ought to place entire confidence in the good nature of his fellow-subjects.32 They enfranchise their slaves without difficulty, they marry them, they treat them as their children.33 Happy climate which gives birth to innocence, and produces a lenity in the laws!
1 This appears even in the countenance: in cold weather people look thinner.
2 We know that it shortens iron.
3 Those for the succession to the Spanish monarchy.
4 For instance, in Spain.
5 ”One hundred European soldiers,” says Tavernier, ”would without any great difficulty beat a thousand Indian soldiers.”
6 Even the Persians who settle in the Indies contract in the third generation the indolence and cowardice of the ”Indians. See Bernier on the ”Mogul,” tom. i. p. 182.
7 We find by a fragment of Nicolaus Damascenus, collected by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, that it was an ancient custom in the East to send to strangle a Governor who had given any displeasure; it was in the time of the Medes.
8 Panamanack: See Kircher.
9 La Loubiere, ”Relation of Siam,” p. 446.
10 Foe endeavored to reduce the heart to a mere vacuum: ”We have eyes and ears, but perfection consists in neither seeing nor hearing; a mouth, hands, etc., but perfection requires that these members should be inactive.” This is taken from the dialogue of a Chinese philosopher, quoted by Father Du Halde, tom. iii.
11 Father Du Halde, ”History of China,” tom. i. p. 72.
12 Several of the kings of India do the same. ”Relation of the Kingdom of Siam,” by La Loubiere, p. 69.
13 Venty, the third Emperor of the third dynasty, tilled the lands himself, and made the Empress and his wives employ their time in the silkworks in his palace. ”History of China.”
14 Hyde, ”Religion of the Persians.”
15 Monsieur Bernier, travelling from Lah.o.r.e to Cashmere, wrote thus: ”My body is a sieve; scarcely have I swallowed a pint of water, but I see it transude like dew out of all my limbs, even to my fingers' ends. I drink ten pints harm.”-Bernier's ”Travels,” tom. ii. p. 261.
16 In the blood there are red globules, fibrous parts, white globules, and water, in which the whole swims.
17 Plato, book II. of ”Laws ”; Aristotle, of the care of domestic affairs; Eusebius's” Evangelical Preparation,” book XII. chap. xvii.
18 This is seen in the Hottentots, and the inhabitants of the most southern a day, and it does me no manner of part of Chili.
19 As Pittacus did, according to Aristotle, ”Polit.” lib. I. cap. iii. He lived in a climate where drunkenness is not a national vice.
20 Book II.
21 Book II. t.i.t. 1, sec. 3, and t.i.t. 18, sec. 1.
22 It has been thought that this malady has a still more ancient origin, and that it is probable the Spaniards carried it to America at the start.-Ed.
23 Ricaut on the ”Ottoman Empire,” p. 284.
24 It may be complicated with the scurvy, which, in some countries especially, renders a man whimsical and unsupportable to himself. See Pirard's ”Voyages,” part II. chap. xxi.
25 Here I take this word for the design of subverting the established power, and especially that of democracy; this is the signification in which it was understood by the Greeks and Romans.
26 Chap. lviii. secs. 1 and 2.
27 ”Law of the Visigoths,” book III. t.i.t. 4, sec. 9.
28 Ibid. book III. t.i.t. 4, sec. 6.
29 Ibid. book III. t.i.t. 4, sec. 13.
30 See Bernier, tom. ii p. 140.
31 See in the 14th collection of the ”Edifying Letters,” p. 403, the princ.i.p.al laws or customs of the inhabitants of the peninsula on this side the Ganges.