The Spirit of Mankind

Chapter 2: People’s Minds should be prepared for the Reception of the best Laws.

The tribunal of Varus was the most insupportable to the Germans.

It was erected by Justinian amongst the Lazi to proceed against the murderers of their king, appeared to them as an affair most horrid and barbarous.

Mithridates,3 haranguing against the Romans, reproached them more particularly for their law proceedings.4

The Parthians could not bear with one of their kings who, having been educated at Rome, rendered himself affable and easy of access to all.5

Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.

Thus pure air is sometimes disagreeable to such as have lived in a fenny country.

Baibi, a Venetian, being at Pegu, was introduced to the king.6

When the monarch was informed that they had no king at Venice, he burst into such a fit of laughter that he was seized with a cough, and with difficulty could speak to his courtiers. What legislator could propose a popular government to a people like this?

Chapter 3: Tyranny

There are 2 sorts of tyranny:

1. Real

This arises from oppression

2. Opinion

This is felt whenever those who govern establish things shocking to the existing ideas of a nation.

Dio tells us that Augustus wanted to be called Romulus.

But having been informed that the people feared that he would cause himself to be crowned king, he changed his design.

The old Romans were averse to a king, because they could not suffer any man to enjoy such power; these would not have a king, because they could not bear his manners. For though Cæsar, the Triumvirs, and Augustus were really invested with regal power, they had preserved all the outward appearance of equality, while their private lives were a kind of contrast to the pomp and luxury of foreign monarchs; so that when the Romans were resolved to have no king, this only signified that they would preserve their customs, and not imitate those of the African and eastern nations.

The same writer informs us that the Romans were exasperated against Augustus for making certain laws which were too severe; but as soon as he had recalled Pylades the comedian, whom the jarring of different factions had driven out of the city, the discontent ceased. A people of this stamp have a more lively sense of tyranny when a player is banished than when they are deprived of their laws.

Chapter 4: The general Spirit of Mankind

Mankind are influenced by various causes:

• the climate
• the religion
• the laws
• the maxims of government
• precedents
• morals
• customs

These form a general spirit of nations.

In proportion as, in every country, any one of these causes acts with more force, the others in the same degree are weakened. Nature and the climate rule almost alone over the savages; customs govern the Chinese; the laws tyrannise in Japan; morals had formerly all their influence at Sparta; maxims of government, and the ancient simplicity of manners, once prevailed at Rome.

Chapter 5: How far we should be attentive lest the general Spirit of a Nation be changed.

No one wouuld restrain a people’s manners with laws if those people were:

• social, open-hearted, cheerful
• endowed with taste and a facility in communicating their thoughts
• sprightly and agreeable
• sometimes imprudent, often indiscreet
• courageous, generous, frank, and honourable

If in general the character be good, the little foibles that may be found in it are of small importance.

They might lay a restraint upon women, enact laws to reform their manners and to reduce their luxury, but who knows but that by these means they might lose that peculiar taste which would be the source of the wealth of the nation, and that politeness which would render the country frequented by foreigners?

It is the business of the legislature to follow the spirit of the nation, when it is not contrary to the principles of government; for we do nothing so well as when we act with freedom, and follow the bent of our natural genius.

If an air of pedantry be given to a nation that is naturally gay, the state will gain no advantage from it, either at home or abroad. Leave it to do frivolous things in the most serious manner, and with gaiety the things most serious.