Chapter 4: The general Spirit of Mankind
MANKIND are influenced by various causes:
- by the climate
- by the religion
- by the laws
- by the maxims of government
- by precedents, morals, and customs.
These form a general spirit of nations.
- In proportion as any one of these causes acts with more force, the others are weakened in the same degree.
- Nature and the climate rule almost alone over the savages.
- Customs govern the Chinese.
- The laws tyrannize 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 would restrain a people’s manners by laws if they:
- had:
- a social temper,
- courage
- generosity
- frankness, and
- a certain notion of honour.
- were
- open-hearted,
- cheerful,
- endowed:
- with taste, and
- a facility of communicating their thoughts
- sprightly and agreeable
- sometimes imprudent
- often indiscreet
Unless he would lay a restraint on their virtues.
- 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 strangers?
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.
Chapter 5: Every Thing should not be corrected
LET them but leave us as we are, said a gentleman of a nation which had a very great resemblance to that we have been describing, and nature will repair whatever is amiss.
- She has given us a vivacity capable of offending and hurrying us beyond the bounds of respect: this same vivacity is corrected by the politeness it procures, inspiring us with a taste of [391] the world, and, above all, for the conversation of the fair-sex.
Let them leave us as we are: our indiscretions, joined to our good-nature, would make the laws which should constrain our sociability not at all proper for us.
Chapter 7: The Athenians and Spartans
THE Athenians, this gentleman adds, were a nation that had some relation to ours.
- They mingled gaiety with business; a stroke of raillery was as agreeable in the senate as in the theatre.
- This vivacity, which discovered itself in their councils, went along with them in the execution of their resolves.
- The characteristic of the Spartans was gravity, seriousness, severity, and silence.
- It would have been as difficult to bring over an Athenian by teazing as it would a Spartan by diverting him.
Chapter 8: Effects of a sociable Temper
THE more communicative a people are, the more easily they change their habits, because each is, in a greater degree, a spectacle to the other, and the singularities of individuals are better observed.
- The climate, which influences one nation to take a pleasure in being communicative, makes it also delight in change; and that, which makes it delight in change, forms its taste.
The society of the fair-sex spoils the manners and forms the taste.
- The desire of giving greater pleasure than others establishes the embellishments of dress; and the desire of pleasing others more than ourselves gives rise to fashions. This mode is a subject of importance; [392] by giving a trifling turn of mind, it continually increases the branches of its commerce.∥
Chapter 9: The Vanity and Pride of Nations
VANITY is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
- To be convinced of this, we need only represent, on the one hand, the numberless benefits which result from vanity, as industry, the arts, fashions, politeness, and taste; on the other, the infinite evils which spring from the pride of certain nations, as laziness, poverty, a total neglect of every thing; in fine, the destruction of the nations which have happened to fall under their government as well as of their own.
- Laziness§ is the effect of pride; labour a consequence of vanity: the pride of a Spaniard leads him to decline labour; the vanity of a Frenchman to work better than others.
All lazy nations are grave: for those who do not labour regard themselves as the sovereigns of those who do.
If we search amongst all nations, we shall find, that, for the most part, gravity, pride, and indolence, go hand in hand.
The people of Achim¶ are proud and lazy; those who have no slaves hire one, if it be only to carry a quart of rice a hundred paces; they would be dishonoured if they carried it themselves.
In many places, people let their nails grow, that all may see they do not work
Women, in the Indies*, believe it shameful for them to learn to read: this is, they say, the business of their slaves, who sing their spiritual songs in the temples of their pagods.
- In one tribe they do not spin; in another they make nothing but baskets and mats; they are not even to pound rice; and in others they must not go to fetch water.
- These rules are established by pride; and the same passion makes them followed. There is no necessity for mentioning that the moral qualities, according as they are blended with others, are productive of different effects: thus pride, joined to a vast ambition and notions of grandeur, produced such effects among the Romans as are known to all the world.
Metascience 