“ The human mind is inconsistency itself. In a drunken debauch, men break out madly against all precept; and the law, intended to make for our righteousness, often serves only to increase our guilt. ”
Montesquieu, Persian Letters (1721). copy citation
| Author | Montesquieu |
|---|---|
| Source | Persian Letters |
| Topic | guilt righteousness |
| Date | 1721 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by John Davidson |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Persian_Letters |
Context
“To the shame of these men it must be said, that, though the law prohibits them from using wine, they drink it to an excess which degrades them beneath the lowest of mankind. Here, however, the princes are allowed to use it, and no one has ever observed that it has caused them to do wrong. The human mind is inconsistency itself. In a drunken debauch, men break out madly against all precept; and the law, intended to make for our righteousness, often serves only to increase our guilt.
But, when I disapprove of the use of this liquor which deprives men of their reason, I do not also condemn those beverages which exhilarate the mind. The wisdom of the Orientals shows itself in their search for remedies against melancholy, which they prosecute with as much solicitude as in the case of the most dangerous maladies.”
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