Charles Louis de Secondat de Montesquieu

“ For why should education take pains in forming a good citizen, only to make him share in the public misery? If he loves his country, he will strive to relax the springs of government: if he miscarries, he will be undone; if he succeeds, he must expose himself, the prince, and his country to ruin. ”

“ But politeness, generally speaking, does not derive its original from so pure a source. It rises from a desire of distinguishing ourselves. It is pride that renders us polite: we feel a pleasing vanity in being remarked for a behaviour that shews in some measure we are not meanly born, and that we have not been bred up with those who in all ages have been considered as the scum of the people. ”

“ The body governing is the republic; and the body governed is the despotic state; which forms two of the most heterogeneous and divided bodies in the world.
The extremity of corruption is when the power of the nobles becomes hereditary [6] ; for then they can hardly have any moderation. If they are few in number, their power is greater, but their security less; if they are a larger number, their power is less, and their security greater: insomuch that power goes on increasing, and security diminishing, up to the very despotic prince whose head is encircled with excels of power and danger. ”

“ In despotic states each house is a separate government. As education therefore consists chiefly in social converse, it must be here very much limited; all it does is to strike the heart with fear, and to imprint on the understanding a very simple notion of a few principles of religion. Learning here proves dangerous, emulation fatal; and as to virtue, Aristotle cannot think there is any one virtue belonging to slaves [2] ; if so, education in despotic countries is confined within a very narrow compass. ”

“ The great number therefore of nobles in an hereditary aristocracy renders the government less violent: but as there is less virtue, they fall into a spirit of supineness and negligence, by which means the state loses all its strength and activity [7] .
An aristocracy may maintain the full vigor of its constitution, if the laws be such as are apt to render the nobles more sensible of the perils and fatigues, than of the pleasure of command ”

“ In fine, the education of monarchies requires a certain politeness of behaviour. Men born for society, are born to please one another; and a person that would break through the rules of decorum, by shocking those he conversed with, would so far lose the public esteem as to become incapable of doing any good. ”

“ Distinctive Properties of a despotic Government.
A Large empire supposes a despotic authority in the person that governs. It is necessary that the quickness of the prince's resolutions should supply the distance of the places they are sent to; that fear should prevent the carelessness of the remote governor or magistrate; that the law should be derived from a single person, and should change continually according to the accidents which incessantly multiply in a state in proportion to its extent. ”

“ A court air consists in quitting a real for a borrowed greatness. The latter pleases the courtier more than his own. It inspires him with a certain disdainful modesty which shews itself externally, but whose pride diminishes insensibly in proportion to its distance from the source of this greatness. ”

“ The climate and some other physical causes may, in that country, have had so strong an influence on the morals, as in some measure to produce wonders.
The climate of China is surprizingly favourable to the propagation of the human species. The women are the most prolific in the whole world. The most barbarous tyranny can put no stop to the progress of propagation. The prince cannot say there like Pharaoh, Let us deal wisely with them lest they multiply. He would be rather reduced to Nero's wish, that mankind had all but one head. ”

“ In a large republic the public good is sacrificed to a thousand views; it is subordinate to exceptions; and depends on accidents. In a small one, the interest of the public is easier perceived, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses have a less extent, and of course are less protected. ”

“ As China grows every day more populous notwithstanding the exposing of children, the inhabitants are incessantly employed in tilling the lands for their subsistence. This requires a very extraordinary attention, in the government. It is their perpetual concern that every body should be able to work without any apprehension of being deprived of the fruits of his labour. Consequently this is not so much a civil as a domestic government. ”

“ Most arts, says Xenophon [12] , corrupt and enervate the bodies of those that that exercise them; they oblige them to sit under a shade, or near the fire. They can find no leisure, either for their friends, or for the republic. It was only by the corruption of some democracies that artisans became freemen. This we learn from Aristotle [13] , who maintains, that a well regulated republic will never give thorn the right and freedom of the city [14] . ”

“ Chap. 10. & 11.THE principle of despotic government is subject to a continual corruption, because it is even in its nature corrupt. Other governments are destroyed by particular accidents which do violence to the principles of each constitution; this is ruined by its own intrinsic imperfection, when no accidental causes impede or corrupt the principles on which it is founded. It maintains itself therefore only when circumstances drawn from the climate, religion, situation, or genius of the people, oblige it to follow some order, and to admit of some rule. ”

“ All was lost upon the starting up of monarchy, a government whose spirit is more turned to increase and advancement.
Excepting particular circumstance [28] , it is difficult for any other than a republican government to subsist long in a single town. A prince of so petty a state would naturally endeavour to oppress his subjects, because his power would be great, while the means of enjoying it or of causing it to be respected, would be very inconsiderable. The consequence is, he would trample upon his people. ”

“ Honor therefore has its supreme laws, to which education is obliged to conform. The chief of these are, that we are allowed to set a value upon our fortune, but it is absolutely forbidden to set any value upon our lives. ”

“ But if they happened to receive a taste for music, we should quickly perceive a sensible difference in their customs and manners. In short, the exercises used by the Greeks excited only one kind of passions, viz. fierceness, anger, and cruelty. But music excites all those; and is likewise able to inspire the soul with a sense of pity, lenity, tenderness, and love. Our moral writers, who declaim so vehemently against the stage, sufficiently demonstrate the power of music over the soul. ”

“ It is glorious indeed for this society to have been the first in pointing out to those countries the idea of religion joined with that of humanity. By repairing the devastations of the Spaniards, she has begun to heal one of the most dangerous wounds that the human species ever received. ”

“ 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 unsociable and four. It cannot be said that music inspired virtue, for this would be inconceivable: but it prevented the effects of a savage institution, and enabled the soul to have such a share in the education, as it could never have had without the assistance of harmony. ”

“ The want of subsistence in so populous a country, produces sudden disorders. The reason why the redress of abuses is in other countries attended with such difficulty, is because their effects are not immediately felt; the prince is not informed in so sudden and sensible a manner as in China.
The emperor of China is not taught like our princes, that if he governs ill, he will be less happy in the other life, less potent and less rich in this. He knows that if his government is not good, he will be stript both of empire and life. ”

“ An exquisite sensibility to whatever the distinguishes by the name of honour, her zeal for a religion which is far more humbling in respect to those that hear than to those that preach it, have set her upon vast undertakings, which she has accomplished with success. She has drawn wild people from their woods, secured them a maintenance, and clothed their nakedness ”

“ Politeness, in monarchies, is naturalised at court. One man excessively great renders every body else little. Hence that regard which is paid to our fellow subjects; hence that politeness, which is as pleasing to those by whom, as to those towards whom, it is practised; because it gives people to understand, that a person actually belongs, or at least deserves to belong, to the court. ”

“ IT is in a republican government that the whole power of education is required. The fear of despotic governments rises naturally of itself amidst threats and punishments; the honor of monarchies is favoured by the passions, and favours them in its turn: but virtue is a self-renunciation which is always arduous and painful. ”

“ True it is that agriculture was not every where exercised by slaves: on the contrary, Aristotle observes, the best republics were those 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 subject to an aristocratic government. ”

“ These are the things which properly fall within the province of education, in order to form what we call a man of honor, a man possessed of all the qualities and virtues requisite in this kind of government. ”

“ We must not be surprised to see their suffrages given for money. It is impossible to give a great deal to the people without squeezing much more out of them: and to compass this, the state must be subverted. ”

“ Natural Effects of the Goodness and Corruption of the Principles of Government.
WHEN once the principles of government are corrupted, the very best laws become bad and turn against the slate: but when the principles are sound, even bad laws have the same effect as good; the force of the principle draws every thing to it.
The inhabitants of Crete used a very singular method, to keep the principal magistrates dependent on the laws ”

“ They must proscribe money, the effect of which is to swell people's fortunes beyond the bounds prescribed by nature; to learn to preserve for no purpose what has been idly hoarded up; to multiply without end our desires ”

“ Chap. 12.When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the rising evils, but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles: every other correction is either useless or a new evil. While Rome preserved its principles intire, the power of judging might without any abuse be lodged in the hands of senators: but as soon as this city was corrupted, let the judicial authority be transferred to whatsoever body, whether to the senate, to the knights, to the treasurers, to two of these bodies, to all three together, or to any other ”

“ Chap. 6.Those who shall attempt hereafter to introduce such institutions as these, must establish the community of goods as prescribed in Plato's republic; that high respect he required for the gods; that separation from strangers for the preservation of people's morals, and an extensive commerce carried on by the community and not by private citizens: they must give our arts without our luxury, and our wants without our desires. ”

“ In spite of tyranny, China by the force of its climate will be always populous, and will triumph over the tyrannical oppressor.
China like all other countries, that live chiefly upon rice, is subject to frequent famines. ”

“ In the state of nature indeed, all men are born equal; but they cannot continue in this equality. Book VIII.
Ch.4.& 5.Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by means of the laws.
Such is the difference between a well regulated democracy, and one that is not so, that in the former men are equal only as citizens, but in the latter they are equal also as magistrates, as senators, as judges, as fathers, as husbands, or as masters.
The natural place of virtue is near to liberty; but it is not nearer to extreme liberty than to servitude. ”

“ If it happens otherwise, it is because the impressions made at home are effaced by those they have received abroad.
It is not the young people that degenerate: they are not spoilt till those of maturer age are already sunk into corruption. ”

“ The ancients were therefore in the right, when under particular circumstances they preferred one mode to another in regard to manners.
But some will ask, why should music be pitched upon preferable to any other entertainment? It is because of all sensible pleasures, there is none that lefs corrupts the soul. ”

“ And yet in so great a number of such distant provinces, some gang or other may happen to meet with success. In that case they maintain their ground, strengthen their party, form themselves into a military body, march strait up to the capital, and their leader ascends the throne. ”

“ In fine, there is frequently some kind of truth even in errors themselves. It may be owing to particular, and perhaps very singular circumstances, that the Chinese government is not so corrupt as one might naturally expect. ”

“ If the people in general have a principle, their constituent parts, that is, the several families, will have one also. The laws of education will be therefore different in each species of government; in monarchies they will have honor for their object; in republics, virtue ”