Carthaginians, becoming their masters, destroyed every thing proper for the
nourishment of man, and forbade the cultivation of the lands on pain of death.” Sardinia was not recovered in the time of Aristotle, nor is it to this day.
The most temperate parts of Persia, Turkey, Muscovy, and Poland, have not been able to recover perfectly from the devastations of the Tartars.
CHAP. IV.
New Effects of the Barrenness and Fertility of Countries.
THE barrenness of the earth renders men industrious, sober, inured to hardship, courageous, and fit for war: they are obliged to procure by labour what the earth refuses to bestow spontaneously. The fertility of a country gives ease, effeminacy, and a certain fondness for the preservation of life. It has been remarked, that the German troops, raised in those places where the peasants are rich, as, for instance, in Saxony, are not so good as the others. Military laws may provide against this inconvenience by a more severe discipline.
CHAP. V.
Of the Inhabitants of Islands.
THE inhabitants of islands have a higher relish for liberty than those of the continent.
Islands are commonly of a small∥ extent; one part of the people cannot be so easily employed to oppress the other; the sea separates them from great empires; tyranny cannot so well support itself within a small compass; conquerors are stopped by the sea; and the islanders, being without the reach of their arms, more easily preserve their own laws.
CHAP. VI.
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Of Countries raised by the Industry of Man.
THOSE countries which the industry of man has rendered habitable, and which stand in need of the same industry to provide for their subsistence, require a mild and moderate government. There are principally three of this species; the two fine provinces of Kiang-nan and Tcekiang in China, Egypt, and Holland.
The ancient emperors of China were not conquerors. The first thing they did to
aggrandize themselves was what gave the highest proof of their wisdom. They raised from beneath the waters two of the finest provinces of the empire; these owe their existence to the labour of man: and it is the inexpressible fertility of these two provinces which has given Europe such ideas of the felicity of that vast country. But a continual and necessary care, to preserve from destruction so considerable a part of the empire, demanded rather the manners of a wise, than of a voluptuous, nation; rather the lawful authority of a monarch, than the tyrannic sway of a despotic prince. Power was, therefore, necessarily moderated in that country, as it was formerly in Egypt, and as it is now in Holland, which nature has made to attend to herself, and not to be abandoned to negligence or caprice.
Thus, in spite of the climate of China, where they are naturally led to a servile obedience, in spite of the apprehensions which follow too great an extent of empire, the first legislators of this country were obliged to make excellent laws, and the government was frequently obliged to follow them.
CHAP. VII.
Of human Industry.
MANKIND, by their industry, and by the influence of good laws, have rendered the earth more proper for their abode. We see rivers flow where there have been lakes and marshes: this is a benefit which nature has not bestowed; but it is a benefit maintained
§
and supplied by nature. When the Persians were masters of Asia, they permitted those, who conveyed a spring to any place which had not been watered before, to enjoy the benefit for five generations; and, as a number of rivulets flowed from mount Taurus, they spared no expence in directing the course of their streams. At this day, without knowing how they came thither, they are found in the fields and gardens.
Thus, as destructive nations produce evils more durable than themselves, the actions of an industrious people are the source of blessings which last when they are no more.
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CHAP. VIII.
The general Relation of Laws.
THE laws have a very great relation to the manner in which the several nations procure their subsistence. There should be a code of laws of a much larger extent for a nation attached to trade and navigation than for people who are content with cultivating the earth. There should be a much greater for the latter than for those who subsist by their flocks and herds. There must be a still greater for these than for such as live by hunting.
CHAP. IX.
Of the Soil of America.
THE cause of there being such a number of savage nations in America is, the fertility of the earth, which spontaneously produces many fruits capable of affording them
nourishment. If the women cultivate a spot of land round their cottages, the maiz grows up presently; and hunting and fishing put the men in a state of complete abundance.
Besides, black cattle, as cows, buffaloes, &c. thrive there better than carnivorous beasts. The latter have always reigned in Africa.
We should not, I believe, have all these advantages in Europe, if the land were left uncultivated; it would scarcely produce any thing besides forests of oaks and other barren trees.
CHAP. X.
Of Population, in the Relation it bears to the Manner of procuring
Subsistence.
LET us see in what proportion countries are peopled where the inhabitants do not cultivate the earth. As the produce of uncultivated land is to that of land improved by culture, so the number of savages in one country is to that of husbandmen in another: and, when the people who cultivate the land cultivate also the arts, this is also in such proportions as would require a minute detail.
They can scarcely form a great nation. If they are herdsmen and shepherds, they have need of an extensive country to furnish subsistence for a small number; if they live by http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Montesquieu0187/CompleteWorks/0171-01_Bk.html
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hunting, their number must be still less, and, in order to find the means of life, they must constitute a very small nation.
Their country commonly abounds with forests; which, as the inhabitants have not the art of draining off the waters, are filled with bogs; here each troop canton themselves, and form a petty nation.
CHAP. XI.
Of savage and barbarous Nations.
THERE is this difference between savage and barbarous nations; the former are
dispersed in clans, which, for some particular reason, cannot be joined in a body; and the latter are commonly small nations, capable of being united. The savages are generally hunters; the barbarians are herdsmen and shepherds.
This appears plain in the North of Asia. The people of Siberia cannot live in bodies, because they are unable to find subsistence; the Tartars may live in bodies for some time, because their herds and flocks may, for a time, be re-assembled. All the clans may then be re-united; and this is effected when one chief has subdued many others; after which they may do two things, either separate, or set out with a design to make a great conquest in some southern empire.
CHAP. XII.
Of the Law of Nations among People who do not cultivate the Earth.
AS these people do not live in circumscribed territories, many causes of strife arise between them; they quarrel about waste land as we about inheritances. Thus they find frequent occasions for war, in disputes relative either to their hunting, their fishing, the pasture for their cattle, or the violent seizing of their slaves; and, as they are not possessed of landed property, they have many things to regulate by the law of nations, and but few to decide by the civil law.
CHAP. XIII.
Of the civil Law of those Nations who do not cultivate the Earth.
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THE division of lands is what principally increases the civil code. Amongst nations where they have not made this division there are very few civil laws.
The institutions of these people may be called manners rather than laws.
Amongst such nations as these, the old men, who remember things past, have great authority: they cannot there be distinguished by wealth, but by wisdom and valour.
These people wander and disperse themselves in pasture grounds or in forests.
Marriage cannot there have the security which it has amongst us, where it is fixed by the habitation, and where the wife continues in one house: they may, then, more easily change their wives, possess many, and sometimes mix indifferently, like brutes.
Nations of herdsmen and shepherds cannot leave their cattle, which are their
subsistence; neither can they separate themselves from their wives, who look after them. All this ought, then, to go together; especially, as, living generally in a flat open country, where there are few places of considerable strength, their wives, their children, their flocks, may become the prey of their enemies.
Their laws regulate the division of plunder, and have, like our Salique laws, a particular attention to theft.
CHAP. XIV.
Of the political State of the People who do not cultivate the Land.
THESE people enjoy great liberty. For, as they do not cultivate the earth, they are not fixed, they are wanderers and vagabonds; and, if a chief should deprive them of their liberty, they would immediately go and seek it under another, or retire into the woods, and there live with their families. The liberty of the man is so great, among these people, that it necessarily draws after it that of the citizen.
CHAP. XV.
Of People who know the Use of Money.
ARISTIPPUS, being cast away, swam and got safe to the next shore; where, beholding geometrical figures traced in the sand, he was seized with a transport of joy, judging that he was amongst Greeks, and not in a nation of barbarians.
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Should you ever happen to be cast, by some adventure, amongst unknown people,
upon seeing a piece of money, you may be assured that you are arrived in a civilized country.
The culture of lands requires the use of money. This culture supposes many inventions and many degrees of knowledge; and we always see ingenuity, the arts, and a sense of want, making their progress with an equal pace. All this conduces to the establishment of a sign of value.
¶
Torrents and eruptions have made the discovery that metals are contained in the bowels of the earth. When once they have been separated, they have easily been
applied to their proper use.
CHAP. XVI.
Of civil Laws among People who know not the Use of Money.
WHEN a people have not the use of money, they are seldom acquainted with any other injustice than that which arises from violence; and the weak, by uniting, defend themselves from its effects. They have nothing there but political regulations. But, where money is established, they are subject to that injustice which proceeds from craft; an injustice that may be exercised a thousand ways. Hence they are forced to have good civil laws, which spring up with the new practices of iniquity.
In countries where they have no specie the robber takes only bare moveables, which have no mutual resemblance. But, where they make use of money, the robber takes the signs, and these always resemble each other. In the former, nothing can be concealed, because the robber takes along with him the proofs of his conviction; but, in the latter, it is quite the contrary.
CHAP. XVII.
Of political Laws amongst Nations who have not the Use of Money.
THE greatest security of the liberties of a people, who do not cultivate the earth, is, their not knowing the use of money. What is gained by hunting, fishing, or keeping herds of cattle, cannot be assembled in such great quantity, nor be sufficiently preserved, for one man to find himself in a condition to corrupt many others: but when, instead of this, a man has a sign of riches, he may obtain a large quantity of these http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Montesquieu0187/CompleteWorks/0171-01_Bk.html
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signs, and distribute them as he pleases.
The people who have no money have but few wants; and these are supplied with ease, and in an equal manner. Equality is then unavoidable; and from hence it proceeds that their chiefs are not despotic.
CHAP. XVIII.
Of the Power of Superstition.
IF what travellers tell us be true, the constitution of a nation of Louisiana, called the
*
Natches, is an exception to this. Their chief disposes of the goods of all his subjects, and obliges them to work and toil according to his pleasure. He has a power like that of the Grand Signior, and they cannot even refuse him their heads. When the presumptive heir enters into the world, they devote all the sucking children to his service during life.
One would imagine that this is the great Sesostris. He is treated in his cottage with as much ceremony as an emperor of Japan or China.
The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind. Thus, though the savage nations have naturally no
knowledge of despotic tyranny, still they feel the weight of it. They adore the sun; and, if their chief had not imagined that he was the brother of this glorious luminary, they would have thought him a wretch like themselves.
CHAP. XIX.
Of the Liberty of the Arabs and the Servitude of the Tartars.
THE Arabs and Tartars are nations of herdsmen and shepherds. The Arabs find
themselves in that situation of which we have been speaking, and are therefore free;
†
whilst the Tartars (the most singular people on earth) are involved in a political
‡
slavery. I have already given reasons for this, and shall now assign some others.
They have no towns, no forests, and but few marshes; their rivers are generally frozen, and they dwell in a level country of an immense extent. They have pasture for their herds and slocks, and consequently property; but they have no kind of retreat or place of safety. A khan is no sooner overcome than they cut off his∥ head; his children are treated in the same manner, and all his subjects belong to the conqueror. These are not condemned to a civil slavery; for, in that case, they would be a burthen to a simple http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Montesquieu0187/CompleteWorks/0171-01_Bk.html
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people, who have no lands to cultivate and no need of any domestic service. They therefore add to the bulk of the nation; but, instead of civil servitude, a political slavery must naturally be introduced amongst them.
It is apparent, that, in a country where the several clans make continual war, and are perpetually conquering each other; in a country, where, by the death of the chief, the body politic of the vanquished clan is always destroyed; the nation in general can enjoy but little freedom; for there is not a single party that must not have been often subdued.
A conquered people may preserve some degree of liberty, when, by the strength of their situation, they are in a state that will admit of capitulating after their defeat. But the Tartars, always defenceless, being once overcome, can never be able to obtain conditions.
I have said, in chap. II. that the inhabitants of cultivated plains are seldom free.
Circumstances have occurred to put the Tartars, who dwell in uncultivated plains, in the same situation.
CHAP. XX.
Of the Law of Nations as practised by the Tartars.
THE Tartars appear to be mild and humane amongst themselves, and yet they are most cruel conquerors: when they take cities, they put the inhabitants to the sword, and imagine that they act humanely, if they only sell the people or distribute them amongst their soldiers. They have destroyed Asia, from India even to the Mediterranean; and all the country, which forms the East of Persia, they have rendered a desart.
This law of nations is owing, I think, to the following cause. These people having no towns, all their wars are carried on with eagerness and impetuosity: they fight whenever they hope to conquer; and, when they have no such hope, they join the
stronger army. With such customs, it is contrary to the law of nations that a city, incapable of repelling their attack, should stop their progress. They regard not cities as an association of inhabitants, but as places made to bid defiance to their power. They besiege them without military skill, and expose themselves greatly in the attack; and therefore revenge themselves on all those who have spilt their blood.
CHAP. XXI.
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The civil Law of the Tartars.
FATHER Du Halde says, that, amongst the Tartars, the youngest of the males is always the heir, by reason, that, as soon as the elder brothers are capable of leading a pastoral life, they leave the house, with a certain number of cattle given them by their father, and build a new habitation. The last of the males, who continues at home with the father, is then his natural heir.
I have heard that a like custom was also observed in some small districts of England: and we find it still in Brittany, in the dutchy of Rohan, where it obtains with regard to ignoble tenures. This is doubtless a pastoral law, conveyed thither by some of the people of Britain, or established by some German nation. By Cæsar and Tacitus we are informed that the latter cultivated but little land.
CHAP. XXII.
Of a civil Law of the German Nations.
I shall here explain how that particular passage of the Salique law, which is commonly distinguished by the term, The Salique Law, relates to the institutions of a people who do not cultivate the earth, or, at least who cultivate it but very little.
§
The Salique law ordains, that, when a man has left children behind him, the males shall succeed to the Salique land in prejudice to the females.
To understand the nature of those Salique lands, there needs no more than to search into the usages or customs of the Franks, with regard to lands, before they left Germany.
Mr. Echard has very plainly proved that the word Salic is derived from Sala, which signifies a house; and, therefore, that the Salique land was the land belonging to the house. I shall proceed farther, and examine into the nature of the house, and of the land belonging to the house, among the Germans.
¶
“They dwell not in towns, says Tacitus, nor can they bear to have their habitations contiguous to those of others; every one leaves a space or small piece of ground about his house, which is inclosed.” Tacitus is very exact in this account; for many laws of
*
the barbarian codes have different decrees against those who threw down this
inclosure, as well as against such as broke into the house.
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them only for the space of a year; after which they again became public. They had no
†
other patrimony but the house, and a piece of land within the inclosure that
surrounded it. It was this particular patrimony which belonged to the males. And, indeed, how could it belong to the daughters? they were to pass into another
habitation.
The Salique land was, then, within that inclosure which belonged to a German house; this was the only property they had. The Franks, after their conquests, acquired new possessions, and continued to call them Salique lands.
When the Franks lived in Germany, their wealth consisted of slaves, flocks, horses, arms, &c. The habitation and the small portion of land adjoining to it were naturally given to the male children who were to dwell there. But afterwards, when the Franks had, by conquest, acquired large tracts of land, they thought it hard that the daughters and their children should be incapable of enjoying any part of them. Hence it was that they introduced a custom of permitting the father to settle the estate, after his death, upon his daughter and her children. They silenced the law; and it appears that these
‡
settlements were frequent, since they were entered in the formularies.
Amongst these formularies I find one∥ of a singular nature. A grandfather ordained by will that his grandchildren should share his inheritance with his sons and daughters.
What, then, became of the Salique law? In those times, either it could not be observed, or the continual use of nominating the daughters to an inheritance had made them consider their ability to succeed as a case authorized by custom.
The Salique law had not in view a preference of one sex to the other; much less had it a regard to the perpetuity of a family, a name, or the transmission of land: these things did not enter into the heads of the Germans; it was purely an œconomical law, which gave the house, and the land dependent thereon, to the males who should dwell in it, and to whom it consequently was of most service.
We need here only transcribe the title of the allodial lands of the Salique law, that famous text, of which so many have talked, and which so few have read.
“If a man dies without issue, his father or mother shall succeed him. 2. If he has neither father nor mother, his brother or sister shall succeed him. 3. If he has neither brother nor sister, the sister of his mother shall succeed him. 4. If his mother has no sister, the sister of his father shall succeed him. 5. If his father has no sister, the nearest relation
§
by the male side shall succeed. 6. Not any part of the Salique land shall pass to the females; but it shall belong to the males; that is, the male children shall succeed their father.”
It is plain that the first five articles relate to the inheritance of a man who dies without issue; and the sixth to the succession of him who has children.
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When a man dies without children, the law ordains that neither of the two sexes shall have the preference to the other, except in certain cases. In the two first degrees of succession, the advantages of the males and females were the same; in the third and fourth, the females had the preference; and the males in the fifth.
¶
Tacitus points out the source of these extravagances: “The sister’s children, says he, are as dear to their uncle as to their own father. There are men who regard this degree of kindred as more strict, and even more holy. They prefer it when they receive
*
hostages.” From hence it proceeds that our earliest historians speak in such strong terms of the love of the kings of the Franks for their sisters and their sisters children.
And, indeed, if the children of the sister were considered, in her brother’s house, as his own children, it was natural for these to regard their aunt as their mother.
The sister of the mother was preferred to the father’s sister; this is explained by other
†
texts of the Salique law. When a woman became a widow, she fell under the
guardianship of her husband’s relations; the law preferred to this guardianship the relations by the females before those by the males. Indeed, a woman, who entered into a family, joining herself with those of her own sex, became more united to her relations
‡
by the female than by the male. Moreover, when a man killed another, and had not wherewithal to pay the pecuniary penalty, the law permitted him to deliver up his substance, and his relations were to supply the deficiency. After the father, mother, and brother, the sister of the mother was to pay, as if this tie had something in it most tender. Now, the degree of kindred which imposes the burthens ought also to confer the advantages.
The Salique law enjoins, that, after the father’s sister, the succession should be held by the nearest relation male; but, if this relation was beyond the fifth degree, he should not inherit. Thus a female of the fifth degree might inherit to the prejudice of a male of the sixth: and this may be seen in the∥ law of the Ripurian Franks, (a faithful interpreter of the Salique law,) under the title of allodial lands, where it closely adheres to the Salique law on the same subject.
If the father left issue, the Salique law would have the daughters excluded from the inheritance of the Salique land, and determined that it should belong to the male children.
It would be easy for me to prove that the Salique law did not absolutely exclude the daughters from the possession of the Salique land, but only in the case where they were debarred by their brothers. This appears from the letter of the