mentioned, although often productive of beautiful results (as we notice more especially in antiquity), has too hurtful a tendency on the individual development of the citizen, too easily induces one-sidedness in the national character, and is therefore most foreign to the system we have proposed. According to this, we should rather look for a constitution which should have the least possible positive or special influence on the character of the citizens, and would fill their hearts with nothing but the deepest regard for the rights of others, combined with the most enthusiastic love for their own liberty. I shall not here attempt to discover which constitution may be supposed to resemble this most faithfully. Such an investigation belongs evidently to a strict theory of politics; and I shall content myself with a few brief considerations, which may serve to show more clearly the possibility of such a constitution. The system I have proposed tends to strengthen and multiply the private interests of the citizen, and it may therefore seem calculated in that way to weaken the public interest. But it interweaves the two so closely together, that the latter seems rather to be based on the former; and especially so appears to the citizen, who wishes to be at once secure and free. Thus then, with such a system, that love for the constitution might be most surely preserved, which it is so often vainly sought to cultivate in the hearts of the citizens by artificial means. In this case of a State, moreover, in which the sphere of action is so narrow and limited, a less degree of power is necessary, and this requires proportionately less defence. Lastly, it follows of course, that, as power and enjoyment are often to be sacrificed on both sides to secure given results, in order to protect both from a greater loss, the same necessary accommodations are to be supposed in the system we have propounded.
I have now succeeded, then, in answering the question I
