The Spirit of Laws (1758)/Book XIV

by Montesquieu

BOOK XIV.
Of Laws as relative to the Nature of the Climate.

CHAP. I.
General Idea.

Book XIV.
Chap. 1, & 2.IF it be true that the character of the mind, and the passions of the heart are extremely different in different climates, the laws ought to be relative both to the difference of those passions, and to the difference of those characters.

CHAP. II.
Of the Difference of Men in different Climates.

A COLD air^[1] constringes the extremities of the external fibres of the body; this increases their elasticity, and favors the return of the blood from the extremities to the heart. It contracts^[2] those very fibres; consequently it increases also their force. On the contrary a warm air relaxes and lengthens the extremes of the fibres; of course it diminishes their force and elasticity.

People are therefore more vigorous in cold climates. Here the action of the heart and the Book XIV.
Chap. 2.reaction of the extremities of the fibres are better performed, the temperature of the humours is greater, the blood moves freer towards the heart, and reciprocally the heart has more power. This superiority of strength must produce a great many effects; for instance, a greater boldness, that is, more courage; a greater sense of superiority, that is, less desire of revenge; a greater opinion of security, that is, more frankness, less suspicion, policy, and cunning. In short this must be productive of very different characters. Put a man in a close warm place, and he will, for the reasons above given, feel a great faintness. If under this circumstance you propose a bold enterprize to him, I believe you will find him very little disposed towards it: his present weakness will throw him into a despondency of soul; he will be afraid of every thing, because he will feel himself capable of nothing. The inhabitants of warm countries are, like old men, timorous; the people in cold countries are, like young men, brave. If we reflect on the late^[3] wars, which are more present to our memory, and in which we can better distinguish some flight effects that escape us at a great distance of time; we shall find that the northern people transplanted into southern countries^[4], did not perform such great feats as their countrymen, who fighting in their own climate possessed them full vigor and courage.

This strength of the fibres in northern nations is the cause that the coarsest juices are extracted from their aliments. From hence two things result: Book XIV.
Chap. 2.one that the parts of the chyle or lymph are more proper, by reason of their large surface, to be applied to, and to nourish, the fibres: the other, that they are less proper, because of their coarseness, to give a certain subtilty to the nervous juice. Those people have therefore large bodies and little vivacity.

The nerves that terminate from all parts in the cutis, form each a bundle of nerves; generally speaking, the whole nerve is not moved, but a very minute part. In warm climates where the cutis is relaxed, the ends of the nerves are opened and exposed to the smallest action of the weakest objeds. In cold countries the cutis is constringed, and the papillæ compressed; the miliary glands are in some measure paralytic; and the sensation does not reach the brain but when it is very strong and proceeds from the whole nerve at once. Now imagination, taste, sensibility, and vivacity, depend on an infinite number of small sensations.

I have observed the outermost part of a sheep's tongue, where to the naked eye it seems covered with papillæ. On these papillæ, I have discerned through a microscope, small hairs or a kind of down; between the papillæ were pyramids shaped towards the ends like pincers. Very likely these pyramids are the principal organ of taste.

I caused the half of this tongue to be frozen, and observing it with the naked eye I found the papillæ considerably diminished: even some rows of the papillæ were sunk into their sheath. I examined the outermost part with the microscope, and I perceived no pyramids. In proportions as the frost-went off, the papillæ seemed to the naked eye Book XIV.
Chap. 2.to rise, and with the microscope the miliary glands began to appear.

This observation confirms what I have been saying, that in cold countries the nervous glands are less spread; they sink deeper into their sheaths, or they are sheltered from the action of external objects. Consequently they have not such lively sensations.

In cold countries, they have very little sensibility for pleasure; in temperate countries they have more; in warm countries their sensibility is exquisite. As climates are distinguished by degrees of latitude, we might distinguish them also, in some measure, by degrees of sensibility. I have seen the operas of England and of Italy; they are the same pieces and the same performers; and yet the same music produces such different effects on the two nations, one is so cold and indifferent, and the other so transported, that it seems almost inconceivable.

It is the same with regard to pain; which is excited by the laceration of some fibre of the body. The author of nature has made it an established rule that this pain should be more acute in proportion as the laceration is greater: now it is evident that the large bodies and coarse fibres of the people of the north are less capable of laceration than the delicate fibres of the inhabitants of warm countries; consequently the soul is there less sensible of pain. You must slay a Muscovite alive to make him feel.

From this delicacy of organs peculiar to warm climates, it follows, that the soul is most sensibly moved by whatever has a relation to the union of the two sexes: here every thing leads to this object.

Book XIV.
Chap. 2.In northern climates scarce has the animal part of love a power of making itself felt. In temperate climates, love attended by a thousand appendages, renders itself agreeable by things that have at first the appearance of love, though not the reality. In warmer climates love is liked for its own sake, it is the only cause of happiness, it is life itself.

In southern countries a delicate, weak, but sensible machine, resigns itself either to a love which rises and is incessantly laid in a seraglio; or to a love which leaves women in a greater independence, and is consequently exposed to a thousand inquietudes. In northern climates a strong but heavy machine, finds a pleasure in whatever is apt to throw the spirits into motion, such as hunting, travelling, war, and wine. In northern countries, we meet with a people who have few vices, many virtues, a great share of frankness and sincerity. If we draw near the south, we fancy ourselves removed from all morality; the strongest passions multiply all manner of crimes, every one endeavouring to take what advantage he can over his neighbour, in order to encourage those passions. In temperate climates we find the inhabitants inconstant in their manners, in their very vices, and in their virtues: the climate has not a quality determinate enough to fix them.

The heat of the climate may be so excessive as to deprive the body of all vigor and strength. Then the faintness is communicated to the mind; there is no curiosity, no noble enterprize, no generous sentiment; the inclinations are all passive; indolence constitutes the utmost happiness; scarcely any punishment is so severe as the action of the soul, and Book XIV.
Chap. 3.slavery is more supportable than the force and vigor of mind necessary for human action.

CHAP. III.
Contradiction in the Characters of some southern Nations.

THE Indians^[5] are naturally a cowardly people; even the children^[6] of the Europeans born in the Indies lose the courage peculiar to their own climate. But how shall we reconcile this with their cruel actions, with their customs, and penances so full of barbarity? The men voluntarily undergo the greatest hardships; the women burn themselves: here we find a very odd compound of fortitude and weakness.

Nature having framed those people of a texture so weak as renders them timid, has formed them at the same time of an imagination so lively, that every object makes the strongest impression upon them. That delicacy of organs which renders them apprehensive of death, contributes likewise to make them dread a thousand things more than death: the very same sensibility makes them fly, and dare all dangers.

As a good education is more necessary to children than to those who are arrived to a maturity of understanding, so the inhabitants of those climates have much greater need than our people of a wise legislator. The greater their sensibility, the Book XIV.
Chap. 3, & 4.more it behoves them to receive proper impressions, to imbibe no prejudices, and to let themselves be directed by reason.

At the time of the Romans the inhabitants of the north of Europe lived without art, education, and almost without laws: and yet by the help of the good sense annexed to the gross fibres of those climates, they made an admirable stand against the power of the Roman empire, till that memorable period in which they quitted their woods to subvert it.

CHAP. IV.
Cause of the Immutability of Religion, Manners, Customs, and Laws, in the Eastern Countries.

IF that delicacy of organs which renders the eastern people so susceptible of every impression, is accompanied likewise with a sort of laziness of mind naturally connected with that of the body, by means of which they grow incapable of any action or effort: is easy to comprehend, that when once the soul has received an impression she cannot change it. This is the reason, that the laws, manners^[7] and customs, even those which seem quite indifferent, such as their manner of dress, are the same to this very day in eastern countries as they were a thousand years ago.

CHAP. V.
That those are bad Legislators who favour the Vices of the Climate, and good Legislators who oppose those Vice.

Book XIV.
Chap. 5.THE Indians believe that repose and non-existence are the foundation of all things, and the end in which they terminate. They consider therefore the state of intire inaction as the most perfect of all states, and the object of their desires. They give to the supreme Being^[8] the title of Immoveable. The inhabitants of Siam believe that their utmost happiness^[9] consists in not being obliged to animate a machine, or to give motion to a body.

In those countries where the excess of heat enervates and oppresses the body, rest is so delicious, and motion so painful, that this system of metaphysics seems natural; and^[10] Foe the legislator of the Indies followed what he himself felt when he placed mankind in a state extremely passive: but his doctrine arising from the laziness of the climate, favoured it also in its turn; which has been the source of an infinite deal of mischief.

The legislators of China had more sense, when considering men not in the peaceful state which they are to enjoy hereafter, but in the situation proper for discharging the several duties of life, Book XIV.
Chap. 6, & 7.they made their religion, philosophy, and laws all practical. The more physical causes incline mankind to inaction, the more the moral causes should estrange them from it.

CHAP. VI.
Of the Cultivation of Lands in warm Climates.

THE cultivation of lands is the principal labour of man. The more the climate inclines them to shun this labour, the more their religion and laws ought to excite them to it. Thus the Indian laws, which give the lands to the prince, and destroy the spirit of property among the subjects, increase the bad effects ot the climate, that is, their natural laziness.

CHAP. VII.
Of Monachism

THE very same mischiefs result from monachism; it had its rise in the warm countries of the east, where they are less inclined to action than to speculation.

In Asia the number of dervises or monks seems to increase together with the heat of the climate. The Indies where the heat is excessive are full of them; and the same difference is found in Europe.

In order to furmount the laziness of the climate, the law ought to endeavour to remove all means of subsisting without labour: But in the southern parts of Europe they act quite the reverse; to those who want to live in a state of indolence they afford retreats the most proper for a Book XIV.
Chap. 8, & 9.speculative life, and endow them with immense revenues. These men, who live in the midst of a plenty which they know not how to enjoy, are in the right to give their superfluities away to the common people. The poor are berest of property; and these men indemnify them by supporting them in idleness, so as to make them even grow fond of their misery.

CHAP. VIII.
An excellent Custom of China.

THE historical relations^[11] of China mention a ceremony^[12] of opening the grounds, which the emperor performs every year. The design of this public and solemn act is to excite^[13] the people to tillage.

Farther, the emperor is informed every year of the husbandman who has distinguished himself most in his profession; and he makes him a Mandarin of the eighth order.

Among the ancient Persians^[14] the kings quitted their grandeur and pomp on the eighth day of the month called Chorrem-ruz to eat with the husbandmen. These institutions were admirably well calculated for the encouragement of agriculture.

CHAP. IX.
Means of encouraging Industry.

Book XIV.
Chap. 9, & 10.WE shall shew in the nineteenth book that lazy nations are generally proud. Now the effect might well be turned against the cause, and laziness be destroyed by pride. In the south of Europe, where people have such a high notion of point of honor, it would be right to give prizes to husbandmen who had cultivated best the lands, or to artists who had made the greatest improvements in their several professions. This practice has succeeded in our days in Ireland, where it has established one of the most considerable linen manufactures in Europe.

CHAP. X.
Of the Laws relative to the Sobriety of the People.

IN warm countries the aqueous part of the blood loses itself greatly by perspiration^[15]; it must therefore be supplied by a like liquid. Water is there of admirable use; strong liquors would congeal the globules^[16] of blood that remain after the transuding of the aqueous humour.

In cold countries the aqueous part of the blood Book XIV.
Chap. 10.is very little evacuated by perspiration. They may therefore make use of spirituous liquors, without which the blood would congeal. They are full of humours; consequently strong liquors, which give a motion to the blood, are proper for those countries.

The law of Mahomet, which prohibits the drinking of wine, is therefore a law fitted to the climate of Arabia: and indeed before Mahomet's time, water was the common drink of the Arabs. The law^[17] which forbad the Carthaginians to drink wine, was also a law of the climate; in fact, the climate of those two countries is pretty near the same.

Such a law would be improper for cold countries, where the climate seems to force them to a kind of national drunkenness, very different from personal intemperance. Drunkenness predominates over all the world, in proportion to the coldness and humidity of the climate. Go from the equator to our pole, and you will find drunkenness increasing together with the degree of latitude. Go from the same equator to the opposite pole, and you will find drunkenness travelling south^[18], as on this side it travels towards the north.

It is very natural that where wine is contrary to the climate, and consequently to health, the excess of it should be more severely punished, than in countries where drunkenness produces very few bad effects to the person, few to the society, and where it does not make people mad, but only stupid and heavy. Hence laws^[19] which punished Book XIV.
Chap. 11.a drunken man both for the fault he committed, and a for his drunkenness, were applicable only to a personal, and not to a national, ebriety. A German drunks through custom, and a Spaniard by choice.

In warm countries the relaxing of the fibres produces a great evacuation of the liquids, but the solid parts are less transpired. The fibres which act but weakly and have very little elasticity, are not much worn; a small quantity of nutritious juice is sufficient to repair them; for which reason they eat very little.

It is the difference of wants in different climates, that first formed a difference in the manner of living, and this difference of living gave rise to that of laws. Where people are very communicative, there must be particular laws; and others among people where there is but little communication.

CHAP. XI.
Of the Laws relative to the Distempers of the Climate.

HERODOTUS^[20] informs us, that the Jewish laws concerning the leprosy, were borrow'd from the practice of the Ægyptians. In fact, the same distemper required the same remedies. The Greeks and the primitive Romans were strangers to these laws, as well as to the disease. The climate of Ægypt and Palestine rendered them necessary; and the facility with which this disease is spread, is sufficient to make us sensible of the wisdom and sagacity of those laws.

Even we ourselves have felt the effects of them. The crusades had brought the leprosy amongst us; Book XIV.
Chap. 11.but the wise regulations made at that time hindered it from infecting the mass of the people.

We find by the law of the^[21] Lombards that this disease was spread in Italy before the crusades, and merited the attention of the legislators. Rotharis ordained that a leper should be expelled from his house and banished to a particular place, that he should be incapable of disposing of his property, because from the very moment he had been driven from home, he was reckoned dead in the eye of the law. In order to prevent all communication with lepers, they were rendered incapable of civil acts.

I am apt to think that this disease was brought into Italy by the conquests of the Greek emperors, in whose armies there might be some soldiers from Palestine or Ægypt. Be that as it may, the progress of it was stopt till the time of the crusades.

It is related that Pompey's soldiers returning from Syria brought a distemper home with them not unlike the leprosy. We have no account of any regulation made at that time; but it is highly probable that some regulation was made, since the distemper was stopped till the time of the Lombards.

It is now two centuries since a disease unknown to our ancestors, was first transplanted from the new world to ours, and came to attack human nature even in the very source of life and pleasure. Most of the principal families in the south of Europe were seen to perish by a distemper, that was grown too common to be ignominious, and was considered in no other light, than in that of its being fatal. It was the thirst of gold that propagated this disease; the Europeans went continually to America, and always brought back a new leaven of it.

Book XIV.
Chap. 11, & 12.As it is the business of legislators to watch over the health of the citizens, it would have been a wise part in them to have stopped this communication by laws made on the plan of those of Moses.

The plague is a disease whose infectious progress is much more rapid. Ægypt is its principal seat, from whence it spreads over the whole universe. Most countries in Europe have made exceeding good regulations to prevent this infection, and in our times an admirable method has been contrived to stop it; this is by forming a line of troops round the infected country, which cuts off all manner of communication.

The Turks^[22], who have no regulations in this respect, see the Christians escape this infection in the same town, and none but themselves perish; they buy the cloaths of the infected, wear them, and go on their old way as if nothing had happened. The doctrine of a rigid fate, which directs their whole conduct, renders the magistrate a quiet spectator; he thinks that God has already done everything, and that he himself has nothing to do.

CHAP. XII.
Of the Laws against Suicides.

WE do not find in history that the Romans ever killed themselves without a cause; but the English destroy themselves most unaccountably; they destroy themselves often in the very bosom of happiness. This action among the Romans was the effect of education; it was connected with their principles and customs: among the Book XIV.
Chap. 12, & 13.English it is the effect of a^[23] distemper; it is connected with the physical state of the machine, and independent of every other cause.

In all probability it is a defect of the filtration of the nervous juice; the machine whose motive faculties are every moment without action, is weary of itself; the soul feels no pain, but a certain uneasiness in existing. Pain is a local thing, which leads us to the desire of seeing an end of it; the burthen of life is an evil confined to no particular place, which prompts us to the desire of ceasing to live.

It is evident that the civil laws of some countries may have reasons for branding suicide with infamy: but in England it cannot be punished without punishing the effects of madness.

CHAP. XIII.
Effects arising from the Climate of England.

IN a nation so distempered by the climate as to have a disrelish of every thing, nay, even of life, it is plain that the government most suitable to the inhabitants, is that in which they cannot lay their uneasiness to any single person's charge, and in which being under the direction rather of the laws than of the prince, they cannot change the government without subverting the laws themselves.

And if this nation has likewise derived from the climate a certain character of impatience, which renders them incapable of bearing the same train of things for any long continuance; it is obvious Book XIV.
Chap. 13.that the government above-mentioned is the fittest for them. This character of impatience is not very considerable of itself; but it may become so when joined with courage.

It is quite a different thing from levity, which makes people undertake or drop a project without cause; it borders more upon obstinacy, because it proceeds from so lively a sense of misery, that it is not weakened even by the habit of suffering.

This character in a free nation is extremely proper for disconcerting the projects of tyranny^[24], which is always slow and feeble in its commencements, as in the end it is active and lively; which at first only stretches out a hand to assist, and exerts afterwards a multitude of arms to oppress.

Slavery is ever preceded by sleep. But a people who find no rest in any situation, who continually explore every part, and feel nothing but pain, can hardly be lulled to sleep.

Politics are like a smooth file, which cuts slowly, and attains its end by a gradual and tedious progression. Now the people of whom we have been speaking, are incapable of bearing the delays, the details, and the coolness of negotiations: In these they are more unlikely to succeed than any other nation; hence they are apt to lose by treaties what they obtain by their arms.

CHAP. XIV.
Other Effects of the Climate.

Book XIV.
Chap. 14.OUR ancestors the ancient Germans lived under a climate, where the passions were extremely calm. Their laws decided only in such cases where the injury was visible to the eye, and went no further. And as they judged of the outrages done to men from the greatness of the wounds, they acted with no other delicacy in respect to the injuries done to women. The law of^[25] the Alemans on this subject is very extraordinary. If a person uncovers a woman's head, he pays a fine of fifty sous; if he uncovers her leg up to the knee, he pays the same; and double from the knee upwards. One would think that the law measured the insults offered to women as we measure a figure in geometry; it did not punish the crime of the imagination, but that of the eye. But upon the migration of a German nation into Spain, the climate soon found a necessity for different laws. The law of the Visigoths inhibited the surgeons to bleed a free woman, except either her father, mother, brother, son, or uncle was present. As the imagination of the people grew warm, so did that of the legislators; the law suspected every thing, when the people grew suspicious.

These laws had therefore a particular regard for the two sexes. But in their punishments they seem rather to humour the revengeful temper of private persons, than to exercise public justice. Thus in most cases they reduced both the criminals to be slaves to the offended relations or to the injured husband; Book XIV.
Chap. 14, & 15.a free-born woman^[26] who had yielded to the embraces of a married man, was delivered up to his wife to dispose of her as she pleased. They obliged the slaves^[27], if they found their master's wife in adultery, to bind her, and carry her to her husband; they even permitted her children^[28] to be her accusers, and her slaves to be tortured in order to convict her. Thus their laws were far better adapted to refine, even to excess, a certain point of honor, than to form a good civil administration. We must not therefore be surprized it count Julian was of opinion, that an affront of that kind ought to be expiated by the ruin of his king and country: we must not be surprized if the Moors, with such a conformity of manners, found it so easy a matter to settle and to maintain themselves in Spain, and to retard the fall of their empire.

CHAP. XV.
Of the different Confidence which the Laws have in the People, according to the difference of Climates.

THE people of Japan are of so stubborn and perverse a temper, that neither their legislators nor magistrates can put any confidence in them: they set nothing before their eyes but judges, menaces, and chastisements; every step they take is subject to the inquisition of the civil magistrate. Those laws which out of five heads of families establish one as a magistrate over the other four; those laws which punish a family or a whole ward for a single crime; those laws in fine which find no one innocent where there may happen to be one Book XIV.
Chap. 15.guilty; are made with a design to implant in all the people a distrust of each other, and to make every one the inspector, witness, and judge of his neighbour's conduct.

On the contrary, the people of India are mild^[29], tender, and compassionate. Hence their legislators repose a great confidence in them. They have established^[30] very few punishments; these are not severe, nor are they rigorously executed. They have subjected nephews to their uncles, and orphans to their guardians, as in other countries they are subjected to their fathers; they have regulated the succession by the acknowledged merit of the successor. They seem to think that every individual ought to place an intire confidence in the good nature of his fellow subjects.

They infranchise their slaves without difficulty, they marry them, they treat them as their children^[31]: happy climate which gives birth to innocence, and produces a lenity in the laws!

 

1. This appears even in the countenance: in cold weather people look thinner.
2. We know it shortens iron.
3. Those for the succession to the Spanish Monarchy.
4. For instance to Spain.
5. One hundred European soldiers, says Taverner. would without any great difficulty beat a thousand Indian soldiers.
6. Even the Persians, who settle in the Indies, contract in the third generation the indolence and cowardice of the Indians. See Bernier, on the Mogul, Tom. 1. p. 182.
7. We find by a fragment of Nicolaus Damascenus, collected by Constantine Porphyrog that it was an ancient custom in the East to send to strangle a governor who had given any displeasure; it was in the time of the Medes.
8. Pananad: See Kircher.
9. La-Loubere, Relation of Siam, p. 446.
10. Foe endeavoured to reduce the heart to a mere vacuum: "we have eyes and ears, but perfection consists in neither seeing nor hearing; a mouth, hands, etc. but perfection requires that these members should be inactive." This is taken from the dialogue of a Chinese philosopher, quoted by father Du Halde Tom. 3.
11. Father Du Halde, history of China, Tom. 2. p.72.
12. Several of the kings of India do the same; relation of the kingdom of Siam by La Loubere, p. 69.
13. Venty, the 3d emperor of the 3d dynasty, tilled the lands himself, and made the empress and his wives employ their time in the silk-works in his palace. History of China.
14. Hyde religion of the Persians.
15. Monsieur Bernier travelling from Lahor to Cachemir, wrote thus: My body is a sieve; scarce have I swallowed a pint of water but I see it transude like dew out of all my limbs, even to my finger's ends. I drink ten pints of a day, and it does me no manner of harm. Bernier's travels, Tom. 2. p. 261.
16. In the blood there are red globules, fibrous parts, white globules, and water in which the whole swims.
17. Plato Book 2. of laws; Aristotle of the care of domestic affairs; Eusebius's Evangeltcal preparation, Book 12. c. 17.
18. This is seen in the Hottentots and the inhabitants of the most southern part of Chili.
19. As Pittacus did, according to Aristotle, Polit. lib. 1. c. 3. He lived in a climate where drunkenness is not a national vice.
20. Book 2.
21. Book 2 tit. 1. §. 3. & tit. 18. § 1.
22. Ricaut on the Ottoman empire, p. 284.
23. It may be complicated with the scurvy, which, in some countries especially, renders a man whimsical and unsupportable to himself. See Pirard's voyages, part 2. chap. 21.
24. Hence I take this word for the design of subverting the established power, and especially that of democracy; this is the signification in which it was understood by the Greeks and Romans.
25. Chap. 58. §. 1. & 2.
26. Law of the Visigoths, book 3. tit. 4. §. 9.
27. Ibid. book 3. tit. 4. §. 6.
28. Ibid. book 3 tit. 4. §. 13.
29. See Bernier, Tom. 2.
30. See in the 14th collection of the edifying letters, p. 403. the principal laws or customs of the inhabitants of the peninsula on this side the Ganges.
31. This is perhaps what made Diodorus say, that in the Indies there was neither master nor slave.