nstitutions towards each of these
objects_.... But if the legislator, mistaking his object, should
take up a principle different from that which arises from the
nature of things; if one should tend to slavery, and the other to
liberty; if one to wealth, and the other to population; one to
peace, and the other to conquests; the laws will insensibly become
enfeebled, the Constitution will be impaired, and the State will be
subject to incessant agitations until it is destroyed, or becomes
changed, and invincible Nature regains her empire."

But if Nature is sufficiently invincible to _regain_ its empire, why
does not Kousseau admit that it had no need of the legislator to _gain_
its empire from the beginning? Why does he not allow that, by obeying
their own impulse, men would, of themselves, apply agriculture to a
fertile district, and commerce to extensive and commodious coasts,
without the interference of a Lycurgus, a Solon, or a Rousseau, who
would undertake it at the risk of _deceiving themselves_?

Be that as it may, we see with what a terrible responsibility Rousseau
invests inventors, institutors, conductors, and manipulators of
societies. He is, therefore, very exacting with regard to them.

"He who dares to undertake the institutions of a people, ought to
feel that he can, as it were, transform every individual, who is by
himself a perfect and solitary whole, receiving his life and being
from a larger whole of which he forms a part; he must feel that he
can change the constitution of man, to fortify it, and substitute a
partial and moral existence for the physical and independent one
which we have all received from nature. In a word, he must deprive
man of his own powers, to give him others which are foreign to
him."

Poor human nature! What would become of its dignity if it were
entrusted to the disciples of Rousseau?

_Raynal_.--"The climate, that is, the air and the soil, is the
first element for the legislator. _His_ resources prescribe to him
his duties. First, he must consult _his_ local position. A
population dwelling upon maritime shores must have laws fitted for
navigation.... If the colony is located in an inland region, a
legislator must provide for the nature of the soil, and for its
degree of fertility....

"It is more especially in the distribution of property that the