ral
arrangements requires a principle, a moral spring, to give it force
and action: the popular republic lives by virtue of patriotism, public
spirit, the love of equality; the aristocratic republic lives by the
spirit of moderation among the members of the ruling class; monarchy
lives by the stimulus of honour, the desire of superiority and
distinction; despotism draws its vital force from fear; but each of
these principles may perish through its corruption or excess. The
laws of each country, its criminal and civil codes, its system of
education, its sumptuary regulations, its treatment of the relation
of the sexes, are intimately connected with the form of government,
or rather with the principle which animates that form.

Laws, under the several forms of government, are next considered in
reference to the power of the State for purposes of defence and of
attack. The nature of political liberty is investigated, and the
requisite separation of the legislative, judicial, and
administrative powers is exhibited in the example set forth in the
British constitution. But political freedom must include the liberty
of the individual; the rights of the citizen must be respected and
guaranteed; and, as part of the regulation of individual freedom,
the levying and collection of taxes must be studied.

From this subject Montesquieu passes to his theory, once celebrated,
of the influence of climate and the soil upon the various systems
of legislation, and especially the influence of climate upon the slave
system, the virtual servitude of woman, and the growth of political
despotism. Over against the fatalism of climate and natural
conditions he sets the duty of applying the reason to modify the
influences of external nature by wise institutions. National
character, and the manners and customs which are its direct expression,
if they cannot be altered by laws, must be respected, and something
even of direction or regulation may be attained. Laws in relation
to commerce, to money, to population, to religion, are dealt with
in successive books.

The duty of religious toleration is urged from the point of view of
a statesman, while the discussions of theology are declined. Very
noteworthy is the humble remonstrance to the inquisitors of Spain
and Portugal ascribed to a Jew of eighteen, who is supposed to have
perished in the last _auto-da-fe_. The facts of the civil order are
not to be judged by the laws of the religious order, an