ns that we have more horror of assassinating our
elder brother than we have of being envious of his position. But this
law, suitable for the owners of dungeons in Chilperic's time is
detestable when there is question of sharing stocks in a city.

To the shame of mankind, one knows that the laws of games are the only
ones which everywhere are just, clear, inviolable and executed. Why is
the Indian who gave us the rules of the game of chess willingly obeyed
all over the world, and why are the popes' decretals, for example,
to-day an object of horror and scorn? the reason is that the inventor of
chess combined everything with precision for the satisfaction of the
players, and that the popes, in their decretals, had nothing in view but
their own interest. The Indian wished to exercise men's minds equally,
and give them pleasure; the popes wished to besot men's minds. Also, the
essence of the game of chess has remained the same for five thousand
years, it is common to all the inhabitants of the earth; and the
decretals are known only at Spoletto, Orvieto, Loretto, where the
shallowest lawyer secretly hates and despises them.

But I delight in thinking that there is a natural law independent of all
human conventions: the fruit of my work must belong to me; I must honour
my father and my mother; I have no right over my fellow's life, and my
fellow has none over mine, etc. But when I think that from Chedorlaomer
to Mentzel,[12] colonel of hussars, everyone loyally kills and pillages
his fellow with a licence in his pocket, I am very afflicted.

I am told that there are laws among thieves, and also laws of war. I ask
what are these laws of war. I learn that they mean hanging a brave
officer who has held fast in a bad post without cannon against a royal
army; that they mean having a prisoner hanged, if the enemy has hanged
one of yours; that they mean putting to the fire and the sword villages
which have not brought their sustenance on the appointed day, according
to the orders of the gracious sovereign of the district. "Good," say I,
"that is the 'Spirit of the Laws.'"

It seems to me that most men have received from nature enough common
sense to make laws, but that everyone is not just enough to make good
laws.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Chedorlaomer was king of the Elamites, and contemporary with
Abraham. See Genesis ch. xiv.

Mentzel was a famous chief of Austrian partisans in the war of 1741. At
the head of five thousand me