Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/113

Rh

HE love of equality and of a frugal economy is greatly excited by equality and frugality themselves, in societies, where both these virtues are established by law.

In monarchies and despotic governments, no body aims at equality; this does not so much as enter their thoughts; they all aspire to superiority. People of the very lowest condition desire to emerge from their obscurity only to lord it over their fellow subjects.

It is the same with respect to frugality. To love it we must practise and enjoy it. It is not those who are enervated with pleasure, that are fond of a frugal life; were this natural and common, Alcibiades would never have been the admiration of the universe. Neither is it those who envy or admire the luxury of the great; people that have present to their view none but rich men or men miserable like themselves, detest their miserable condition, without loving or knowing the real term or point of misery.

A true maxim it is therefore, that in order to love equality and frugality in a republic, these virtues must have been previously established by law. Rh