Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/118

66 the citizens in a democracy may be suppressed, whenever it will conduce to the utility of the state. But then it is only an apparent equality they remove: for a man ruined by a public office would be in a worse condition than the rest of his fellow citizens, and this same man being obliged to neglect his duty would reduce the other citizens to a worse condition than himself, and so on.

T is not sufficient in a well regulated democracy that the divisions of land be equal; they ought also to be small, as was customary among the Romans. "God forbid, said Curius to his soldiers, that a citizen should look upon that as a small piece of land, which is sufficient to support a man."

As the equality of fortunes supports frugality, frugality supports the equality of fortunes. These things, though in themselves different, are of such a nature as to be unable to subsist separately; each is the cause and the effect; if one withdraws itself from a democracy, it is surely followed by the other.

True it is that when a democracy is founded on commerce, private people may acquire vast riches without a corruption of morals. This is because the spirit of commerce is naturally attended with Rh