Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/215

Rh Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by means of the laws.

Such is the difference between a well regulated democracy, and one that is not so, that in the former men are equal only as citizens, but in the latter they are equal also as magistrates, as senators, as judges, as fathers, as husbands, or as masters.

The natural place of virtue is near to liberty; but it is not nearer to extreme liberty than to servitude.

REAT success, especially when chiefly owing to the people, swells them so high with pride, that it is impossible to manage them. Jealous of their magistrates they soon become jealous likewise of the magistracy; enemies to those that govern, they soon prove enemies also to the constitution. Thus it was the victory over the Persians obtained in the streights of Salamis that corrupted the republic of Athens ; and thus the defeat of the Athenians ruined the republic of Syracuse.

Marseilles never experienced those great transitions from lowness to grandeur: this was owing to the prudent conduct of this republic, which always preserved her principles.

RISTOCRACY is corrupted if the power of the nobles becomes arbitrary: Rh