Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/222

170 flight, and obliged them to return to a private life. This was supposed to be done in consequence of the law. One would have imagined that an institution of this nature, which established sedition in order to hinder the abuse of power, would have subverted any republic whatsoever; and yet it did not subvert that of Crete. The reason is this.

When the ancients wanted to express a people that had the strongest love for their country, they always mentioned the inhabitants of Crete: Our country, said Plato, a name so dear to the Cretans. They called it by a name which signifies the love of a mother for her children. Now the love of our country sets every thing right.

The laws of Poland have likewise their Insurrection: But the inconveniencies thence arising plainly shew that the people of Crete alone were capable of employing such a remedy with success.

The gymnic exercises established amonest the Greeks, had the same dependance on the goodness of the principle of government. "It was the Lacedaemonians and Cretans, said Plato, that opened those celebrated academies which gave them so eminent a rank in the world. Modesty at first was alarmed; but it yielded to the public utility." In Plato's time these institutions were admirable ; as they had a relation to a very important Rh