Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/283

Rh the highest point of liberty to which the constitution of a state may be carried. But of him indeed it may be said, that for want of knowing the nature of real liberty, he busied himself in pursuit of an imaginary one, and that he built a Chalcedon though he had a Byzantium before his eyes.

HE monarchies we are acquainted with, have not, like that we have been speaking of, liberty for their direct view: their only aim is the subject's, the state's, and the prince's glory. But from this glory there results a spirit of liberty, which in thole states may perform as great things, and may contribute as much perhaps to happiness, as liberty itself.

Here the three powers are not distributed and founded on the model of the constitution above-mentioned; they have each a particular distribution, according to which they border more or less on political liberty; and if they did not border upon it, monarchy would degenerate into despotic government.

HE ancients had no notion of a government founded on a body of nobles, and much less on a legislative body composed of the representatives of the people. The republics of Greece and Italy were cities that had each their own form of government, and convened their subjects Rh