Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/347

Rh

HE revenues of the state are a portion that each subject gives of his property, in order to secure, or to have the agreeable enjoyment of, the remainder.

To fix these revenues in a proper manner, regard should be had both to the necessities of the state and to those of the subject. The real wants of the people ought never to give way to the imaginary wants of the state.

Imaginary wants are those which flow from the passions, and from the weakness of the governors, from the charms of an extraordinary project, from the distempered desire of vain glory, and from a certain impotency of mind incapable of withstanding the attacks of fancy. Often has it happened that ministers of a restless disposition, have imagined that the wants of the state were those of their own little and ignoble souls.

There is nothing requires more wisdom and prudence than the regulation of that portion which is taken from, and of that which is left to, the subject. Rh