Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/349

Rh The effect of wealth in a country is to inspire every heart with ambition: the effect of poverty is to give birth to despair. The former is excited by labour, the latter is soothed by indolence.

Nature is just to all mankind; she rewards them for their industry; whilst she renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to the greatness of their labour. But if an arbitrary power deprives people of the recompenses of nature, they fall into a disrelish of industry, and then indolence and inaction seem to be their only happiness.

HE state of villainage is sometimes established after a conquest. In that case the bondman or villain that tills the land, ought to have a kind of partnership with his master. Nothing but a communication of loss or profit can reconcile those, who are doomed to labour, with those who are blessed with a state of affluence.

HEN a republic has reduced a nation to the drudgery of cultivating her lands, she ought never to suffer the free subject to have a power of increasing the tribute of the bondman. This was not permitted at Sparta. Those brave people thought the Helotes would be more industrious in cultivating their lands, upon knowing that their Rh