Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/376

324 they made their religion, philosophy, and laws all practical. The more physical causes incline mankind to inaction, the more the moral causes should estrange them from it.

HE cultivation of lands is the principal labour of man. The more the climate inclines them to shun this labour, the more their religion and laws ought to excite them to it. Thus the Indian laws, which give the lands to the prince, and destroy the spirit of property among the subjects, increase the bad effects ot the climate, that is, their natural laziness.

HE very same mischiefs result from monachism; it had its rise in the warm countries of the east, where they are less inclined to action than to speculation.

In Asia the number of dervises or monks seems to increase together with the heat of the climate. The Indies where the heat is excessive are full of them; and the same difference is found in Europe.

In order to furmount the laziness of the climate, the law ought to endeavour to remove all means of subsisting without labour: But in the southern parts of Europe they act quite the reverse; to those who want to live in a state of indolence they afford retreats the most proper for a Rh