Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/383

Rh it is the effect of a distemper; it is connected with the physical state of the machine, and independent of every other cause.

In all probability it is a defect of the filtration of the nervous juice; the machine whose motive faculties are every moment without action, is weary of itself; the soul feels no pain, but a certain uneasiness in existing. Pain is a local thing, which leads us to the desire of seeing an end of it; the burthen of life is an evil confined to no particular place, which prompts us to the desire of ceasing to live.

It is evident that the civil laws of some countries may have reasons for branding suicide with infamy: but in England it cannot be punished without punishing the effects of madness.

N a nation so distempered by the climate as to have a disrelish of every thing, nay, even of life, it is plain that the government most suitable to the inhabitants, is that in which they cannot lay their uneasiness to any single person's charge, and in which being under the direction rather of the laws than of the prince, they cannot change the government without subverting the laws themselves.

And if this nation has likewise derived from the climate a certain character of impatience, which renders them incapable of bearing the same train of things for any long continuance; it is obvious Rh