Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/41

Rh '', the more we shall perceive the certainty of the principles on which they are founded. I have not even given all these particulars, for who could mention them all without a most insupportable fatigue?''

''The reader will not here meet with any of those bold fights, which seem to characterize the works of the present age. When things are examined with ever so small a degree of extent, the sallies of imagination must vanish; these generally arise from the mind's collecting all its powers to view only one side cf the subject, while it leaves the other unobserved.''

''I write not to censure any thing established in any country whatsoever. Every nation will here find the reasons on which its maxims are founded; and this will be the natural inference, that to propose alterations, belongs only to those who are so happy as to be born with a genius capable of penetrating into the entire constitution of a state.''

''It is not a matter of indifference, that the minds of the people be enlightened. The prejudices of the magistrate have arisen from national prejudice. In a time of ignorance they have committed even the greatest evils'' Rh