Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/445

Rh

ET us see in what proportion the number of men is found, in nations who do not cultivate the earth. As the produce of uncultivated land, is to the produce of land improved by culture; so the number of savages in one country, is to the number of husbandmen in another: and when the people who cultivate the land, cultivate also the arts, the number of savages is to the number of this people, in the compound proportion of the number of savages to that of the husbandmen; and of the number of husbandmen to that of men who cultivate the arts.

They can scarcely form a great nation. If they are herdsmen and shepherds, they have need of an extensive country to furnish subsistence for a small number; if they live by hunting, their number must be still less, and in order to find the means of life they must form a very small nation.

Their country is commonly full of forests; which, as the men have not the art of draining off the waters, are filled with bogs; here each troop canton themselves, and form a little nation.

HERE is this difference between savage and barbarous nations; the first are little dispersed nations, which, for some particular Rh