Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/487

Rh his advantage; if the cheat has been watchful over his own interest, he who is the dupe ought to have thought of his. At Sparta they were permitted to steal; in China, they are suffered to deceive.

T is only singular institutions which thus confound laws, manners, and customs, things naturally distinct and separate: but though they are things in themselves different, there is nevertheless a great relation between them.

Solon being asked if the laws he had given to the Athenians, were the best, he replied, "I have given them the best, they were able to bear." A fine expression, that ought to be perfectly understood by all legislators! When Divine Wisdom said to the Jews, "I have given you precepts which are not good," this signified that they had only a relative goodness; which is the sponge that wipes out all the difficulties that are to be found in the law of Moses.

HEN a people have pure and regular manners, their laws become simple and natural. Plato says that Rhadamanthus, who governed a people extremely religious, finished every Rh