The total privation of trade, on the contrary, produces robbery; which Aristotle ranks in the number of means of acquiring, yet it is not at all inconsistent with certain moral virtues. Hospitality, for instance, is most rare in trading countries, while it is found in the most admirable perfection among nations of vagabonds.

It is a sacrilege, says Tacitus, for a German to shut his door against any man whomsoever, whether known or unknown. He who has behaved with hospitality to a stranger goes to show him another house where this hospitality is also practised; and he is there received with the same humanity. But when the Germans had founded kingdoms, hospitality was become burthensome. This appears by two laws of the code of the Burgundians one of which inflicted a penalty on every barbarian who presumed to show a stranger the house of a Roman; and the other decreed that whoever received a stranger should be indemnified by the inhabitants, every one being obliged to pay his proper proportion.

ON THE TRUE NATURE OF BENEVOLENCE.

(From the "Spirit of Laws.")

A MAN is not poor because he has nothing, but because he does not work. The man who without any degree of wealth has an employment is as much at his ease as he who without labor has an income of a hundred crowns a year. He who has no substance, and yet has a trade, is not poorer than he who, possessing ten acres of land, is obliged to cultivate it for his subsistence. The mechanic who gives his art as an inheritance to his children has left them a fortune which is multiplied in proportion to their number. It is not so with him who, having ten acres of land, divides it amongst his children.

In trading countries, where many men have no other subsistence but from the arts, the State is frequently obliged to supply the necessities of the aged, the sick, and the orphan. A well-regulated government draws this support from the arts themselves. It gives, to some, such employment as they are capable of performing; others are taught to work, and this teaching becomes of itself an employment.

The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfill the obligations of the State, which owes to every citizen a cer

tain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.

Aurengzebe, being asked why he did not build hospitals, said, "I will make my empire so rich that there shall be no need of hospitals." He ought to have said, "I will begin by rendering my empire rich, and then I will build hospitals."

The riches of the State suppose great industry. Amidst the numerous branches of trade, it is impossible but some must suffer; and consequently the mechanics must be in a momentary necessity.

Whenever this happens, the State is obliged to lend them a ready assistance; whether it be to prevent the sufferings of the people, or to avoid a rebellion. In this case hospitals, or some equivalent regulations, are necessary to prevent this misery.

But when the nation is poor, private poverty springs from the general calamity; and is, if I may so express myself, the general calamity itself. All the hospitals in the world cannot cure this private poverty; on the contrary, the spirit of indolence which it constantly inspires increases the general and consequently the private misery.

Henry VIII. resolving to reform the Church of England, ruined the monks, of themselves a lazy set of people, that encouraged laziness in others; because, as they practised hospitality, an infinite number of idle persons, gentlemen and citizens, spent their lives in running from convent to convent. He demolished even the hospitals, in which the lower people found subsistence, as the gentlemen did theirs in the monasteries. Since these changes, the spirit of trade and industry has been established in England.

At Rome the hospitals place every one at his ease except those who labor, except those who are industrious, except those who have land, except those who are engaged in trade.

I have observed that wealthy nations have need of hospitals, because fortune subjects them to a thousand accidents; but it is plain that transient assistances are much better than perpetual foundations. The evil is momentary; it is necessary therefore that the succor should be of the same nature, and that it be applied to particular accidents.

ON RELIGION.

(From the "Spirit of Laws.")

THE different religions of the world do not give to those who profess them equal motives of attachment: this depends greatly on the manner in which they agree with the turn of thought and perceptions of mankind. We are extremely addicted to idolatry, and yet have no great inclination for the religion of idolaters; we are not very fond of spiritual ideas, and yet are most attached to those religions which teach us to adore a spiritual being. This proceeds from the satisfaction. we find in ourselves at having been so intelligent as to choose a religion which raises the Deity from that baseness in which he had been placed by others. We look upon idolatry as the religion of an ignorant people; and the religion which has a spiritual being for its object as that of the most enlightened nations.

When, with a doctrine that gives us the idea of a spiritual supreme being, we can still join those of a sensible nature, and admit them into our worship, we contract a greater attachment to religion; because those motives which we have just men tioned are added to our natural inclinations for the objects of sense. Thus the Catholics, who have more of this kind of worship than the Protestants, are more attached to their relig ion than the Protestants are to theirs, and more zealous for its propagation.

When the people of Ephesus were informed that the fathers of the council had declared they might call the Virgin Mary the Mother of God, they were transported with joy; they kissed the hands of the bishops, they embraced their knees, and the whole city resounded with acclamations.

When an intellectual religion superadds a choice made by the Deity, and a preference of those who profess it to those who do not, this greatly attaches us to religion. The Mahometans would not be such good Mussulmans, if on the one hand there were not idolatrous nations who make them imagine themselves the champions of the unity of God; and on the other, Christians to make them believe that they are the objects of his preference.

A religion burthened with many ceremonies attaches us to it more strongly than that which has a fewer number. We

have an extreme propensity to things in which we are continually employed: witness the obstinate prejudices of the Mahometans and the Jews, and the readiness with which barbarous and savage nations change their religion, who, as they are employed entirely in hunting or war, have but few religious ceremonies.

Men are extremely inclined to the passions of hope and fear a religion therefore that had neither a heaven nor a hell could hardly please them. This is proved by the ease with which foreign religions have been established in Japan, and the zeal and fondness with which they were received.

In order to raise an attachment to religion, it is necessary that it should inculcate pure morals. Men who are knaves by retail are extremely honest in the gross: they love morality. And were I not treating of so grave a subject, I should say that this appears remarkably evident in our theatres: we are sure of pleasing the people by sentiments avowed by morality; we are sure of shocking them by those it disapproves.

When external worship is attended with great magnifi cence, it flatters our minds, and strongly attaches us to religion. The riches of temples, and those of the clergy, greatly affect us. Thus, even the misery of the people is a motive that renders them fond of a religion which has served as a pretext to those who were the cause of their misery.

ON TWO CAUSES WHICH DESTROYED ROME.

(From the "Grandeur and Decadence of the Roman Empire.")

WHILST the sovereignty of Rome was confined to Italy, it was easy for the commonwealth to subsist: every soldier was at the same time a citizen; every consul raised an army, and other citizens marched into the field under his successor: as their forces were not very numerous, such persons only were received among the troops as had possessions considerable enough to make them interested in the preservation of the city; the Senate kept a watchful eye over the conduct of the generals, and did not give them an opportunity of machinating anything to the prejudice of their country.

But after the legions had passed the Alps and crossed the sea, the soldiers whom the Romans had been obliged to leave during several campaigns in the countries they were subduing lost insensibly that genius and turn of mind which character

ized a Roman citizen; and the generals having armies and kindgoms at their disposal were sensible of their own strength, and would no longer obey.

The soldiers therefore began to acknowledge no superior but their general; to found their hopes on him only, and to view the city as from a great distance: they were no longer the soldiers of the republic, but of Sylla, of Marius, of Pompey, and of Cæsar. The Romans could no longer tell whether the person who headed an army in a province was their general or their enemy.

So long as the people of Rome were corrupted by their tribunes only, on whom they could bestow nothing but their power, the Senate could easily defend themselves, because they acted consistently and with one regular tenor, whereas the common people were continually shifting from the extremes of fury to the extremes of cowardice; but when they were enabled to invest their favorites with a formidable exterior authority, the whole wisdom of the Senate was baffled, and the common. wealth was undone.

The reason why free States are not so permanent as other forms of government is because the misfortunes and successes which happen to them generally occasion the loss of liberty; whereas the successes and misfortunes of an arbitrary government contribute equally to the enslaving of the people. A wise republic ought not to run any hazard which may expose it to good or ill fortune; the only happiness the several individuals of it should aspire after is to give perpetuity to their State.

If the unbounded extent of the Roman empire proved the ruin of the republic, the vast compass of the city was no less fatal to it.

The Romans had subdued the whole universe by the assistance of the nations of Italy, on whom they had bestowed various privileges at different times. Most of those nations did not at first set any great value on the freedom of the city of Rome, and some chose rather to preserve their ancient usages; but when this privilege became that of universal sovereignty,when a man who was not a Roman citizen was considered as nothing, and with this title was everything, the people of Italy resolved either to be Romans or die: not being able to obtain. this by cabals and entreaties, they had recourse to arms; and rising in all that part of Italy opposite to the Ionian sea, the rest of the allies were going to follow their example. Rome,