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The Spirit of the Laws

  
[title page]
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The Translator to the Reader
  
CONTENTS
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PREFACE
  
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Book I. Of Laws in General.
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Book II. Of Laws Directly Derived from the Nature of Government.
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Book III. Of the Principles of the Three Kinds of Government.
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Book IV. That the Laws of Education Ought to Be in Relation to the Principles of Government.
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Book V. That the Laws Given by the Legislator Ought to Be in Relation to the Principle of Government.
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Book VI. Consequences of the Principles of Different Governments with Respect to the Simplicity of Civil and Criminal Laws, the Form of Judgments, and the Inflicting of Punishments.
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Book VII. Consequences of the Different Principles of the Three Governments with Respect to Sumptuary Laws, Luxury, and the Condition of Women.
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Book VIII. Of the Corruption of the Principles of the Three Governments.
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Book IX., Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to a Defensive Force.
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Book X. Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to Offensive Force.
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Book XI. Of the Laws Which Establish Political Liberty, with Regard to the Consti- tution.
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Book XII. Of the Laws That Form Political Liberty, in Relation to the Subject.
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Book XIII. Of the Relation Which the Levying of Taxes and the Greatness of the Public Revenues Bear to Liberty.
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Book XIV. Of Laws in Relation to the Nature of the Climate.
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Book XV. In What Manner the Laws of Civil Slavery Relate to the Nature of the Climate.
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Book XVI. How the Laws of Domestic Slavery Bear a Relation to the Nature of the Climate.
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Book XVII., How the Laws of Political Servitude Bear a Relation to the Nature of the Climate.
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Book XVIII. Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to the Nature of the Soil.
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Book XIX. Of Laws in Relation to the Principles Which Form the General Spirit, Morals, and Customs of a Nation.
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Book XX. Of Laws in Relation to Commerce, Considered in its Nature and Distinctions.
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Book XXI. Of Laws in relation to Commerce, considered in the Revolutions it has met with in the World.
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Book XXII. Of Laws in Relation to the Use of Money.
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Book XXIII. Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to the Number of Inhabitants.
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Book XXIV. Of Laws in relation to Religion Considered in Itself, and in its Doctrines.
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Book XXV. Of Laws in Relation to the Establishment of Religion and its External Polity.
 25.1. 
[chapter]
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2. Of the Motives of Attachment to different Religions.
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3. Of Temples.
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4. Of the Ministers of Religion.
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5. Of the Bounds which the Laws ought to prescribe to the Riches of the Clergy.
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6. Of Monasteries.
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7. Of the Luxury of Superstition.
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8. Of the Pontificate.
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9. Of Toleration in point of Religion.
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10. The same Subject continued.
  
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Footnotes
 25.11. 
11. Of changing a Religion.
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12. Of penal Laws.
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13. A most humble Remonstrance to the Inquisitors of Spain and Portugal.
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14. Why the Christian Religion is so odious in Japan.
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15. Of the Propagation of Religion.
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Book XXVI. Of Laws in Relation to the Order of Things Which They Determine.
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Book XXVII. Of the Origin and Revolutions of the Roman Laws on Successions.
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Book XXVIII. Of the Origin and Revolutions of the Civil Laws among the French.
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Book XXIX. Of the Manner of Composing Laws.
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Book XXX. Theory of the Feudal Laws among the Franks in the Relation They Bear to the Establishment of the Monarchy.
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Book XXXI. Theory of the Feudal Laws among the Franks, in the Relation They Bear to the Revolutions of their Monarchy.

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25.10. 10. The same Subject continued.

As there are scarcely any but persecuting religions that have an extraordinary zeal for being established in other places (because a religion that can tolerate others seldom thinks of its own propagation), it must therefore be a very good civil law, when the state is already satisfied with the established religion, not to suffer the establishment of another. [19]

This is then a fundamental principle of the political laws in regard to religion; that when the state is at liberty to receive or to reject a new religion it ought to be rejected; when it is received it ought to be tolerated.

Footnotes

[19]

I do not mean to speak in this chapter of the Christian religion; for, as I have elsewhere observed, the Christian religion is our chief blessing. See the end of the preceding chapter, and the "Defence of the Spirit of Laws," part II.

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