13.1. 1. Of the Public Revenues.
The public revenues are a portion that each subject gives of his
property, in order to secure or enjoy the remainder.
To fix these revenues in a proper manner, regard should be had both
to the necessities of the state and to those of the subject. The real
wants of the people ought never to give way to the imaginary wants of
the state.
Imaginary wants are those which flow from the passions and the
weakness of the governors, from the vain conceit of some extraordinary
project, from the inordinate desire of glory, and from a certain
impotence of mind incapable of withstanding the impulse of fancy. Often
have ministers of a restless disposition imagined that the wants of
their own mean and ignoble souls were those of the state.
Nothing requires more wisdom and prudence than the regulation of
that portion of which the subject is deprived, and that which he is
suffered to retain.
The public revenues should not be measured by the people's abilities
to give, but by what they ought to give; and if they are measured by
their abilities to give, it should be considered what they are able to
give for a constancy.
