14.4. 4. Cause of the Immutability of Religion, Manners, Customs, and Laws
in the Eastern Countries.
If to that delicacy of organs which renders
the eastern nations so susceptible of every impression you add likewise
a sort of indolence of mind, naturally connected with that of the body,
by means of which they grow incapable of any exertion or effort, it is
easy to comprehend that when once the soul has received an impression it
cannot change it. This is the reason that the laws, manners, and
customs,
[7]
even those which seem quite indifferent, such as their mode
of dress, are the same to this very day in eastern countries as they
were a thousand years ago.
Footnotes
[7]
We find by a fragment of Nicolaus Damascenus, collected by
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, that it was an ancient custom in the East
to send to strangle a governor who had given any displeasure; it was in
the time of the Medes.
