University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
  
expand section 
  
expand section 
  

expand section1. 
expand section2. 
expand section3. 
expand section4. 
expand section5. 
expand section6. 
expand section7. 
expand section8. 
expand section9. 
expand section10. 
expand section11. 
expand section12. 
expand section13. 
collapse section14. 
 14.1. 
expand section14.2. 
expand section14.3. 
expand section14.4. 
expand section14.5. 
 14.6. 
 14.7. 
collapse section14.8. 
  
  
 14.9. 
expand section14.10. 
expand section14.11. 
expand section14.12. 
expand section14.13. 
expand section14.14. 
expand section14.15. 
15. Of the different Confidence which the Laws have in the People, according to the Difference of Climates.
expand section15. 
expand section16. 
expand section17. 
expand section18. 
expand section19. 
expand section20. 
expand section21. 
expand section22. 
expand section23. 
expand section24. 
expand section25. 
expand section26. 
expand section27. 
expand section28. 
expand section29. 
expand section30. 
expand section31. 

14.15. 15. Of the different Confidence which the Laws have in the People,
according to the Difference of Climates.

The people of Japan are of so stubborn and perverse a temper that neither their legislators nor magistrates can put any confidence in them: they set nothing before their eyes but judgments, menaces, and chastisements; every step they take is subject to the inquisition of the civil magistrate. Those laws which out of five heads of families establish one as a magistrate over the other four; those laws which punish a family or a whole ward for a single crime; those laws, in fine, which find nobody innocent where one may happen to be guilty, are made with a design to implant in the people a mutual distrust, and to make every man the inspector, witness, and judge of his neighbour's conduct.

On the contrary, the people of India are mild, [29] tender, and compassionate. Hence their legislators repose great confidence in them. They have established [30] very few punishments; these are not severe, nor are they rigorously executed. They have subjected nephews to their uncles, and orphans to their guardians, as in other countries they are subjected to their fathers; they have regulated the succession by the acknowledged merit of the successor. They seem to think that every individual ought to place entire confidence in the good nature of his fellow-subjects. [31]

They enfranchise their slaves without difficulty, they marry them, they treat them as their children. [32] Happy climate which gives birth to innocence, and produces a lenity in the laws!

Footnotes

[29]

See Bernier, tome ii, p. 140.

[30]

See in the "Edifying Letters," coll. xiv, p. 403, the principal laws or customs of the inhabitants of the peninsula on this side the Ganges.

[31]

See "Edifying Letters," coll. ix, p. 378.

[32]

I had once thought that the lenity of slavery in India had made Diodorus say that there was neither master nor slave in that country; but Diodorus has attributed to the whole continent of India what, according to Strabo, xv, belonged only to a particular nation.