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.
