19.12. 12. Of Customs and Manners in a despotic State.
It is a capital maxim that the manners and customs of a despotic empire ought never to
be changed; for nothing would more speedily produce a revolution. The
reason is that in these states there are no laws, that is, none that can
be properly called so; there are only manners and customs; and if you
overturn these you overturn all.
Laws are established, manners are inspired; these proceed from a
general spirit, those from a particular institution: now it is as
dangerous, nay more so, to subvert the general spirit as to change a
particular institution.
There is less communication in a country where each, either as
superior or inferior, exercises or is oppressed by arbitrary power, than
there is in those where liberty reigns in every station. They do not,
therefore, so often change their manners and behaviour. Fixed and
established customs have a near resemblance to laws. Thus it is here
necessary that a prince or a legislator should less oppose the manners
and customs of the people than in any other country upon earth.
Their women are commonly confined, and have no influence in society.
In other countries, where they have intercourse with men, their desire
of pleasing, and the desire men also have of giving them pleasure,
produce a continual change of customs. The two sexes spoil each other;
they both lose their distinctive and essential quality; what was
naturally fixed becomes quite unsettled, and their customs and behaviour
alter every day.
