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The Spirit of the Laws

  
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The Translator to the Reader
  
CONTENTS
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PREFACE
  
ADVERTISEMENT

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Book I. Of Laws in General.
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Book II. Of Laws Directly Derived from the Nature of Government.
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Book III. Of the Principles of the Three Kinds of Government.
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Book IV. That the Laws of Education Ought to Be in Relation to the Principles of Government.
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Book V. That the Laws Given by the Legislator Ought to Be in Relation to the Principle of Government.
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Book VI. Consequences of the Principles of Different Governments with Respect to the Simplicity of Civil and Criminal Laws, the Form of Judgments, and the Inflicting of Punishments.
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Book VII. Consequences of the Different Principles of the Three Governments with Respect to Sumptuary Laws, Luxury, and the Condition of Women.
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Book VIII. Of the Corruption of the Principles of the Three Governments.
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Book IX., Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to a Defensive Force.
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Book X. Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to Offensive Force.
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Book XI. Of the Laws Which Establish Political Liberty, with Regard to the Consti- tution.
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Book XII. Of the Laws That Form Political Liberty, in Relation to the Subject.
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Book XIII. Of the Relation Which the Levying of Taxes and the Greatness of the Public Revenues Bear to Liberty.
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Book XIV. Of Laws in Relation to the Nature of the Climate.
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Book XV. In What Manner the Laws of Civil Slavery Relate to the Nature of the Climate.
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Book XVI. How the Laws of Domestic Slavery Bear a Relation to the Nature of the Climate.
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Book XVII., How the Laws of Political Servitude Bear a Relation to the Nature of the Climate.
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Book XVIII. Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to the Nature of the Soil.
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Book XIX. Of Laws in Relation to the Principles Which Form the General Spirit, Morals, and Customs of a Nation.
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Book XX. Of Laws in Relation to Commerce, Considered in its Nature and Distinctions.
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1. Of Commerce.
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1. Of the Spirit of Commerce.
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3. Of the Poverty of the People.
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4. Of Commerce in different Governments.
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5. Of Nations that have entered into an economical Commerce.
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6. Some Effects of an extensive Navigation.
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7. The Spirit of England with respect to Commerce.
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8. In what Manner economical Commerce has been sometimes restrained.
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9. Of the Prohibition of Commerce.
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10. An Institution adapted to economical Commerce.
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11. The same Subject continued.
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12. Of the Freedom of Commerce.
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13. What it is that destroys this Liberty.
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14. The Laws of Commerce concerning the Confiscation of Merchandise.
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15. Of seizing the Persons of Merchants.
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16. An excellent Law.
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17. A Law of Rhodes.
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18. Of the Judges of Commerce.
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19. That a Prince ought not to engage himself in Commerce.
  
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Footnotes
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20. The same Subject continued.
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21. Of the Commerce of the Nobility in a Monarchy.
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22. A singular Reflection.
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23. To what Nations Commerce is prejudicial.
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Book XXI. Of Laws in relation to Commerce, considered in the Revolutions it has met with in the World.
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Book XXII. Of Laws in Relation to the Use of Money.
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Book XXIII. Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to the Number of Inhabitants.
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Book XXIV. Of Laws in relation to Religion Considered in Itself, and in its Doctrines.
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Book XXV. Of Laws in Relation to the Establishment of Religion and its External Polity.
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Book XXVI. Of Laws in Relation to the Order of Things Which They Determine.
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Book XXVII. Of the Origin and Revolutions of the Roman Laws on Successions.
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Book XXVIII. Of the Origin and Revolutions of the Civil Laws among the French.
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Book XXIX. Of the Manner of Composing Laws.
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Book XXX. Theory of the Feudal Laws among the Franks in the Relation They Bear to the Establishment of the Monarchy.
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Book XXXI. Theory of the Feudal Laws among the Franks, in the Relation They Bear to the Revolutions of their Monarchy.

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20.1. 1. Of Commerce.

The following subjects deserve to be treated in a more extensive manner than the nature of this work will permit. Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.

Commerce is a cure for the most destructive prejudices; for it is almost a general rule that wherever we find agreeable manners, there commerce flourishes; and that wherever there is commerce, there we meet with agreeable manners.

Let us not be astonished, then, if our manners are now less savage than formerly. Commerce has everywhere diffused a knowledge of the manners of all nations: these are compared one with another, and from this comparison arise the greatest advantages.

Commercial laws, it may be said, improve manners tor the same reason that they destroy them. They corrupt the purest morals. [1] This was the subject of Plato's complaints; and we every day see that they polish and refine the most barbarous.

Footnotes

[1]

Cæsar said of the Gauls that they were spoiled by the neighbourhood and commerce of Marseilles; insomuch that they who formerly always conquered the Germans had now become inferior to them. -- "De Bello Gall.," lib. vi. 23.

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