The nature of a republic is to have a small territory; without this it can hardly subsist. In a large republic, the common good is sacrificed to a thousand considerations-in a small one it is better understood.("") A monarchical state ought to be of a middling size; a large empire implies a despotic form of government, without which its unity cannot be maintained. (112) Governments of one are generally in fertile, and governments of several in barren countries. (113) The condition of nations conquered by a people having either a democratic or an aristocratic government is bad. (4) The necessary state of a conquering monarchy, is frightful luxury in the capital, misery in the surrounding provinces, abundance in the new acquisitions. (115) Immense conquests imply despotism. They can only be effected with the assistance of a prætorian guard, ready to suppress revolt at home. (116) A monarch who knows each of his provinces may establish different laws, or maintain different customs; but a despot knows nothing, and attends to nothing. He must, therefore, have a uniform and unbending rule, which permits no local diversities.("17)

Luxury is necessary in monarchies, and also in despotisms: republics are destroyed by luxury, monarchies by poverty.(118) The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it approaches perfection. In proportion as luxury is established in a republic, the minds of the people are turned to their individual interest. ("1) Dowries ought to be considerable in monarchies, and of middling amount in republics; while, in despotic states, they ought scarcely to exist, as in these the women are almost slaves. (120) In republics, the taxes are almost always collected directly by

(111) viii. 16.

(113) xviii. 1.

(112) Ib. 17, 19, 20.
(114) X. 7.

(115) x. 9. This description is probably intended_to_represent the effect produced upon France by the conquests of Louis XIV.

(116) x. 16.

(117) vi. 1. The first part of this description refers to France. It is difficult to conjecture to what the second part refers, as there are great diversities in the provincial governments of the Oriental despotisms.

(120) vii. 15.

the government; in despotic and monarchical states they are generally farmed out. (2) In the government of one, trade is usually founded upon luxury in the government of several, it is more often a commerce of transit. Great commercial enterprises are necessarily mixed with public affairs; hence they suit republics, and not monarchies; as, in the former, merchants rely on the government, and in the latter they distrust it. In a despotic country, men labour rather to preserve than to acquire; in a free country, they labour rather to acquire than to preserve.(122)

With respect to religion, a moderate government is most suitable to Christianity, and a despotic government to Mahometanism.(123) Within the limits of Christendom, the catholic religion is most suitable to a monarchy, and the protestant religion to a republic. (124)

Many other writers have incidentally laid down general propositions on the characteristics of the several forms of government, similar to those of Montesquieu. Thus Hume, in his Essays, declares it to be a general truth in politics, 'invariable by the humour or education either of subject or sovereign,' that free governments, though commonly the most happy for those who partake of their freedom, are the most ruinous and oppressive to their provinces; that the provinces of absolute monarchies are always better treated than those of free states. (125) It has been further affirmed that the arts and sciences, and also trade, can only flourish under a free government, (126) and that, the arts and sciences can only arise in a free state; but that, when they have once arisen, they may be transplanted into a state of any political form; and that a republic is most favourable to the growth of the sciences, and a civilized monarchy to that of the

(125) Part i. Essay 3, 'That Politics may be reduced to a Science.'

(126) See Hume, part i. Essay 12, 'Of Civil Liberty,' who controverts these positions.

arts.(1) Again, it has been said that in a republic there must in general be more orators, historians, and philosophers, and in a monarchy more poets, theologians, and geometers.(128) It has likewise been asserted, that none but a free government can maintain a maritime superiority. (129) M. de Tocqueville also, in his work on the United States, has, in assigning the general characteristics of democracy, carried this mode of reasoning to great lengths. Thus, he thinks that a democratic people has a tendency to pantheistic opinions, and to the use of abstract terms; that in art, it prefers cheap and perishable productions, and that in poetry it loves a wild and monstrous style of fiction. He even goes so far as to affirm that, in an aristocracy, every person has a single object, which he pursues without cessation : whereas, in a democratic society, each person usually follows several objects at the same time.(130)

These examples show in detail the manner in which the characteristics of each of the three forms of government have been laid down by political philosophers. The propositions are in an abstract and absolute form; they have, in their mode of expression, all the generality of a mathematical theorem; there is nothing to suggest any qualification, or to indicate the necessity of limiting them according to time, place, or people. For example, when Montesquieu declares that luxury is necessary in monarchical and despotic states, whereas republics are destroyed by luxury; and again, when he says that the nature of a republic

7

(127) Ib. Essay 14, Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences.'

(128) Il doit Ꭹ avoir en général dans une république plus d'orateurs, d'historiens, et de philosophes, et dans une monarchie plus de poëtes, de théologiens, et de géomètres. Cette règle n'est pourtant pas si absolue, qu'elle ne puisse être altérée et modifiée par une infinité de causes. D'Alembert, Discours Préliminaire de l'Encyclopédie; Œuvres, tom. i. p. 297.

(129) All history shows that, for maintaining a superiority at sea, the government at home must be, if not a free, at least a popular one.'-Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, vol. i. P. 129.

(130) La Démocratie en Amerique, tom. iii. p. 59, 100, 135; tom. iv. p. 122. Compare some remarks on these and other of M. de Tocqueville's generalizations, in the author's Essay on Authority in Matters of Opinion, p. 412-5.

is to have a small territory, whereas a large empire implies a despotic form of government,-the propositions are couched in as general terms as propositions in mechanics and optics, descriptive of the properties of solid bodies and of light.

§ 7 It is not consistent with the object of this inquiry to analyze in detail the general propositions which have been cited; but, for the purpose of trying this method of reasoning, let any body make a list of states, ancient and modern, divided by periods according to the changes of government; and let him arrange these under the heads of the author's own classification, being mindful, for example, that if he is examining Montesquieu's theorems, he draws the distinction between despotisms and monarchies, between monarchies and republics, and between aristocracies and democracies, according to a uniform principle. If he then tests these propositions by the various instances in his list, he probably will arrive at the result, that the distinctions are, for the most part, founded on the generalization of one or a few cases, without such a previous dissection as warrants the inductive extension.

Without, however, attempting to analyze the particular characteristics of the forms of government assigned by Montesquieu and other writers, we will proceed to inquire, by more direct means, whether the method which they have adopted is sound, and whether the mode of reasoning which they have employed can lead to correct results. If it should appear that their method is sound, it might lead to correct results in different hands, even if their results should be for the most part incorrect; on the other hand, if it should appear that their method is unsound, it ought not to be used, even if the results obtained by it should, in a few cases, have accidentally turned out to be correct. With this view, we will first attempt to classify the several forms of government under their proper heads, and then examine how far their consequences admit of a general expression.

Despotic or absolute monarchy has been the prevailing government of the human race; the communities under an aristocratic or democratic government have always been a numerical minority (though in importance sometimes the most eminent

part) of mankind. (131) Until the establishment of the Greek oligarchies, after the cessation of the heroic royalty, no republican form of government, no government in which the sovereign power was legally shared by several persons, had existed in the world. (132) The Oriental form of government-the type of the most advanced social system at the birth of Hellenic civilization -was purely monarchical. (13) The Asiatic monarch was as absolute a master of his subjects, as a Greek or Roman free citizen was of his slaves. He had an entire dominion over them. He could deal with them as if they were his goods or chattels, as if they were the passive instruments or insentient objects of

(131) Locke (On Government, b. 2, § 105) considers monarchy as the original form of government; and he proceeds to assign the reasons of this fact, & 107.

Il sembleroit que la nature humaine se soulèveroit sans cesse contre le gouvernement despotique; mais, malgré l'amour des hommes pour la liberté, malgré leur haine contre la violence, la plupart des peuples y sont soumis. Cela est aisé à comprendre. Pour former un gouvernement modéré, il faut combiner les puissances, les régler, les tempérer, les faire agir; donner, pour ainsi dire, un lest à l'une pour la mettre en état de resister à une autre; c'est un chef-d'œuvre de législation, que le hasard fait rarement, et que rarement on laisse faire à la prudence. Un gouvernement despotique, au contraire, saute, pour ainsi dire, aux yeux; il est uniforme partout: comme il ne faut que des passions pour l'établir, tout le monde est bon pour cela.'-Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, v. 14.

(132) According to Aristotle, Bareia was the universal primitive form of government. καὶ τοὺς θεοὺς δὲ διὰ τοῦτο πάντες φασὶ βασιλεύεσθαι, ὅτι καὶ αὐτοὶ οἱ μὲν ἔτι καὶ νῦν, οἱ δὲ τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἐβασιλεύοντο. Pol. i. 2. Compare Plat. Leg. iii. 4. p. 681. Cicero makes the same statement: Omnes antiquæ gentes regibus quondam paruerunt.-De Leg. iii. 2. Likewise Sallust, Catil. 2: Igitur initio reges (nam in terris nomen imperii id primum fuit) diversi, &c. Justin, i. 1: Principio rerum, gentium nationumque imperium penes reges erat.' Compare Augustin, Civ. Dei, iv. 6.

According to Polybius, the earliest government was monarchy, afterwards improved into royalty (vi. 5). Tacitus says that kings succeeded the golden age (Ann. iii. 26); Seneca, that they governed during that period (Epist. 90, § 3-5). All these writers refer to absolute kings. Machiavel (Disc. i. 2) conceives mankind as first living dispersed, in a brutish state, and afterwards forming a government, by chusing the best man as monarch, whose descendants degenerated into tyrants. Zacharia (Vom Staate, vol. iii. p. 97) considers absolute monarchy as the only natural government. All other constitutions are, he thinks, the work of art.

(133) In the more early ages of the world, whilst the forest that covered Europe afforded a retreat to a few wandering savages, the inhabitants of Asia were already collected into populous cities, and reduced under extensive empires, the seat of the arts, of luxury, and of despotism.'— Gibbon, Decl. and Fall, c. 8. Speaking of inventions, Pliny says: 'Regiam civitatem Egyptii, popularem Attici post Theseum.'-H. N. vii. 57; which passage implies that the Greeks first established a popular government.