"_Those who desire to form similar institutions_, will establish community of property, as in the republic of Plato, the same reverence which he enjoined for the gods, separation from strangers for the preservation of morality, and make the city and not the citizens create commerce: they should give our arts without our luxury, our wants without our desires." Vulgar infatuation may exclaim, if it likes:--"It is Montesquieu! magnificent! sublime!" I am not afraid to express my opinion, and to say:--"What! you have the face to call that fine? It is frightful! it is abominable! and these extracts, which I might multiply, show that, according to Montesquieu, the persons, the liberties, the property, mankind itself, are nothing but materials to exercise the sagacity of lawgivers." _Rousseau_.--Although this politician, the paramount authority of the Democrats, makes the social edifice rest upon the _general will_, no one has so completely admitted the hypothesis of the entire passiveness of human nature in the presence of the lawgiver:-- "If it is true that a great prince is a rare thing, how much more so must a great lawgiver be? The former has only to follow the pattern proposed to him by the latter. _This latter is the mechanician who invents the machine_; the former is merely the workman who sets it in motion." And what part have men to act in all this? That of the machine, which is set in motion; or rather, are they not the brute matter of which the machine is made? Thus, between the legislator and the prince, between the prince and his subjects, there are the same relations as those which exist between the agricultural writer and the agriculturist, the agriculturist and the clod. At what a vast height, then, is the politician placed, who rules over legislators themselves, and teaches them their trade in such imperative terms as the following:-- "Would you give consistency to the State? Bring the extremes together as much as possible. Suffer neither wealthy persons nor beggars. "If the soil is poor and barren, or the country too much confined for the inhabitants, turn to industry and the arts, whose productions you will exchange for the provisions which you require.... On a good soil, if _you are short_ of inhabitants, give all your attention to agriculture, which multiplies men, and _banish_ the arts, which only serve to depopulate the country.... Pay attention to extensive and convenient coasts. _Cover the sea_ with vessels, and you will have a brilliant and short existence. If your seas wash only inaccessible rocks, let the people _be barbarous_, and eat fish; they will live more quietly, perhaps better, and, most certainly, more happily. In short, besides those maxims which are common to all, every people has its own particular circumstances, which demand a legislation peculiar to itself.