Such laws may even be considered as actually invariable, while a state subsists without convulsions or revolutions: because then the alterations are so gradual, that they become imperceptible to all, but the most discerning, who compare the customs and manners of the same people in different periods of time and under different combinations of circumstances.
As we have taken for granted the fundamental maxim, that every operation of government should be calculated for the good of the people, so we may with equal certainty decide, that in order to make a people happy, they must be governed according to the spirit which prevails among them.
I am next to explain what I mean by the spirit of a people, and to shew how far this spirit must be made to influence the government of every society.
CHAP. II.
Of the Spirit of a People.
The spirit of a people is formed upon a set of received opinions relative to three objects; morals, government, and manners: these once generally adopted by any society, confirmed by long and constant habit, and never called in question, form the basis of all laws, regulate the form of every government, and determine what is commonly called the customs of a country.
To know a people we must examine them under those general heads. We acquire the knowledge of their morals with ease, by consulting the tenets of their religion, and from what is taught among them by authority and under direction.
The second, or government, is more disguised, as it is constantly changing from circumstances, partly resulting from domestic and partly from foreign considerations. A thorough knowledge of their history, and conversation with their statesmen, may give one, who has access to these helps, a very competent knowledge of this branch.
The last, or the knowledge of the manners of a people, is by far the most difficult to acquire, and yet is the most open to every person’s observation. Certain circumstances with regard to manners are supposed by every one in the country to be so well known, so generally followed and observed, that it seldom occurs to any body to inform a stranger concerning them. In one country nothing is so injurious as a stroke with a stick, or even a gesture which implies a design or a desire to strike[[B]]: in another a stroke is nothing, but an opprobrious expression is not to be borne[[C]]. An innocent liberty with the fair sex, which in one country passes without censure, is looked upon in another as the highest indignity[[D]].
[B]. France.