第27章

let us, if you will, regard England as on the same level as Sicily, and Poland as Egypt ?further south, we shall have Africa and the Indies; further north, nothing at all.To get this equality of product, what a difference there must be in tillage: in Sicily, there is only need to scratch the ground; in England, how men must toil! But, where more hands are needed to get the same product, the superfluity must necessarily be less.

Consider, besides, that the same number of men consume much less in hot countries.The climate requires sobriety for the sake of health; and Europeans who try to live there as they would at home all perish of dysentery and indigestion."We are," says Chardin, "carnivorous animals, wolves, in comparison with the Asiatics.Some attribute the sobriety of the Persians to the fact that their country is less cultivated; but it is my belief that their country abounds less in commodities because the inhabitants need less.If their frugality," he goes on, "were the effect of the nakedness of the land, only the poor would eat little; but everybody does so.Again, less or more would be eaten in various provinces, according to the land's fertility; but the same sobriety is found throughout the kingdom.They are very proud of their manner of life, saying that you have only to look at their hue to recognise how far it excels that of the Christians.In fact, the Persians are of an even hue; their skins are fair, fine and smooth;while the hue of their subjects, the Armenians, who live after the European fashion, is rough and blotchy, and their bodies are gross and unwieldy."The nearer you get to the equator, the less people live on.Meat they hardly touch; rice, maize, curcur, millet and cassava are their ordinary food.There are in the Indies millions of men whose subsistence does not cost a halfpenny a day.Even in Europe we find considerable differences of appetite between Northern and Southern peoples.A Spaniard will live for a week on a German's dinner.In the countries in which men are more voracious, luxury therefore turns in the direction of consumption.In England, luxury appears in a well-filled table; in Italy, you feast on sugar and flowers.

Luxury in clothes shows similar differences.In climates in which the changes of season are prompt and violent, men have better and simpler clothes;where they clothe themselves only for adornment, what is striking is more thought of than what is useful; clothes themselves are then a luxury.At Naples, you may see daily walking in the Pausilippeum men in gold-embroidered upper garments and nothing else.It is the same with buildings; magnificence is the sole consideration where there is nothing to fear from the air.

In Paris and London, you desire to be lodged warmly and comfortably; in Madrid, you have superb salons, but not a window that closes, and you go to bed in a mere hole.

In hot countries foods are much more substantial and succulent; and the third difference cannot but have an influence on the second.Why are so many vegetables eaten in Italy? Because there they are good, nutritious and excellent in taste.In France, where they are nourished only on water, they are far from nutritious and are thought nothing of at table.They take up all the same no less ground, and cost at least as much pains to cultivate.It is a proved fact that the wheat of Barbary, in other respects inferior to that of France, yields much more flour, and that the wheat of France in turn yields more than that of northern countries; from which it may be inferred that a like gradation in the same direction, from equator to pole, is found generally.But is it not an obvious disadvantage for an equal product to contain less nourishment?

To all these points may be added another, which at once depends on and strengthens them.Hot countries need inhabitants less than cold countries, and can support more of them.There is thus a double surplus, which is all to the advantage of despotism.The greater the territory occupied by a fixed number of inhabitants, the more difficult revolt becomes, because rapid or secret concerted action is impossible, and the government can easily unmask projects and cut communications; but the more a numerous people is gathered together, the less can the government usurp the Sovereign's place: the people's leaders can deliberate as safely in their houses as the prince in council, and the crowd gathers as rapidly in the squares as the prince's troops in their quarters.The advantage of tyrannical government therefore lies in acting at great distances.With the help of the rallying-points it establishes, its strength, like that of the lever, 26 grows with distance.The strength of the people, on the other hand, acts only when concentrated: when spread abroad, it evaporates and is lost, like powder scattered on the ground, which catches fire only grain by grain.

The least populous countries are thus the fittest for tyranny: fierce animals reign only in deserts.9.THE MARKS OF A GOOD GOVERNMENT T HE question "What absolutely is the best government?" is unanswerable as well as indeterminate; or rather, there are as many good answers as there are possible combinations in the absolute and relative situations of all nations.

But if it is asked by what sign we may know that a given people is well or ill governed, that is another matter, and the question, being one of fact, admits of an answer.