CHAP. IV.: In what Manner the Love of Equality and Frugality is inspired.

THE love of equality and of a frugal economy is greatly excited by equality and frugality themselves, in societies, where both these virtues are established by law.

In monarchies and despotic governments, no body aims at equality; this does not so much as enter their thoughts; they all aspire to superiority. People of the very lowest condition desire to emerge from their obscurity, only to lord it over their fellow-subjects.

It is the same with respect to frugality. To love it, we must practise and enjoy it. It is not those who are enervated with pleasure that are fond of a frugal life: were this natural and common, Alcibiades would never have been the admiration of the universe. Neither is it those who envy or admire the luxury of the great: people, that have present to their view none but rich men, or men miserable like themselves, detest their wretched condition, without loving or knowing the real term or point of misery.

A true maxim it is, therefore, that, in order to love equality and frugality in a republic, these virtues must have been previously established by law.