CHAP. I.: How the Nature of the Soil has an Influence on the Laws.

THE goodness of the land, in any country, naturally establishes subjection and dependence. The husbandmen, who compose the principal part of the people, are not very jealous of their liberty; they are too busy and too intent on their own private affairs. A country which overflows with wealth is afraid of pillage, afraid of an army. “Who is there that forms this goodly party? said Cicero to Atticus Lib. 17. ^†610; are they the men of commerce and husbandry? Let us not imagine that these are averse to monarchy, these, to whom all governments are equal, as soon as they bestow tranquility.”

Thus monarchy is more frequently found in fruitful countries, and a republican government in those which are not so; and this is sometimes a sufficient compensation for the inconveniences they suffer by the sterility of the land.

The barrenness of the Attic soil established there a democracy; and the fertility of that of Lacedæmonia an aristocratical constitution. For, in those times, Greece was averse to the government of a single person; and aristocracy had the nearest resemblance to that government.

Plutarch says Life of Solon. ^†611, that, the Cilonian sedition having been appeased at Athens, the city fell into its ancient dissensions, and was divided into as many parties as

there were kinds of land in Attica. The men who inhabited the eminences would, by all means, have a popular government; those of the flat open country demanded a government composed of the chiefs; and they who were near the sea desired a mixture of both.