LETTER LXXX. Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice.

SINCE I have been in Europe, Rhedi, I have seen a variety of governments. It is not here as in Asia, where the rules of policy are every where found the same. I have often enquired which government is most conformable to reason. It appears to me, that the most perfect is that which arrives at its end with the least difficulty; of this kind, that which leads men in a way which best suits their disposition, is the most perfect. If under a mild government, the subjects are as obedient as under a severe one; the first is preferable, because it is most conformable to reason, and because severity is a foreign motive. Be assured, Rhedi, that in a state, punishments, more or less cruel, do not procure greater obedience to the laws. In a country where chastisements are moderate, they are as much dreaded as in those where they are tyrannical and dreadful. Let the government be mild, let it be cruel, the punishment is always gradual; the punishment inflicted is greater or less, as the crime is greater or less. The imagination conforms itself to the manners of the country in which we live: eight days imprisonment, or a lighter punishment, affects the mind of an European, brought up under a mild government, as much as the loss of an arm intimidates an Asiatic. Men affix a certain degree of fear to a certain degree of punishment, and each makes the distribution in his own way: a Frenchman shall be driven to despair at the infamy of a punishment to which he is condemned, which would not deprive a Turk of his sleep for one quarter of an hour. Besides, I do not observe that policy, justice, and equity, are better observed in Turky, Persia, or under the Mogul, than in the republicks of Holland, Venice, and even in England: I do not find that less crimes

are committed in the former countries, or that men intimidated by severe punishments are more submissive to the laws. I have, on the contrary, remarked, a foundation for injustice and distress in the midst of the very same states. I have even found the prince, who is himself the law, less master than in any other state. I observe, that these times of rigour have always been attended with tumultuous commotions, in which nobody is chief; and that, when once a violent authority is despised, there remains no longer sufficient power with any per on to restore it. That the very despair of impunity strengthens the disturbance, and renders it greater. That, in such states, they never make a flight revolt; and that there never is any interval between murmurings and insurrections. That there is no necessity that great events should there be prepared for by great causes; on the contrary, a great revolution hath been produced by the least accident, often also as unforeseen by those who effected it, as by those who suffered from it. When Osman, emperor of the Turks, was deposed, each of those concerned in that attempt thought nothing of what they effected: they demanded only, in a supplicant manner, that they might have justice done with regard to a particular grievance: a voice, that none had ever known, from among the multitude pronounced, by accident, the name of Mustapha, and immediately Mustapha was emperor.

Paris, the 2d of the moon of the 1st Rebiab,
1715.