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cover
The Complete Works of Montesquieu. Electronic Edition.
cover
Volume I.
Body
BOOK XIX.: OF LAWS, IN RELATION TO THE PRINCIPLES WHICH FORM THE GENERAL SPIRIT, THE MORALS, AND CUSTOMS, OF A NATION.
CHAP. VI.: That every Thing ought not to be corrected.

CHAP. VI.: That every Thing ought not to be corrected.

LET them but leave us as we are, said a gentleman of a nation which had a very great resemblance to that we have been describing, and nature will repair whatever is amiss. She has given us a vivacity capable of offending and hurrying us beyond the bounds of respect: this same vivacity is corrected by the politeness it procures, inspiring us with a taste of

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the world, and, above all, for the conversation of the fair-sex.

Let them leave us as we are: our indiscretions, joined to our good-nature, would make the laws which should constrain our sociability not at all proper for us.