Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/378

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326
THE SPIRIT


CHAP. IX.
Means of encouraging Industry.

Book XIV.
Chap. 9, & 10.
WE shall shew in the nineteenth book that lazy nations are generally proud. Now the effect might well be turned against the cause, and laziness be destroyed by pride. In the south of Europe, where people have such a high notion of point of honor, it would be right to give prizes to husbandmen who had cultivated best the lands, or to artists who had made the greatest improvements in their several professions. This practice has succeeded in our days in Ireland, where it has established one of the most considerable linen manufactures in Europe.


CHAP. X.
Of the Laws relative to the Sobriety of the People.

IN warm countries the aqueous part of the blood loses itself greatly by perspiration[1]; it must therefore be supplied by a like liquid. Water is there of admirable use; strong liquors would congeal the globules[2] of blood that remain after the transuding of the aqueous humour.

In cold countries the aqueous part of the blood

  1. Monsieur Bernier travelling from Lahor to Cachemir, wrote thus: My body is a sieve; scarce have I swallowed a pint of water but I see it transude like dew out of all my limbs, even to my finger's ends. I drink ten pints of a day, and it does me no manner of harm. Bernier's travels, Tom. 2. p. 261.
  2. In the blood there are red globules, fibrous parts, white globules, and water in which the whole swims.
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