STUDY XII. 51 



Whoever would wifh to be acquainted with hu- 

 man nature, has only to ftudy that of love; he 

 would perceive fpringing out of it, all the fenti- 



ments 



which ought to unite the faxes, and that in attempting fo 

 ftrengthen their political bands, they were burfting afunder thofe 

 of Nature. 



The Republic of Lycurgus had, befides, other natural defeats j 

 I mention only one, the flavery of the Helots. Thefe two par- 

 ticulars, however, excepted, T confider him as the moft fublime 

 genius that ever exifted : and even as to thefe he Hands, in fome 

 meafure, excufeable, in confideration of the obftacles of every 

 kind which he had to encounter in the eftablifhment of his 

 Laws. 



There are, in the harmonies of the different ages of human 

 life, relations fo delightful, of the weaknefs of children to the vi- 

 gour of their parents ; of the courage and the love between 

 young perfons of the two fexes to the virtue and the religion of 

 unimpaffioned old people, that I am aftonifhed no attempt has 

 been made to prefent a pifture, at leaft, of a human fociety thus 

 in concord with all the wants of life, and with the Laws of Na- 

 ture. There are, it is tl-ue, fome (ketches of this fort, in the 

 Telemachus^ among others, in the manners of thé inhabitants of 

 Bœtica ; but they are indicated merely. I am perfuaded that 

 fuch a Society, thus cemented in all it's parts, would attain the 

 higheft degree of fecial felicity, of which human nature is fuf- 

 ceptible in this World, and would be able to bid defiance to all 

 tlie ftorms of political agitation. So far from being expofed to 

 the fear of danger, on the part of neighbouring States, it might 

 make an eafy conqueft of them, without the ufe of arms, as an- 

 cient China did, fimply by the fpeftacle of it's felicity, and by 

 the influence of it's virtues. I once entertained a defign, on the 

 fuggeftion of J. J. Roujfeau^ of extending this idea, by compofing 



E 2 the 



