their efficient cause the equity of their laws and government; and their
respective external powers have been in proportion to the number of
persons interested, and their degree of interest in the public welfare.

On the other hand, the multiplication of men, by complicating their
relations, having rendered the precise limitation of their rights
difficult, the perpetual play of the passions having produced incidents
not foreseen--their conventions having been vicious, inadequate, or
nugatory--in fine, the authors of the laws having sometimes mistaken,
sometimes disguised their objects; and their ministers, instead of
restraining the cupidity of others, having given themselves up to
their own; all these causes have introduced disorder and trouble into
societies; and the viciousness of laws and the injustice of governments,
flowing from cupidity and ignorance, have become the causes of the
misfortunes of nations, and the subversion of states.



CHAPTER X.

GENERAL CAUSES OF THE PROSPERITY OF ANCIENT STATES.


Such, O man who seekest wisdom, such have been the causes of revolution
in the ancient states of which thou contemplatest the ruins! To whatever
spot I direct my view, to whatever period my thoughts recur, the same
principles of growth or destruction, of rise or fall, present themselves
to my mind. Wherever a people is powerful, or an empire prosperous,
there the conventional laws are conformable with the laws of nature--the
government there procures for its citizens a free use of their