第48章

To these defects in almost all languages are added barbarous irregularities.Venus is a charming name, venereal is abominable.Another result of the irregularity of these languages composed at hazard in uncouth times is the quantity of compound words of which the simple form does not exist any more.They are children who have lost their father.We have architects and no tects ; there are things which are ineffable and none which are effable.One is intrepid , one is not trepid.

There are impudent fellows, insolent fellows, but neither pudent fellows nor solent fellows.All languages more or less retain some of these defects; they are all irregular lands from which the hand of the adroit artist knows how to derive advantage.

Other defects which make a nation's character evident always slip into languages.In France there are fashions in expressions as in ways of doing the hair.A fashionable invalid or doctor will take it into his head to say that he has had a soupcon of fever to Signify that he has had a slight attack; soon the whole nation has soupcons of colics, soupcons of hatred, love, ridicule.Preachers in the pulpit tell you that you must have at least a soupcon of God's love.After a few months this fashion gives place to another.

What does most harm to the nobility of the language is not this passing fashion with which people are soon disgusted, not the solecisms of fashionable people into which good authors do not fall, but the affectation of mediocre authors in speaking of serious things in a conversational style.Everything conspires to corrupt a language that is rather widely diffused; authors who spoil the style by affectation; those who write to foreign countries, and who almost always mingle foreign expressions with their natural tongue;merchants who introduce into conversation their business terms.

All languages being imperfect, it does not follow that one should change them.One must adhere absolutely to the manner in which the good authors have spoken them; and when one has a sufficient number of approved authors, a language is fixed.Thus one can no longer change anything in Italian, Spanish, English, French', without corrupting them; the reason is clear:

it is that one would soon render unintelligible the books which provide the instruction and the pleasure of the nations.Philosophical Dictionary: Laws LAWS SHEEP live very placidly in community, they are considered very easy-going, because we do not see the prodigious quantity of animals they devour.It is even to be believed that they eat them innocently and without knowing it, like Us when we eat a Sassenage cheese.The republic of the sheep is a faithful representation of the golden age.

A chicken-run is visibly the most perfect monarchic state.There is no king comparable to a cock.If he marches proudly in the midst of his people, it is not out of vanity.If the enemy approaches, he does not give orders to his subjects to go to kill themselves for him by virtue of his certain knowledge and plenary power; he goes to battle himself, ranges his chickens behind him and fights to the death.If he is the victor, he himself sings the Te Deum.In civil life there is no one so gallant, so honest, so disinterested.He has all the virtues.Has he in his royal beak a grain of corn, a grub, he gives it to the first lady among his subjects who presents herself.Solomon in his harem did not come near a poultry-yard cock.

If it be true that the bees are governed by a queen to whom all her subjects make love, that is a still more perfect government.

The ants are considered to be an excellent democracy.Democracy is above all the other States, because there everyone is equal, and each individual works for the good of all.

The republic of the beavers is still superior to that of the ants, at least if we judge by their masonry work.

The monkeys resemble strolling players rather than a civilized people;and they do not appear to be gathered together under fixed, fundamental laws, like the preceding species.

We resemble the monkeys more than any other animal by the gift of imitation, the frivolity of our ideas, and by our inconstancy which has never allowed us to have uniform and durable laws.

When nature formed our species and gave us instincts, self-esteem for our preservation, benevolence for the preservation of others, love which is common to all the species, and the inexplicable gift of combining more ideas than all the animals together; when she had thus given us our portion, she said to us: " Do as you can."There is no good code in any country.The reason for this is evident;the laws have been made according to the times, the place and the need, etc.

When the needs have changed, the laws which have remained, have become ridiculous.Thus the law which forbade the eating of pig and the drinking of wine was very reasonable in Arabia, where pig and wine are injurious;it is absurd at Constantinople.

The law which gives the whole fee to the eldest son is very good in times of anarchy and pillage.Then the eldest son is the captain of the castle which the brigands will attack sooner or later; the younger sons will be his chief officers, the husbandmen his soldiers.All that is to be feared is that the younger son may assassinate or poison the Salian lord his elder brother, in order to become in his turn the master of the hovel; but these cases are rare, because nature has so combined our instincts and our passions that we have more horror of assassinating our elder brother than we have of being envious of his position.But this law, suitable for the owners of dungeons in Chilperic's time is detestable when there is question of sharing stocks in a city.