Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow LETTER X.: Mirza to his Friend Usbek, at Erzeron. - Complete Works, vol. 3 (Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire; A Dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates; Persian Letters)

Return to Title Page for Complete Works, vol. 3 (Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire; A Dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates; Persian Letters)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History
Collection: Banned Books

LETTER X.: Mirza to his Friend Usbek, at Erzeron. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 3 (Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire; A Dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates; Persian Letters) [1721]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 3.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


LETTER X.

Mirza to his Friend Usbek, at Erzeron.

IT is thou only who couldest recompense to me the absence of Rica, and there is no person but Rica who could console me for thine. We want thee, Usbek, thou wast the soul of our society; how difficult is it to dissolve the engagements which friendship and reason have formed! We have here many disputations; which turn commonly on morality. The question yesterday was, Whether the happiness of mankind consists in pleasure and sensual gratifications, or in the exercise of virtue? I have frequently heard you maintain, that virtue is the end for which we were born, and that justice is a quality as necessary to us as existence; explain to me, pray, what you mean by this. I have conversed with the Moilocks, who distract me with their quotations from the Koran; for I speak no otherwise to them than as a man, a citizen, and a father of a family, and not as a believer. Farewel.