_He has partly to satisfy them_, or at least, to consider them, because a law which outraged the national temperament would be like Roland's mare, which had every conceivable good quality with this one serious defect, that she was dead, and born dead. Suppose the Romans had been given an international law decreeing respect for conquered peoples, it would have been a dead letter, and by a sort of contagion it would have led to the neglect of other laws. Suppose the French were given a liberal law, a law prescribing respect for the individual rights of the man and the citizen. Liberty, the object of such a law, is for the French, as Baron Joannès has remarked: "The right of each man to do what he likes and to prevent other men from doing what they like." In France such a law would never obtain any but a very grudging allegiance, and it would certainly lead to the neglect of other laws.
The legislator ought therefore to understand the natural idiosyncrasies of his people in order to know how far he dare venture to oppose them.
_Partly he must combat them_, because law should be to a nation, or otherwise it is merely a police regulation, what the moral law is to an individual. Law should be a restraint imposed continuously in the hope of future improvements. It should be a curb on dangerous passions and injurious desires. It should aid the warfare of enlightened selfishness against the selfishness of which all are ashamed. That is what Montesquieu meant when he said that morals should correct climate, and laws should correct morals.
The law, therefore, to a certain extent should correct national tendencies, it should be loved a little because it is felt to be just, feared a little because it is severe, hated a little because it is to a certain degree out of sympathy with the prevalent temper of the day, and respected because it is felt to be necessary.
This is the law that the legislator has to frame, and therefore he ought to have expert knowledge of the genius of the people for whom he legislates. He must understand both those tendencies which will resist and those which will welcome him. He must know how far he can go unopposed and how much he can venture without forfeiting his authority.