"Nature, industriously favourable to men, hath not bounded itself in giving desires to men, she was willing that we should have them too, and that we should be the animated instruments of their felicity: she hath put in us the flame of the passions, to make them live easy."
— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Work Title
Date
1721, 1722
Metaphor
"Nature, industriously favourable to men, hath not bounded itself in giving desires to men, she was willing that we should have them too, and that we should be the animated instruments of their felicity: she hath put in us the flame of the passions, to make them live easy."
Metaphor in Context
Nature, industriously favourable to men, hath not bounded itself in giving desires to men, she was willing that we should have them too, and that we should be the animated instruments of their felicity: she hath put in us the flame of the passions, to make them live easy: if they ever quit their insensibility, she hath destined us to make them return to it again, without our ever being able to taste that happy state in which we place them.
[La nature, industrieuse en faveur des hommes, ne s'est pas bornée à leur donner des désirs; elle a voulu que nous en eussions nous-mêmes, et que nous fussions des instruments animés de leur félicité: elle nous a mises dans le feu des passions, pour les faire vivre tranquilles; s'ils sortent de leur insensibilité, elle nous a destinées à les y faire rentrer, sans que nous puissions jamais goûter cet heureux état où nous les mettons.]
(Letter LXII, Zelis to Usbek, at Paris.)
[La nature, industrieuse en faveur des hommes, ne s'est pas bornée à leur donner des désirs; elle a voulu que nous en eussions nous-mêmes, et que nous fussions des instruments animés de leur félicité: elle nous a mises dans le feu des passions, pour les faire vivre tranquilles; s'ils sortent de leur insensibilité, elle nous a destinées à les y faire rentrer, sans que nous puissions jamais goûter cet heureux état où nous les mettons.]
(Letter LXII, Zelis to Usbek, at Paris.)
Categories
Provenance
Searching at OLL
Citation
12 entries in the ESTC for this title (1722, 1730, 1731, 1736, 1751, 1759, 1760, 1762, 1767, 1773, 1775).
The earliest English-language issue is Persian Letters, trans. John Ozell, 2 vols. (London: Printed for J. Tonson, 1722). <Link to ECCO>
Searching The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu, 4 vols. (London: T. Evans, 1777) at Online Library of Liberty <Link to OLL>. French text from Project Gutenberg.
The earliest English-language issue is Persian Letters, trans. John Ozell, 2 vols. (London: Printed for J. Tonson, 1722). <Link to ECCO>
Searching The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu, 4 vols. (London: T. Evans, 1777) at Online Library of Liberty <Link to OLL>. French text from Project Gutenberg.
Date of Entry
08/09/2013
