CHAP. IV.: Cause of the Immutability of Religion, Manners, Customs, and Laws, in the Eastern Countries.

IF, to that delicacy of organs which renders the eastern nations so susceptible of every impression, you add likewise a sort of indolence of mind, naturally connected with that of the body, by means of which they grow incapable of any exertion or effort, it is easy to comprehend, that, when once the soul has received an impression, she cannot change it. This is the reason that the laws, manners We find, by a fragment of Nicolaus Damascenus, collected by Constantine Porphyrog. that it was an ancient custom, in the East, to send to strangle a governor who had given any displeasure; it was in the time of the Medes. ^†496, and customs, even those which seem quite indifferent, such as their mode of dress, are the same to this very day, in eastern countries, as they were a thousand years ago.