XVII. MONTESQUIEU (1689–1755)

INTRODUCTION

Our next reading is from a French work of the middle of the eighteenth century. It is from the Spirit of the Laws of Montesquieu. This book was not written in such close connection with sudden political transformations as were the works of the four seventeenthcentury English authors whom we have just considered. It is concerned primarily with explaining the nature and working of political institutions in general. In some measure it reflects contemporary conditions; but its aim is to reform rather than either to vindicate or condemn the existing political and social order. It deals more with questions of governmental efficiency and practical justice than with dogmas as to fundamental rights of citizens or the location and prerogatives of sovereignty. In its comprehensive treatment of these more concrete subjects verification of the various doctrines set forth is sought in examples from history and from contemporary political experience.

Montesquieu was born in Bordeaux of a family of the lesser nobility. He received legal training, and in early manhood he inherited the presidency of the Parliament of Bordeaux from his uncle; this office he occupied for about ten years. During this time he was a great reader of literature and history, and wrote several papers for the local academy on philosophical, scientific and political topics. In 1721 he published his first major work— the Persian Letters, which is a satire (in the form of letters written by two Persians traveling through France) upon the literary, spiritual, political and social customs and traditions of the day in France. This work was exceedingly popular and immediately gave the author a wide reputation. He sold his presidency and moved to Paris, where, shortly, he was elected to the Academy. Soon thereafter he set out upon an extensive journey of observation through the countries of Europe, visiting Austria and other German states, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, Holland and, finally, England; he remained about two years in England. Returning

then to France he resumed his residence at the family castle at Bordeaux, and soon published his next important work-the Causes of the Greatness and Decline of the Romans, which is one of the earliest significant works in the modern philosophy of history. Montesquieu's greatest work-De l'Esprit des Lois, was published in 1748, after a long period of preparation. The word "law" in this treatise is employed with a very general and flexible meaning, as appears from the definition of law as "the necessary relations springing from the nature of things." But the work is concerned chiefly with the interpretation of the "spirit" of social laws. In other words, attempt is made to explain the interdependence among all the elements of which a political society is composed, to show the interrelations among such factors as physical environment, racial characteristics, social, economic, and religious customs, and civil institutions; in particular, the object is to show the relations between all these factors, on the one hand, and political and civil liberty, on the other hand. The most influential part of the work is that in which political liberty is defined, and the separation of powers discussed as an indispensable safeguard for the maintenance of political liberty. Here the government of England is analyzed as an exemplification of the dependence of political liberty upon governmental checks and balances. As indicated before, Montesquieu's method is empirical rather than rationalistic; political questions are treated not so much in relation to abstract political truth as to nearer, concrete conditions.

Through the selections below, from The Spirit of the Laws, it is intended to give a view of Montesquieu's leading ideas on the following topics: the character of laws in general; the forms of government, and the social and moral forces which support each form; political liberty, and its relation to the separation of powers in government. Nothing is given from the author's comparative analysis of the relations between civil institutions and racial, social, and physical factors. His extended study in that field cannot be well typified in a brief selection.

READINGS FROM THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS1

1. The Nature of Laws 2

1. Of the Relation of Laws to Different Beings.

Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.

They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings?

There is, then, a prime reason; and laws are the relations subsisting between it and different beings, and the relations of these to one another.

God is related to the universe, as Creator and Preserver; the laws by which He created all things are those by which He preserves them. He acts according to these rules, because He knows them; He knows them, because He made them; and He made them, because they are in relation to His wisdom and power. Since we observe that the world, though formed by the motion of matter, and void of understanding, subsists through so long a succession of ages, its motions must certainly be directed by invariable laws; and could we imagine another world, it must also have constant rules, or it would inevitably perish.

Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.

These rules are a fixed and invariable relation. In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.

Particular intelligent beings may have laws of their own making, but they have some likewise which they never made. Before there were intelligent beings, they were possible; they had therefore possible relations, and consequently possible laws. Before laws were made, there were relations of possible justice. To

1 The selections are from The Spirit of the Laws, translated by Thomas Nugent. New edition, revised by J. V. Prichard. Two volumes. London, 1878. Bohn's Standard Library. George Bell and Sons.

* Book I.

say that there is nothing just or unjust but what is commanded or forbidden by positive laws, is the same as saying that before the describing of a circle all the radii were not equal.

We must therefore acknowledge relations of justice antecedent to the positive law by which they are established: as, for instance, if human societies existed, it would be right to conform to their laws; if there were intelligent beings that had received a benefit of another being, they ought to show their gratitude; if one intelligent being had created another intelligent being, the latter ought to continue in its original state of dependence; if one intelligent being injures another, it deserves a retaliation; and so on.

But the intelligent world is far from being so well governed as the physical. For though the former has also its laws, which of their own nature are invariable, it does not conform to them so exactly as the physical world. This is because, on the one hand, particular intelligent beings are of a finite nature, and consequently liable to error; and on the other, their nature requires them to be free agents. Hence they do not steadily conform to their primitive laws; and even those of their own instituting they frequently infringe.

Whether brutes be governed by the general laws of motion, or by a particular movement, we cannot determine. Be that as it may, they have not a more intimate relation to God than the rest of the material world; and sensation is of no other use to them than in the relation they have either to other particular beings or to themselves.

By the allurement of pleasure they preserve the individual, and by the same allurement they preserve their species. They have natural laws, because they are united by sensation; positive laws they have none, because they are not connected by knowledge. And yet they do not invariably conform to their natural laws; these are better observed by vegetables, that have neither understanding nor sense.

Brutes are deprived of the high advantages which we have; but they have some which we have not. They have not our hopes, but they are without our fears; they are subject like us to death, but without knowing it; even most of them are more attentive than we to self-preservation, and do not make so bad a use of their passions.

Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws. As an intelligent being, he incessantly transgresses the laws established by God, and changes those of his