Charles-Louis de Secondat de Montesquieu

“ Montesquieu first fixed his eyes upon the rise, progress, and decay of nations, as worked out by the actions of free agents. The Grandeur et Décadence des Romains is as original as the Principia, and laid the foundation of a science as sublime, and perhaps still more important to man than the laws of the planetary bodies.
Charles Secondat, Baron de la Brede and Montesquieu, was born at the chateau of La Brede, near Bourdeaux, on the 18th January 1689. The estate of La Brede had been long in his family, which was a very ancient one ”

“ He has in the Esprit little ornament, but his composition is wholly admirable. Yet another great peculiarity of this book, as well as of the Considérations, has to be noticed. The genius of the author for generalization is so great, his instinct in political science so sure, that even the falsity of his premises frequently fails to vitiate his conclusions. He has known wrong, but he has thought right.
The best edition of Montesquieu is that of Edouard Laboulaye (7 vols., Paris, 1875–1879) , the best biography that of Louis Vian (Paris, 2nd ed., 1879) . ”

“ With the aid of Mademoiselle de Clermont, Louis XIV.’s unspeakable tenth muse, Montesquieu was elected to the Academy in 1725; but his election was invalidated on account of his non-residence in Paris. He then returned to Bordeaux, sold his presidentship, acquired the necessary qualification, and, not without a questionable intrigue, was elected in 1728 to the chair rendered vacant by the death of De Sacy, a forgotten translator. ”

“ For a generation after his death he remained indeed the idol and the great authority of the moderate reforming party in France. Montesquieu is not often quotable, or quoted, at the present day, and the exact criticism of our time challenges the accuracy of his facts. Although he was really the founder, or at least one of the founders, of the sciences of comparative politics and of the philosophy of history, his descendants and followers in these sciences think they have outgrown him. In France his popularity has always been dubious and contested. ”

“ Nothing is more remarkable in Montesquieu, and nothing more distinguishes him from the common run of his somewhat self-satisfied and short-sighted successors, than the steady hold he keeps on the continuity of history, and his superiority to the shallow view of his day (constantly put forward by Voltaire) , according to which the middle ages were a dark period of barbarism, the study of which could be of no use to any one but a mere curiosity hunter. Montesquieu too, almost alone of his contemporaries, had a matured and moderate plan of political and social reform. ”

“ He cannot endure the thought that France has gained any battles without him, nor hear a siege bragged of at which he did not mount the breach. He believes himself so essential to our history that he imagines it came to an end when he retired; some wounds he has received mean, simply, the dissolution of the monarchy; and, unlike the philosophers who maintain that enjoyment is only in the present, and that the past is as if it had not been, he, on the contrary, delights in nothing but the past, and exists only in his old campaigns ”

“ He sees the happiness of a society, of which he is not so much as a member; he sees the security of others fenced by laws, himself without any protection. He sees his master has a soul, that can enlarge itself; while his own is constrained to submit to a continual depression. Nothing more assimilates a man to a beast, than living among freemen, himself a slave. Such people as these are the natural enemies of the society, and their number must be dangerous.
It is not therefore to be wondered at, that moderate governments have been so frequently disturbed by revolts of slaves ”

“ While some of them indulged in an idle and theoretical Republicanism, and others in the old unpractical frondeur spirit, eager to pull down but careless about building up, Montesquieu had conceived the idea of a limited monarchy, not identical with that of England, but in many ways similar to it; an ideal which in the first quarter of the eighteenth century might have been put in practice with far better chance of success than in the first quarter of the nineteenth. ”

“ PROGRESS OF SKEPTICISM.—The first powerful attack on the manners, institutions, and establishments of France, and indeed of Europe in general, is that contained in the "Persian Letters" of the Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) ; in which, under the transparent veil of pleasantries aimed at the Moslem religion, he sought to consign to ridicule the belief in every species of dogma. But the celebrity of Montesquieu is founded on his "Spirit of Laws," the greatest monument of human genius in the eighteenth century. ”

“ But the critic has been greatly offended by our author's saying, [5] that when a state is at liberty to receive or to reject a new religion it ought to be rejected; when it is received, it ought to be tolerated. From hence he objects, that the author has advised idolatrous princes, not to admit the Christian religion into their dominions. To this he answers first by referring to a passage in which he says, [6] that the best civil and political laws are, next to Christianity, the greatest blessings that men can give or receive ”

“ Hence it is that when a person renders himself absolute [2] , he immediately thinks of simplifying the laws. In a government thus constituted they are more affected with particular inconveniencies, than with the liberty of the subject, which is very little minded.
In republics it is plain that as many formalities at least are necessary as in monarchies. In both governments they increase in proportion to the value which is set on the honor, fortune, liberty and life of the subject.
In republican governments men are all equal ”

“ Nations were no longer at the mercy of despots, if any desire of freedom was alive in them; and any people might obtain freedom by seeking it in a sensible way. The same truth taught them how to learn the sensible way, and to satisfy themselves as to their own qualifications for conducting a good system. But the nation to which Montesquieu belonged did not understand him, and a century after his birth they were throwing away blessings which they were not yet wise enough to enjoy. Their own philosopher could have taught them that ”

“ You see the time of toil will not be long; and then you can abandon your art as soon as you like; but you will always be a man of wit, no matter what you do. They say, that in France, when a man enters any circle of society, he catches at once what is called l'esprit du corps: this you will do, and the only thing I dread is, that you will be overwhelmed with applause."
Paris, the 6th of the moon of Zilcade, 1714.
Letter 55 Rica to Ibben, at Smyrna
AMONG the Europeans, the first quarter of any hour of marriage settles all difficulties ”

“ Both were very intimate with a person always alluded to in the Prince’s correspondence as le philosophe. As Montesquieu lived in the same street (the Rue Dominique) as these ladies (who directed the Prince’s philosophical studies) , as he was on friendly terms with Charles, Lord Elibank, Bulkeley, and other Jacobites, I concluded that the philosophe of the correspondence was probably the author of ‘L’Esprit des Lois.’ This was a blunder which criticism should have [93] detected. ”

“ He who would have me change my religion is led to that, without doubt, because he would not change his own although force were employed; and yet he finds it strange that I will not do a thing which he himself would not do, perhaps for the empire of the world.
Paris, the 26th of the first moon of Gemmadi, 1715.
Letter 87 Rica to * * *
IT seems that every member of a family in this country controls his own actions. The authority exercised by a husband over his wife, a father over his children, a master over his slaves, is merely nominal. The law interferes in all differences ”

“ Montesquieu’s work, like the works of all French writers, is skilfully composed,—spirited, witty, and filled with wise observations. He pleases, interests, instructs, but leads to little reflection; he does not conquer by depth of thought; he does not exalt the mind by elevated reason or earnest feeling. In vain should we search his writings for knowledge of antiquity, the character of primitive society, or a description of the heroic ages, whose morals and prejudices lived until the last days of the republic. ”

“ Nor is it true, that a freeman can sell himself. Sale implies a price; now when a person sells himself, his whole substance immediately devolves to his master; the master therefore in that case gives nothing, and the slave receives nothing. You will say, he has a peculium. But this peculium goes along with his person. If it is not lawful for a man to kill himself, because he robs his country of his person, for the same reason he is not allowed to sell himself. The liberty of every citizen constitutes a part of the public liberty ”

“ He discovered very soon what he desired to be, and his father cultivated this rising genius, the object of his hope and of his tenderness. At the age of twenty, young Montesquieu had already prepared materials for the 'Spirit of Laws,' by a well-digested extract from the immense body of the civil law; as Newton had laid in early youth the foundation of his immortal works. The study of jurisprudence, however, though less dry to M. de Montesquieu than to most who attempt it, because he studied it as a philosopher, did not content him. ”

“ The aristocracy weighed even more heavily on the people, and in the most discourteous ways, buying and auctioning it like a merchandise. It remained in control by the venality of elections, tolerating only its juniors and its clerks on the benches of the Commons. Montesquieu hence employed an artifice, like we still use today, to put in better contrast the despotism which then ruled in France. He showed in this more skill than standing. So do his imitators today.
Nobody in France dares to attack the emperor personally. He has too formidable means of repression. ”

“ It was Montesquieu, who, in his Lettres Persanes, initiated the philosophic movement, and unmasked the batteries of criticism and satire, which for two generations were to play so effectively upon the foundations of the old monarchy in France. It was Montesquieu, who, twenty seven years later, when he produced the great work of his life, the Esprit des Lois, analysed with clear and wide sagacity the laws which regulate human governments and customs, and thus destroyed the mysterious prestige which had never till then been stripped from the ancient institutions of France. ”

“ According to his chief admirers, he is hardly read at all in France to-day, and they attempt to explain the fact by confessing that Montesquieu, great as he is, is not altogether great according to French principles. It is not only that he is an Anglo-maniac, but that he is rather English than French in style and thought. He is almost entirely dispassionate in politics, but he lacks the unswerving deductive consistency which Frenchmen love in that science. ”

“ There is a beautiful expression in Montesquieu, which might be applied as sanctioning as a virtue the passive intellectual perception of the Stuarts: "Que le prince ne craint point ses rivaux qu'on appelle les hommes de mérite: il est leur égal dès qu'il les aime." This is the principle of faith without good works. Charles the Second, interpreted by it, ought to cut a rather fair figure before posterity. ”

“ For a revolution formed by liberty becomes a confirmation of liberty.
A free nation may have a deliverer; a nation enslaved can have only another oppressor.
For whoever has a power sufficient to dethrone an absolute prince, has a power sufficient to enable him to become absolute himself.
As the enjoyment of liberty, and even its support and preservation, consists in every man's being allowed to speak his thoughts and to lay open his sentiments; a citizen in this state will say or write whatever the laws do not expresly forbid to be said or wrote. ”

“ In a free nation it is very often a matter of indifference whether individuals reason well or ill; it is sufficient that they do reason: from hence springs that liberty which is a security from the effects of these reasonings.
Book XIX.
Chap. 27.But in a despotic government it is equally pernicious whether they reason well or ill; their reasoning is alone sufficient to shock the principle of their government.
Many people who have no desire of pleasing, abandon themselves to their own particular humour; most of those who have wit and ingenuity are ingenious in tormenting themselves ”

“ How many reflections does this passage, written in France above a century ago, awaken in the breast of a British citizen at this time!—"Si monumentum quæris, circumspice!" So true it is, that real political truth belongs to no age or locality—"non alia Romæ, alia Athenis;" it is of eternal application, and is destined to receive confirmation from the experience of men, and the lessons of history, to the end of the world.
"Powers," says Montesquieu, "which owe their greatness to commerce, may exist long in mediocrity, but their grandeur can never be of long duration. ”

“ It is the sage remark of Montesquieu, that, under a government of laws, liberty consists simply in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in freedom from any constraint to do what we ought not to will. The true conservative not only accepts this maxim, but he gives it completeness by prescribing a pure religion as the standard of what a people ought to will, and as the only sober guide of conscience. ”