vii - Defense of The Spirit of Law (1750)

Summary

Although The Spirit of Law (1748) was greeted very favorably in many quarters, a Jansenist writer in the Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques charged Montesquieu with lack of respect for Christianity and with being a follower of natural religion. Montesquieu’s response was that his critic had failed to understand that he was writing, not as a theologian, but as a “jurisconsult” (legal scholar) exploring what laws are most suitable for a given people considering their character and situation. Montesquieu acknowledges that although he had discussed many non-Christian customs, he was “not justifying the customs but giving the reasons for them.” He also stressed that he had rebutted the views of both Bayle and Spinoza. He notes that he had called out Bayle for his error in believing that “a society of true Christians could not survive” and had refuted Spinoza’s fatalism by asserting that “those who have said that a blind fate has produced all the effects that we see in the world have uttered a great absurdity.”