Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T07:25:34.531Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Book I of Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

David Lowenthal
David Lowenthal
Affiliation:
Wheaton College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Critical Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 1959 , pp. 485 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1959

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Becker, Carl L.. The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (New Haven, 1932), p. 113Google Scholar. See also Brunetière, Ferdinand, Etudes Critiques sur l'Historie de la Littérature Française (Fourth series, 4th ed.), p. 259Google Scholar; Sabine, George H., A History of Political Theory (New York, 1937), pp. 551, 556Google Scholar; Neumann, Franz, in his introduction to the Hafner Library of Classics edition of The Spirit of the Laws (New York, 1949), pp. xxix, xxxGoogle Scholar.

2 Lanson, Gustave, Montesquieu (Paris, Librairie Félix Alcan, 1932), pp. 5–8Google Scholar; Laboulaye, Edouard, “Introduction à l'Esprit des Lois,” Laboulaye, vol. 3, pp. iii–v, xvii–xxiiiGoogle Scholar; Dedieu, Joseph, Montesquieu (Paris, Alcan, Fèlix, ed., 1913), pp. vi, vii, 85–90Google Scholar; Barckhausen, H., Le Désordre de l'Esprit des Lois (Bordeaux, Imprimerie G. Gounouilhou, 1898)Google Scholar.

3 d'Alembert, Jean, Eloge de M, de Montesquieu, in vol. 1 of the Bastıen edition of Montesquieu's Oeuvres (Paris, 1788), p. lxxixGoogle Scholar. Cf. Laboulaye, vol. 3, p. xviii ff.Google Scholar, for Laboulaye's interpretation of this passage. In the same volume there is a strong statement by Bertolini (in his “Analyse Raisonnée de l'Esprit des Lois”) concerning the marvelous concealed plan of the work (pp. 60, 61). See also Strauss, Leo, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, Ill., 1952), p. 29, note 11Google Scholar.

4 The use of introductory material to indicate to the reader the presence of a deliberately hidden plan is not confined to the Preface of Esprit. In the prefatory “Quelques Réflexions sur les Lettres Persanes” (to that work: see Laboulaye, vol. 1, pp. 47–9Google Scholar), Montesquieu states that “ … the author has given himself the advantage of being able to join philosophy, politics and ethics to a tale, and to link the whole by a chain that is secret and, in some fashion, unknown.” Note, with reference to this last phrase, the deliberate irony of the last line of these reflections: “Certainly the nature and design of the Persian Letters are so open, that they will never deceive any except those who wish to deceive themselves.” A similar device is employed in Montesquieu's “Invocation aux Muses,” which was to have introduced the second volume of Esprit (Laboulaye, vol. 4, pp. 359–60Google Scholar). Here the reference to novel ideas and a deliberately planned presentation is very clear. Further evidence of a design in Esprit is given at the beginning of Part 3 of Défense (Laboulaye, vol. 6, p. 198Google Scholar), where Montesquieu asserts that “… in books of reasoning, one holds nothing unless one holds the whole chain.” See also the last two paragraphs of Book I, and the first chapter of Book 19, of Esprit.

5 Pensées, vol. 2, p. 25Google Scholar. These paragraphs were intended as an answer to the Abbé de la Porte'e criticism of Esprit, which Laboulaye tells us was especially levelled at its lack of an over-all plan (Laboulaye, vol. 3, pp. xxxvii, xxxviiiGoogle Scholar).

6 See the statement about observing “proprieties” in Bk. 4, ch. 2, p. 35.

7 In Bk. 11, ch. 20, Montesquieu avers that his purpose is to cause the reader to think, not simply to read. Writing in textbook style may not be the best method of encouraging independent thought. See Lanson, op. cit., p. 24, and Sorel, Albert, Montesquieu (Chicago, A. C. McClurg & Co. 1888), p. 94Google Scholar.

8 Cf. Descartes' Meditations, #3, near middle, for this arrangement of beings, where the word “angels” is used instead of “intelligences superior to man.”

9 That this sovereign neglect to prove the statements he makes and implies concerning God is not due to ignorance or carelessness can be shown from Montesquieu's earlier work, Persian Letters (Laboulaye, vol. 1), letters 69, 76 and 98. Just as the whole of St. Thomas' treatment of law should be compared with Montesquieu's to appreciate the latter's radical departure in basic principle, so also should their proofs for the existence of God. Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I, question 2, article 3 as well as I-II, question 91, articles 1 and 2, and question 93, articles 1 and 2. For Montesquieu's main argument for the existence of God (from the existence of intelligent beings) in an entirely different context—one which stresses man's duties to God—see the summary of his Traité des Devoirs in Laboulaye, vol. 7, p. 67Google Scholar. See Pensées, vol. 1, p. 450Google Scholar for an argument for God's existence based on the order of the universe. See also the same work's sarcastic treatment of astrology, vol. 2, p. 525. Re “creation,” see Défense in Laboulaye, vol. 6, p. 146Google Scholar; Pensées. vol. 2, p. 503Google Scholar; Esprit, Bk. 1, ch. 1, footnote to term “divinity” in first paragraph.

10 Cf. Pensées, vol. 2, pp. 195–9Google Scholar and Persian Letters, #76, 98, 114. Note also that in the present part of the text, reference is made to the unchanging “rules” (règles), not simply “laws” (lois), by which God has created and continues to conserve the universe. Here, in the context of a discussion of the material world, is the only place in Book I where this term occurs. Cf. the last chapter of the Essai sur le Goût, entitled “Des Règles,” where Montesquieu signifies thereby the general yet flexible rules employed by the artist in artistic production.

11 There can be no doubt that Montesquieu attempts wherever possible to give outward support to this “priority” of natural equıty. See Défense in Laboulaye, vol. 6, p. 144Google Scholar; Persian Letters, #84; Pensées, vol. 1, pp. 392–7Google Scholar; Laboulaye, vol. 7, pp. 66–7Google Scholar. Commentators have usually welcomed his efforts in this direction with great warmth without subjecting the context of “intelligent beings superıor to man” to careful analysis. See, for example, Dedieu, op. cit., pp. 118–20 and Franz Neumann, op. cit., p. xxxix.

12 Cf. Leibniz, , Discourse on Metaphysics, etc. (La Salle, Ill., Open Court Publishing Co., 1945), #13, p. 22Google Scholar, and his correspondence wıth Arnauld in the same edition, pp. 108, 123, 130–3.

13 Cf. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Bk. 6, sec. 5, especially the discussion of reciprocity and corrective justice.

14 A search through Montesquieu's Pensées reveals several places where some reference is made to “intelligences superior to man” other than God Himself: see vol. 1, pp. 395, 448–9, 452–3; vol. 2, pp. 503, 509, 531. In almost every case the beings involved are either pagan gods and goddesses, or spiritual aides (such as angels) to a single spiritual God. For the moral importance of the distinction between men and angels, see Pensées, vol. 2, p. 85Google Scholar. In general, it is not too much to say that one of Montesquieu's most serious aims in Esprit is to protect political society from the harmful effects of Christian “angelicization.” This may explain why “intelligences superior to man” are allotted the third or central position in the order of beings (instead of coming directly after God) and receive so surprising a treatment. See Esprit, Bk. 19, che. 5, 11; Bk. 23, ch. 21 (end), Bk. 24, ch. 7, Bk. 26, chs. 2, 9.

15 Bk. 26, chs. 1, 2, repeat this non-specificity.

16 It is less difficult to ascertain Montesquieu's attitude toward the teleological principles of ancient philosophy than toward those introduced by the Bible. Laboulaye maintains that he may well be a Deist but not an atheist (vol. 3, p. xxviii). In attempting to decide this issue, careful consideration must be given to Défense as well as to Pensées, vol. 1, p. 441–5, 468, 445–53Google Scholar.

17 Re the strict definition of law, see Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan Ch. 15 fend). For a possible source of the distinction between the positive law of God, of philosophers, and of legislators, see John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. 2, ch. 28. secs. 7–16, and Bk. 1, ch. 3, sec. 5. In the latter, the dicta of the “old philosophers” regarding moral principles are not viewed as commands possessing sanctions, being based on the demand of man's natural perfection and dignity alone. But later the term “philosophical law” (now identified with the ethics of the “heathen” philosophers) is used to refer to the law of reputation current in all societies, whereby praise and blame, socially accorded, constitute the rewards or punishments for actions looked upon as virtuous or vicious. Why Locke speaks in this way is not clear. It is less difficult to see that the place in the over-all scheme of law traditionally reserved for the law of nature has been filled by a species of positive law. In Montesquieu's case we are not furnished sufficient information to know whether the laws of morality given to man by philosphers are to be understood in Locke's first sense only (as is more apparent) or in his second sense as well.

18 These observations suggest a linkage between Montesquieu and the political realism of Machiavelli. Indeed, in Bk. 6, ch. 5, Maehiavelli is called “this great man”—an epithet very rarely bestowed on any philosopher in Esprit. Montesquieu also adheres to the form of Machiavelli's teaching, avoiding the combination of political realism and geometric reasoning attempted by Hobbes (see Elements of Law, the epistle dedicatory) and Spinoza (Political Tractate, ch. 1). But like the latter, he distinguishes between the level and needs of the many and of political life and the level and needs of those capable of living by the dictates of philosophy: thus the difference between the anterior relations of equity and the philosophic laws of morality. Yet unlike him, he keeps the philosophical ethics from public view.

19 See the reference to St. Thomas in note 9 above.

20 For additional evidence of Montesquieu's interest in the natural development of man's ideas (and motives! from their original simplicity onwards, see Défense in Laboulaye, vol. 6, p. 156Google Scholar. This is an historical extension of what Locke attempted in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding: see Bk. 2, ch. 12, sec. 8.

21 At the point in chapter 1 where the subject of animals is introduced, Montesquieu remarks that it is not known whether they are governed by the general laws of motion or by a particular motion. Soon thereafter he implies that plants may very well be governed by those general laws. In any case, the only problem is which motions account for animal behavior (including, of course, the workings of sentience). But sentience seems also to be regarded as an independent force. Another indication of this apparent ambivalence can be observed in his use in chapter 1 of the term “material world” (or “physical world”) at first to exclude, then to include, animal life. By such means the reader is led to wonder about the status of intelligence itself and especially about its relation to the things below it.

The conclusion about plants can be found in Montesquieu's earlier Observations on Natural History of 1721 (Laboulaye, vol. 7, pp. 43–4Google Scholar) based on personal experiments with plants and propounded in support of the Cartesian system. At the end of the same work (p. 53) he plainly evinces great admiration for the two giants of modern natural philosophy, Descartes and Newton. Esprit, undoubtedly, constitutes an attempt to extend their work into the area of society. But natural philosophy as such, including its modern establishment, is accorded very peculiar treatment in Esprit. It is hardly referred to explicitly—e.g., the names of Descartes and Newton are not mentioned at all. Yet the crucial importance of natural philosophy in Montesquieu's thought is shown by the use of the motto “docuit quae maximus Atlas” at the beginning of the second volume of the work (containing Bks. 20–31). Taken from Vergil's Aeneid, it draws attention to none else than the subjects of natural philosophy or science. See Laboulaye, vol. 4, pp. 357–8Google Scholar, and Vergil's, Works (Modern Library edition)Google Scholar, Bk. 1, lines 740–56. The connection between the development of the study of nature and the development of commerce can be inferred from Bks. 20 and 21.

22 A passage from Lucretius' On the Nature of Things begins Bk. 23 of Esprit, the subject of which is human generation. On the possibility of the earth's having a natural origin, see the discussion of Lucretius in Pensées, vol. 2, pp. 195–9Google Scholar. Re the origin of man, compare Pensées, vol. 1, p. 473Google Scholar with On the Nature of Things, Bk. V, lines 780–922.

23 Cf. John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, ch. 2 (Of the State of Nature), sec. 6 (toward end).

24 See Pensées, vol. 1, pp. 396–7Google Scholar.

25 The traditional view is expressed in Montesquieu's earlier Traité des Devoirs composed in 1725 for the Bordeaux Academy (Laboulaye, vol. 7, pp. 66–7Google Scholar). There the emphasis is on man's sociability and rationality, and the Stoics are strongly praised. It should be added that the family is never directly regarded as a natural unit in Bk. 1 of Esprit: the only full reference to it consists of a denial that the structure of the family proves monarchy to be most in accord with nature (ch. 3). But later in the work it is so regarded (Bk. 23, chs. 2, 10; Bk. 26, chs. 4, 14), as also in Pensées, vol. 1, pp. 397–9Google Scholar and Persian Letters, #79, 95. For the relation between man's natural obedience to his parents and his conventional obedience to the state, see Pensées, vol. 2, pp. 372–3Google Scholar. But Eaprit, at least, is quite ambiguous about the natural status o[ the family.

26 See Bk. 21, ch. 7 (end) and the Preface.

27 We must understand this in the light of Montesquieu's remark about the spirit of the true legislator, to the effect that “ … political good, like moral good, is always found between two limits.” (Bk. 29, ch. 1).

28 This is put in Bk. II, ch. 5 as follows: “Although all states have in general an identical aim, which is to maintain themselves, each state has however an aim which is particular to it.” Cf. Bk. 26, ch. 23.

29 That the Iroquois are an example of early man can be shown by the term “sauvages” which is used to characterize both original man in Bk. I, eh. 2 and certain nations or peoples in Bk. 18 (chs. 9–12), among which are the American tribes.

30 This follows Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, ch. 4. Natural law or necessity is distinguished from law as a “plan of living which men have for a certain object laid down for themselves or others,” and which is “divided into human law and divine law.” See Writings on Political Philosophy by Spinoza (New York, 1937), ed. Balz, A., p. 19Google Scholar. The divine law, for Spinoza, is nothing but the philosophic moral law. Thus, for both men the moral and political dictates of reason are not to be understood in terms of “conforming to nature.”

31 Compare the high moral expectations embodied in the true law of nations in Bk. 1, ch. 3 with the stark “realism” of Bk. 26, ch. 20.

32 Cf. Aristotle, , Politics, 1288Google Scholar b 10–1289 a 9. As an example of Montesquieu's evaluations, see Bk. 4, chs. 2–6, and Bk. 11, oh. 8 (end); also Pensées, vol. 2, p. 321Google Scholar. Neuman agrees that Montesquieu is concerned with “the classic problem of the best government” (op. cit., p. xxxiii). Shackleton finds an unresolved inconsistency in Montesquieu's preference for the regime of virtue and the regime of liberty. His counsel—that this inconsistency be explained in terms of the development of Montesquieu's thought and composition of the work—is founded on a failure to understand, among other things, the relevance of Book I's account of the state of nature (and of the formation of the political and civil state) for the determination of the ultimate political standard. See Shackleton, Robert, “Montesquieu in 1948,” French Studies, Oct. 1949, vol. 3, #4, p. 322CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Of those Book titles which contain a verb, only Bks. 4, 5 and 26 bear one referring to relations that laws ought to have.

34 See the Preface; Bk. 14, chs. 1, 2 (end) and 4; Bk. 19, chs. 4–6, 27 (end). For “esprit” used to signify a kind of excellence, cf. Pensées, vol. 2, p. 303Google Scholar; the Esrni sur le Goût (Laboulaye, vol. 7, pp. 119–20Google Scholar; Mélanges Inédits (Bordeaux, G. Gounouilhou, 1892), p. 135Google Scholar.

35 Contrast the absence of “âme” in the opening Book with its use in Bk. 24, chs. 19, 21.

36 With significant alterations issuing from his own historical idealism, Hegel consciously adopted from Montesquieu the idea of the interrelatedness of all the facets of the life of a people—in his terms, of the “spirit” of a people. Cf. Philosophy of Right (Oxford, 1942), pp. 16, 17Google Scholar, and Philosophy of History (New York, P. F. Collier and Son, 1912), p. 95Google Scholar.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.