Baron de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat

Montesquieu was one of the great political philosophers of the
Enlightenment. Insatiably curious and mordantly funny, he constructed
a naturalistic account of the various forms of government, and of the
causes that made them what they were and that advanced or constrained
their development. He used this account to explain how governments
might be preserved from corruption. He saw despotism, in particular,
as a standing danger for any government not already despotic, and
argued that it could best be prevented by a system in which different
bodies exercised legislative, executive, and judicial power, and in
which all those bodies were bound by the rule of law. This theory of
the separation of powers had an enormous impact on liberal political
theory, and on the framers of the constitution of the United States of
America.

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu,
was born on January 19th, 1689 at La Brède, near Bordeaux, to a
noble and prosperous family. He was educated at the Oratorian
Collège de Juilly, received a law degree from the University of
Bordeaux in 1708, and went to Paris to continue his legal studies. On
the death of his father in 1713 he returned to La Brède to
manage the estates he inherited, and in 1715 he married Jeanne de
Lartigue, a practicing Protestant, with whom he had a son and two
daughters. In 1716 he inherited from his uncle the title Baron de La
Brède et de Montesquieu and the office of Président
à Mortier in the Parlement of Bordeaux, which was at the time
chiefly a judicial and administrative body. For the next eleven years
he presided over the Tournelle, the Parlement's criminal division, in
which capacity he heard legal proceedings, supervised prisons, and
administered various punishments including torture. During this time
he was also active in the Academy of Bordeaux, where he kept abreast
of scientific developments, and gave papers on topics ranging from the
causes of echoes to the motives that should lead us to pursue the
sciences.

In 1721 Montesquieu published the Persian Letters, which was
an instant success and made Montesquieu a literary celebrity. (He
published the Persian Letters anonymously, but his authorship
was an open secret.) He began to spend more time in Paris, where he
frequented salons and acted on behalf of the Parlement and the Academy
of Bordeaux. During this period he wrote several minor works:
Dialogue de Sylla et d'Eucrate (1724), Réflexions sur
la Monarchie Universelle (1724), and Le Temple de Gnide
(1725). In 1725 he sold his life interest in his office and resigned
from the Parlement. In 1728 he was elected to the Académie
Française, despite some religious opposition, and shortly
thereafter left France to travel abroad. After visiting Italy,
Germany, Austria, and other countries, he went to England, where he
lived for two years. He was greatly impressed with the English
political system, and drew on his observations of it in his later
work.

On his return to France in 1731, troubled by failing eyesight,
Montesquieu returned to La Brède and began work on his
masterpiece, The Spirit of the Laws. During this time he also
wrote Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans
and of their Decline, which he published anonymously in 1734. In
this book he tried to work out the application of his views to the
particular case of Rome, and in so doing to discourage the use of Rome
as a model for contemporary governments. Parts of
Considerations were incorporated into The Spirit of the
Laws, which he published in 1748. Like the Persian Letters,
The Spirit of the Laws was both controversial and immensely
successful. Two years later he published a Defense of the Spirit of
the Laws to answer his various critics. Despite this effort, the
Roman Catholic Church placed The Spirit of the Laws on the
Index of Forbidden Books in 1751. In 1755, Montesquieu died of a fever
in Paris, leaving behind an unfinished essay on taste for the
Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert.

Montesquieu's two most important works are the Persian Letters
and The Spirit of the Laws. While these works share certain
themes -- most notably a fascination with non-European societies and a
horror of despotism -- they are quite different from one another, and
will be treated separately.

The Persian Letters is an epistolary novel consisting of
letters sent to and from two fictional Persians, Usbek and Rica, who
set out for Europe in 1711 and remain there at least until 1720, when
the novel ends. When Montesquieu wrote the Persian Letters,
travellers' accounts of their journeys to hitherto unknown parts of
the world, and of the peculiar customs they found there, were very
popular in Europe. While Montesquieu was not the first writer to try
to imagine how European culture might look to travellers from
non-European countries, he used that device with particular
brilliance.

Many of the letters are brief descriptions of scenes or
characters. At first their humor derives mostly from the fact that
Usbek and Rica misinterpret what they see. Thus, for instance, Rica
writes that the Pope is a magician who can "make the king believe that
three are only one, or else that the bread one eats is not bread, or
that the wine one drinks is not wine, and a thousand other things of
the same kind" (Letter 24); when Rica goes to the theater, he
concludes that the spectators he sees in private boxes are actors
enacting dramatic tableaux for the entertainment of the audience. In
later letters, Usbek and Rica no longer misinterpret what they see;
however, they find the actions of Europeans no less
incomprehensible. They describe people who are so consumed by vanity
that they become ridiculous, scholars whose concern for the minutiae
of texts blinds them to the world around them, and a scientist who
nearly freezes to death because lighting a fire in his room would
interfere with his attempt to obtain exact measurements of its
temperature.

Interspersed among these descriptive letters are the Persians'
reflections on what they see. Usbek is particularly given to such
musings, and he shares many of Montesquieu's own preoccupations: with
the contrast between European and non-European societies, the
advantages and disadvantages of different systems of government, the
nature of political authority, and the proper role of law. He also
seems to share many of Montesquieu's views. The best government, he
says, is that "which attains its purpose with the least trouble", and
"controls men in the manner best adapted to their inclinations and
desires" (Letter 80). He notes that the French are moved by a love of
honor to obey their king, and quotes approvingly the claim that this
"makes a Frenchman, willingly and with pleasure, do things that your
Sultan can only get out of his subjects by ceaseless exhortation with
rewards and punishments" (Letter 89). While he is vividly aware of the
importance of just laws, he regards legal reform as a dangerous task
to be attempted "only in fear and trembling" (Letter 129). He favors
religious toleration, and regards attempts to compel religious belief
as both unwise and inhumane. In these reflections Usbek seems to be a
thoughtful and enlightened observer with a deep commitment to justice.

However, one of the great themes of the Persian Letters is the
virtual impossibility of self-knowledge, and Usbek is its most fully
realized illustration. Usbek has left behind a harem in Persia, in
which his wives are kept prisoner by eunuchs who are among his
slaves. Both his wives and his slaves can be beaten, mutilated, or
killed at his command, as can any outsider unfortunate enough to lay
eyes on them. Usbek is, in other words, a despot in his home. From the
outset he is tortured by the thought of his wives' infidelity. It is
not, he writes, that he loves his wives, but that "from my very lack
of feeling has come a secret jealousy which is devouring me" (Letter
6). As time goes on problems develop in the seraglio: Usbek's wives
feud with each other, and the eunuchs find it increasingly difficult
to keep order. Eventually discipline breaks down altogether; the Chief
Eunuch reports this to Usbek and then abruptly dies. His replacement
is clearly obedient not to Usbek but to his wives: he contrives not to
receive any of Usbek's letters, and when a young man is found in the
seraglio he writes: "I got up, examined the matter, and found that it
was a vision" (Letter 149). Usbek orders another eunuch to restore
order: "leave pity and tenderness behind. ... Make my seraglio what it
was when I left it; but begin by expiation: exterminate the criminals,
and strike dread into those who contemplated becoming so. There is
nothing that you cannot hope to receive from your master for such an
outstanding service" (Letter 153). His orders are obeyed, and "horror,
darkness, and dread rule the seraglio" (Letter 156). Finally, Roxana,
Usbek's favorite wife and the only one whose virtue he trusted, is
found with another man; her lover is killed, and she commits suicide
after writing Usbek a scathing letter in which she asks: "How could
you have thought me credulous enough to imagine that I was in the
world only in order to worship your caprices? that while you allowed
yourself everything, you had the right to thwart all my desires? No: I
may have lived in servitude, but I have always been free. I have
amended your laws according to the laws of nature, and my mind has
always remained independent" (Letter 161). With this letter the novel
ends.

The Persian Letters is both one of the funniest books written
by a major philosopher, and one of the bleakest. It presents both
virtue and self-knowledge as almost unattainable. Almost all the
Europeans in the Persian Letters are ridiculous; most of those
who are not appear only to serve as a mouthpiece for Montesquieu's own
views. Rica is amiable and good-natured, but this is largely due to
the fact that, since he has no responsibilities, his virtue has never
been seriously tested. For all Usbek's apparent enlightenment and
humanity, he turns out to be a monster whose cruelty does not bring
him happiness, as he himself recognizes even as he decides to inflict
it. His eunuchs, unable to hope for either freedom or happiness, learn
to enjoy tormenting their charges, and his wives, for the most part,
profess love while plotting intrigues. The only admirable character in
the novel is Roxana, but the social institutions of Persia make her
life intolerable: she is separated from the man she loves and forced
to live in slavery. Her suicide is presented as a noble act, but also
as an indictment of the despotic institutions that make it necessary.

Montesquieu's aim in The Spirit of the Laws is to explain human
laws and social institutions. This might seem like an impossible
project: unlike physical laws, which are, according to Montesquieu,
instituted and sustained by God, positive laws and social institutions
are created by fallible human beings who are "subject ... to ignorance
and error, [and] hurried away by a thousand impetuous passions" (SL
1.1). One might therefore expect our laws and institutions to be no
more comprehensible than any other catalog of human follies, an
expectation which the extraordinary diversity of laws adopted by
different societies would seem to confirm.

Nonetheless, Montesquieu believes that this apparent chaos is much
more comprehensible than one might think. On his view, the key to
understanding different laws and social systems is to recognize that
they should be adapted to a variety of different factors, and cannot
be properly understood unless one considers them in this
light. Specifically, laws should be adapted "to the people for whom
they are framed..., to the nature and principle of each government,
... to the climate of each country, to the quality of its soil, to its
situation and extent, to the principal occupation of the natives,
whether husbandmen, huntsmen or shepherds: they should have relation
to the degree of liberty which the constitution will bear; to the
religion of the inhabitants, to their inclinations, riches, numbers,
commerce, manners, and customs. In fine, they have relations to each
other, as also to their origin, to the intent of the legislator, and
to the order of things on which they are established; in all of which
different lights they ought to be considered" (SL 1.3). When we
consider legal and social systems in relation to these various
factors, Montesquieu believes, we will find that many laws and
institutions that had seemed puzzling or even perverse are in fact
quite comprehensible.

Understanding why we have the laws we do is important in
itself. However, it also serves practical purposes. Most importantly,
it will discourage misguided attempts at reform. Montesquieu is not a
utopian, either by temperament or conviction. He believes that to live
under a stable, non-despotic government that leaves its law-abiding
citizens more or less free to live their lives is a great good, and
that no such government should be lightly tampered with. If we
understand our system of government, and the ways in which it is
adapted to the conditions of our country and its people, we will see
that many of its apparently irrational features actually make sense,
and that to 'reform' these features would actually weaken it. Thus,
for instance, one might think that a monarchical government would be
strengthened by weakening the nobility, thereby giving more power to
the monarch. On Montesquieu's view, this is false: to weaken those
groups or institutions which check a monarch's power is to risk
transforming monarchy into despotism, a form of government that is
both abhorrent and unstable.

Understanding our laws will also help us to see which aspects of them
are genuinely in need of reform, and how these reforms might be
accomplished. For instance, Montesquieu believes that the laws of many
countries can be made be more liberal and more humane, and that they
can often be applied less arbitrarily, with less scope for the
unpredictable and oppressive use of state power. Likewise, religious
persecution and slavery can be abolished, and commerce can be
encouraged. These reforms would generally strengthen monarchical
governments, since they enhance the freedom and dignity of
citizens. If lawmakers understand the relations between laws on the
one hand and conditions of their countries and the principles of their
governments on the other, they will be in a better position to carry
out such reforms without undermining the governments they seek to
improve.

Montesquieu holds that there are three types of governments:
republican governments, which can take either democratic or
aristocratic forms; monarchies; and despotisms. Unlike, for instance,
Aristotle, Montesquieu does not distinguish forms of government on the
basis of the virtue of the sovereign. The distinction between monarchy
and despotism, for instance, depends not on the virtue of the monarch,
but on whether or not he governs "by fixed and established laws" (SL
2.1). Each form of government has a principle, a set of "human
passions which set it in motion" (SL 3.1); and each can be corrupted
if its principle is undermined or destroyed.

In a democracy, the people are sovereign. They may govern through
ministers, or be advised by a senate, but they must have the power of
choosing their ministers and senators for themselves. The principle of
democracy is political virtue, by which Montesquieu means "the love of
the laws and of our country" (SL 4.5), including its democratic
constitution. The form of a democratic government makes the laws
governing suffrage and voting fundamental. The need to protect its
principle, however, imposes far more extensive requirements. On
Montesquieu's view, the virtue required by a functioning democracy is
not natural. It requires "a constant preference of public to private
interest" (SL 4.5); it "limits ambition to the sole desire, to the
sole happiness, of doing greater services to our country than the rest
of our fellow citizens" (SL 5.3); and it "is a self-renunciation,
which is ever arduous and painful" (SL 4.5). Montesquieu compares it
to monks' love for their order: "their rule debars them from all those
things by which the ordinary passions are fed; there remains therefore
only this passion for the very rule that torments them. ... the more
it curbs their inclinations, the more force it gives to the only
passion left them" (SL 5.2). To produce this unnatural
self-renunciation, "the whole power of education is required" (SL
4.5). A democracy must educate its citizens to identify their
interests with the interests of their country, and should have censors
to preserve its mores. It should seek to establish frugality by law,
so as to prevent its citizens from being tempted to advance their own
private interests at the expense of the public good; for the same
reason, the laws by which property is transferred should aim to
preserve an equal distribution of property among citizens. Its
territory should be small, so that it is easy for citizens to identify
with it, and more difficult for extensive private interests to
emerge.

Democracies can be corrupted in two ways: by what Montesquieu calls
"the spirit of inequality" and "the spirit of extreme equality" (SL
8.2). The spirit of inequality arises when citizens no longer identify
their interests with the interests of their country, and therefore
seek both to advance their own private interests at the expense of
their fellow citizens, and to acquire political power over them. The
spirit of extreme equality arises when the people are no longer
content to be equal as citizens, but want to be equal in every
respect. In a functioning democracy, the people choose magistrates to
exercise executive power, and they respect and obey the magistrates
they have chosen. If those magistrates forfeit their respect, they
replace them. When the spirit of extreme equality takes root, however,
the citizens neither respect nor obey any magistrate. They "want to
manage everything themselves, to debate for the senate, to execute for
the magistrate, and to decide for the judges" (SL 8.2). Eventually the
government will cease to function, the last remnants of virtue will
disappear, and democracy will be replaced by despotism.

In an aristocracy, one part of the people governs the rest. The
principle of an aristocratic government is moderation, the virtue
which leads those who govern in an aristocracy to restrain themselves
both from oppressing the people and from trying to acquire excessive
power over one another. In an aristocracy, the laws should be designed
to instill and protect this spirit of moderation. To do so, they must
do three things. First, the laws must prevent the nobility from
abusing the people. The power of the nobility makes such abuse a
standing temptation in an aristocracy; to avoid it, the laws should
deny the nobility some powers, like the power to tax, which would make
this temptation all but irresistible, and should try to foster
responsible and moderate administration. Second, the laws should
disguise as much as possible the difference between the nobility and
the people, so that the people feel their lack of power as little as
possible. Thus the nobility should have modest and simple manners,
since if they do not attempt to distinguish themselves from the people
"the people are apt to forget their subjection and weakness" (SL 5.8).
Finally, the laws should try to ensure equality among the nobles
themselves, and among noble families. When they fail to do so, the
nobility will lose its spirit of moderation, and the government will
be corrupted.

In a monarchy, one person governs "by fixed and established laws"
(SL 2.1). According to Montesquieu, these laws "necessarily suppose the
intermediate channels through which (the monarch's) power flows: for
if there be only the momentary and capricious will of a single person
to govern the state, nothing can be fixed, and, of course, there is no
fundamental law" (SL 2.4). These 'intermediate channels' are such
subordinate institutions as the nobility and an independent judiciary;
and the laws of a monarchy should therefore be designed to preserve
their power. The principle of monarchical government is honor. Unlike
the virtue required by republican governments, the desire to win honor
and distinction comes naturally to us. For this reason education has a
less difficult task in a monarchy than in a republic: it need only
heighten our ambitions and our sense of our own worth, provide us with
an ideal of honor worth aspiring to, and cultivate in us the
politeness needed to live with others whose sense of their worth
matches our own. The chief task of the laws in a monarchy is to
protect the subordinate institutions that distinguish monarchy from
despotism. To this end, they should make it easy to preserve large
estates undivided, protect the rights and privileges of the nobility,
and promote the rule of law. They should also encourage the
proliferation of distinctions and of rewards for honorable conduct,
including luxuries.

A monarchy is corrupted when the monarch either destroys the
subordinate institutions that constrain his will, or decides to rule
arbitrarily, without regard to the basic laws of his country, or
debases the honors at which his citizens might aim, so that "men are
capable of being loaded at the very same time with infamy and with
dignities" (SL 8.7). The first two forms of corruption destroy the
checks on the sovereign's will that separate monarchy from despotism;
the third severs the connection between honorable conduct and its
proper rewards. In a functioning monarchy, personal ambition and a
sense of honor work together. This is monarchy's great strength and
the source of its extraordinary stability: whether its citizens act
from genuine virtue, a sense of their own worth, a desire to serve
their king, or personal ambition, they will be led to act in ways that
serve their country. A monarch who rules arbitrarily, or who rewards
servility and ignoble conduct instead of genuine honor, severs this
connection and corrupts his government.

In despotic states "a single person directs everything by his own
will and caprice" (SL 2.1). Without laws to check him, and with no
need to attend to anyone who does not agree with him, a despot can do
whatever he likes, however ill-advised or reprehensible. His subjects
are no better than slaves, and he can dispose of them as he sees
fit. The principle of despotism is fear. This fear is easily
maintained, since the situation of a despot's subjects is genuinely
terrifying. Education is unnecessary in a despotism; if it exists at
all, it should be designed to debase the mind and break the
spirit. Such ideas as honor and virtue should not occur to a despot's
subjects, since "persons capable of setting a value on themselves
would be likely to create disturbances. Fear must therefore depress
their spirits, and extinguish even the least sense of ambition" (SL
3.9). Their "portion here, like that of beasts, is instinct,
compliance, and punishment" (SL 3.10), and any higher aspirations
should be brutally discouraged.

Montesquieu writes that "the principle of despotic government is
subject to a continual corruption, because it is even in its nature
corrupt" (SL 8.10). This is true in several senses. First, despotic
governments undermine themselves. Because property is not secure in a
despotic state, commerce will not flourish, and the state will be
poor. The people must be kept in a state of fear by the threat of
punishment; however, over time the punishments needed to keep them in
line will tend to become more and more severe, until further threats
lose their force. Most importantly, however, the despot's character is
likely to prevent him from ruling effectively. Since a despot's every
whim is granted, he "has no occasion to deliberate, to doubt, to
reason; he has only to will" (SL 4.3). For this reason he is never
forced to develop anything like intelligence, character, or
resolution. Instead, he is "naturally lazy, voluptuous, and ignorant"
(SL 2.5), and has no interest in actually governing his people. He
will therefore choose a vizier to govern for him, and retire to his
seraglio to pursue pleasure. In his absence, however, intrigues
against him will multiply, especially since his rule is necessarily
odious to his subjects, and since they have so little to lose if their
plots against him fail. He cannot rely on his army to protect him,
since the more power they have, the greater the likelihood that his
generals will themselves try to seize power. For this reason the ruler
in a despotic state has no more security than his people.

Second, monarchical and republican governments involve specific
governmental structures, and require that their citizens have specific
sorts of motivation. When these structures crumble, or these
motivations fail, monarchical and republican governments are
corrupted, and the result of their corruption is that they fall into
despotism. But when a particular despotic government falls, it is not
generally replaced by a monarchy or a republic. The creation of a
stable monarchy or republic is extremely difficult: "a masterpiece of
legislation, rarely produced by hazard, and seldom attained by
prudence" (SL 5.14). It is particularly difficult when those who would
have both to frame the laws of such a government and to live by them
have previously been brutalized and degraded by despotism. Producing a
despotic government, by contrast, is relatively straightforward. A
despotism requires no powers to be carefully balanced against one
another, no institutions to be created and maintained in existence, no
complicated motivations to be fostered, and no restraints on power to
be kept in place. One need only terrify one's fellow citizens enough
to allow one to impose one's will on them; and this, Montesquieu
claims, "is what every capacity may reach" (SL 5.14). For these
reasons despotism necessarily stands in a different relation to
corruption than other forms of government: while they are liable to
corruption, despotism is its embodiment.

Montesquieu is among the greatest philosophers of liberalism, but his
is what Shklar has called "a liberalism of fear" (Shklar,
Montesquieu, p. 89). According to Montesquieu, political
liberty is "a tranquillity of mind arising from the opinion each
person has of his safety" (SL 11.6). Liberty is not the freedom to do
whatever we want: if we have the freedom to harm others, for instance,
others will also have the freedom to harm us, and we will have no
confidence in our own safety. Liberty involves living under laws that
protect us from harm while leaving us free to do as much as possible,
and that enable us to feel the greatest possible confidence that if we
obey those laws, the power of the state will not be directed against
us.

If it is to provide its citizens with the greatest possible liberty,
a government must have certain features. First, since "constant
experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse
it ... it is necessary from the very nature of things that power
should be a check to power" (SL 11.4). This is achieved through the
separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of
government. If different persons or bodies exercise these powers, then
each can check the others if they try to abuse their powers. But if
one person or body holds several or all of these powers, then nothing
prevents that person or body from acting tyrannically; and the people
will have no confidence in their own security.

Certain arrangements make it easier for the three powers to check one
another. Montesquieu argues that the legislative power alone should
have the power to tax, since it can then deprive the executive of
funding if the latter attempts to impose its will
arbitrarily. Likewise, the executive power should have the right to
veto acts of the legislature, and the legislature should be composed
of two houses, each of which can prevent acts of the other from
becoming law. The judiciary should be independent of both the
legislature and the executive, and should restrict itself to applying
the laws to particular cases in a fixed and consistent manner, so that
"the judicial power, so terrible to mankind, … becomes, as it were,
invisible", and people "fear the office, but not the magistrate" (SL
11.6).

Liberty also requires that the laws concern only threats to public
order and security, since such laws will protect us from harm while
leaving us free to do as many other things as possible. Thus, for
instance, the laws should not concern offenses against God, since He
does not require their protection. They should not prohibit what they
do not need to prohibit: "all punishment which is not derived from
necessity is tyrannical. The law is not a mere act of power; things in
their own nature indifferent are not within its province" (SL 19.14).
The laws should be constructed to make it as easy as possible for
citizens to protect themselves from punishment by not committing
crimes. They should not be vague, since if they were, we might never
be sure whether or not some particular action was a crime. Nor should
they prohibit things we might do inadvertently, like bumping into a
statue of the emperor, or involuntarily, like doubting the wisdom of
one of his decrees; if such actions were crimes, no amount of effort
to abide by the laws of our country would justify confidence that we
would succeed, and therefore we could never feel safe from criminal
prosecution. Finally, the laws should make it as easy as possible for
an innocent person to prove his or her innocence. They should concern
outward conduct, not (for instance) our thoughts and dreams, since
while we can try to prove that we did not perform some action, we
cannot prove that we never had some thought. The laws should not
criminalize conduct that is inherently hard to prove, like witchcraft;
and lawmakers should be cautious when dealing with crimes like sodomy,
which are typically not carried out in the presence of several
witnesses, lest they "open a very wide door to calumny" (SL 12.6).

Montesquieu's emphasis on the connection between liberty and the
details of the criminal law were unusual among his contemporaries, and
inspired such later legal reformers as Cesare Beccaria.

Montequieu believes that climate and geography affect the temperaments
and customs of a country's inhabitants. He is not a determinist, and
does not believe that these influences are irresistible. Nonetheless,
he believes that the laws should take these effects into account,
accommodating them when necessary, and counteracting their worst
effects.

According to Montesquieu, a cold climate constricts our bodies'
fibers, and causes coarser juices to flow through them. Heat, by
contrast, expands our fibers, and produces more rarefied juices. These
physiological changes affect our characters. Those who live in cold
climates are vigorous and bold, phlegmatic, frank, and not given to
suspicion or cunning. They are relatively insensitive to pleasure and
pain; Montesquieu writes that "you must flay a Muscovite alive to make
him feel" (SL 14.2). Those who live in warm climates have stronger but
less durable sensations. They are more fearful, more amorous, and more
susceptible both to the temptations of pleasure and to real or
imagined pain; but they are less resolute, and less capable of
sustained or decisive action. The manners of those who live in
temperate climates are "inconstant", since "the climate has not a
quality determinate enough to fix them" (SL 14.2). These differences
are not hereditary: if one moves from one sort of climate to another,
one's temperament will alter accordingly.

A hot climate can make slavery comprehensible. Montesquieu writes
that "the state of slavery is in its own nature bad" (SL 15.1); he is
particularly contemptuous of religious and racist justifications for
slavery. However, on his view, there are two types of country in which
slavery, while not acceptable, is less bad than it might otherwise
be. In despotic countries, the situation of slaves is not that
different from the situation of the despot's other subjects; for this
reason, slavery in a despotic country is "more tolerable" (SL 15.1) than
in other countries. In unusually hot countries, it might be that "the
excess of heat enervates the body, and renders men so slothful and
dispirited that nothing but the fear of chastisement can oblige them
to perform any laborious duty: slavery is there more reconcilable to
reason" (SL 15.7). However, Montesquieu writes that when work can be
done by freemen motivated by the hope of gain rather than by slaves
motivated by fear, the former will always work better; and that in
such climates slavery is not only wrong but imprudent. He hopes that
"there is not that climate upon earth where the most laborious
services might not with proper encouragement be performed by freemen"
(SL 15.8); if there is no such climate, then slavery could never be
justified on these grounds.

The quality of a country's soil also affects the form of its
government. Monarchies are more common where the soil is fertile, and
republics where it is barren. This is so for three reasons. First,
those who live in fruitful countries are more apt to be content with
their situation, and to value in a government not the liberty it
bestows but its ability to provide them with enough security that they
can get on with their farming. They are therefore more willing to
accept a monarchy if it can provide such security. Often it can, since
monarchies can respond to threats more quickly than republics. Second,
fertile countries are both more desirable than barren countries and
easier to conquer: they "are always of a level surface, where the
inhabitants are unable to dispute against a stronger power; they are
then obliged to submit; and when they have once submitted, the spirit
of liberty cannot return; the wealth of the country is a pledge of
their fidelity" (SL 18.2). Montesquieu believes that monarchies are
much more likely than republics to wage wars of conquest, and
therefore that a conquering power is likely to be a monarchy. Third,
those who live where the soil is barren have to work hard in order to
survive; this tends to make them "industrious, sober, inured to
hardship, courageous, and fit for war" (SL 18.4). Those who inhabit
fertile country, by contrast, favor "ease, effeminacy, and a certain
fondness for the preservation of life" (SL 18.4). For this reason, the
inhabitants of barren countries are better able to defend themselves
from such attacks as might occur, and to defend their liberty against
those who would destroy it.

These facts give barren countries advantages that compensate for the
infertility of their soil. Since they are less likely to be invaded,
they are less likely to be sacked and devastated; and they are more
likely to be worked well, since "countries are not cultivated in
proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty" (SL 18.3). This
is why "the best provinces are most frequently depopulated, while the
frightful countries of the North continue always inhabited, from their
being almost uninhabitable" (SL 18.3).

Montesquieu believes that the climate and geography of Asia explain
why despotism flourishes there. Asia, he thinks, has two features that
distinguish it from Europe. First, Asia has virtually no temperate
zone. While the mountains of Scandinavia shelter Europe from arctic
winds, Asia has no such buffer; for this reason its frigid northern
zone extends much further south than in Europe, and there is a
relatively quick transition from it to the tropical south. For this
reason "the warlike, brave, and active people touch immediately upon
those who are indolent, effeminate and timorous; the one must,
therefore, conquer, and the other be conquered" (SL 17.3). In Europe,
by contrast, the climate changes gradually from cold to hot; therefore
"strong nations are opposed to the strong; and those who join each
other have nearly the same courage" (SL 17.3). Second, Asia has larger
plains than Europe. Its mountain ranges lie further apart, and its
rivers are not such formidable barriers to invasion. Since Europe is
naturally divided into smaller regions, it is more difficult for any
one power to conquer them all; this means that Europe will tend to
have more and smaller states. Asia, by contrast, tends to have much
larger empires, which predisposes it to despotism.

Of all the ways in which a country might seek to enrich itself,
Montesquieu believes, commerce is the only one without overwhelming
drawbacks. Conquering and plundering one's neighbors can provide
temporary infusions of money, but over time the costs of maintaining
an occupying army and administering subjugated peoples impose strains
that few countries can endure. Extracting precious metals from
colonial mines leads to general inflation; thus the costs of
extraction increase while the value of the extracted metals
decreases. The increased availability of money furthers the
development of commerce in other countries; however, in the country
which extracts gold and silver, domestic industry is destroyed.

Commerce, by contrast, has no such disadvantages. It does not require
vast armies, or the continued subjugation of other peoples. It does
not undermine itself, as the extraction of gold from colonial mines
does, and it rewards domestic industry. It therefore sustains itself,
and nations which engage in it, over time. While it does not produce
all the virtues -- hospitality, Montesquieu thinks, is more often
found among the poor than among commercial peoples -- it does produce
some: "the spirit of commerce is naturally attended with that of
frugality, economy, moderation, labor, prudence, tranquility, order,
and rule" (SL 5.6). In addition, it "is a cure for the most
destructive prejudices" (SL 20.1), improves manners, and leads to
peace among nations.

In monarchies, Montesquieu believes, the aim of commerce is, for the
most part, to supply luxuries. In republics, it is to bring from one
country what is wanted in another, "gaining little" but "gaining
incessantly" (SL 20.4). In despotisms, there is very little commerce
of any kind, since there is no security of property. In a monarchy,
neither kings nor nobles should engage in commerce, since this would
risk concentrating too much power in their hands. By the same token,
there should be no banks in a monarchy, since a treasure "no sooner
becomes great than it becomes the treasure of the prince" (SL 20.10).
In republics, by contrast, banks are extremely useful, and anyone
should be allowed to engage in trade. Restrictions on which profession
a person can follow destroy people's hopes of bettering their
situation; they are therefore appropriate only to despotic states.

While some mercantilists had argued that commerce is a zero-sum game
in which when some gain, others necessarily lose, Montesquieu believes
that commerce benefits all countries except those who have nothing but
their land and what it produces. In those deeply impoverished
countries, commerce with other countries will encourage those who own
the land to oppress those who work it, rather than encouraging the
development of domestic industries and manufacture. However, all other
countries benefit by commerce, and should seek to trade with as many
other nations as possible, "for it is competition which sets a just
value on merchandise, and establishes the relation between them" (SL
20.9).

Montesquieu describes commerce as an activity that cannot be confined
or controlled by any individual government or monarch. This, in his
view, has always been true: "Commerce is sometimes destroyed by
conquerors, sometimes cramped by monarchs; it traverses the earth,
flies from the places where it is oppressed, and stays where it has
liberty to breathe" (SL 21.5). However, the independence of commerce
was greatly enhanced when, during the medieval period, Jews responded
to persecution and the seizure of their property by inventing letters
of exchange. "Commerce, by this method, became capable of eluding
violence, and of maintaining everywhere its ground; the richest
merchant having none but invisible effects, which he could convey
imperceptibly wherever he pleased" (SL 21.20). This set in motion
developments which made commerce still more independent of monarchs
and their whims.

First, it facilitated the development of international markets, which
place prices outside the control of governments. Money, according to
Montesquieu, is "a sign which represents the value of all
merchandise" (SL 22.2). The price of merchandise depends on the
quantity of money and the quantity of merchandise, and on the amounts
of money and merchandise that are in trade. Monarchs can affect this
price by imposing tariffs or duties on certain goods. But since they
cannot control the amounts of money and merchandise that are in trade
within their own countries, let alone internationally, a monarch "can
no more fix the price of merchandise than he can establish by a decree
that the relation 1 has to 10 is equal to that of 1 to 20" (SL 22.7).
If a monarch attempts to do so, he courts disaster: "Julian's lowering
the price of provisions at Antioch was the cause of a most terrible
famine" (SL 22.7).

Second, it permitted the development of international currency
exchanges, which place the exchange rate of a country's currency
largely outside the control of that country's government. A monarch
can establish a currency, and stipulate how much of some metal each
unit of that currency shall contain. However, monarchs cannot control
the rates of exchange between their currencies and those of other
countries. These rates depend on the relative scarcity of money in the
countries in question, and they are "fixed by the general opinion of
the merchants, never by the decrees of the prince" (SL 22.10). For
this reason "the exchange of all places constantly tends to a certain
proportion, and that in the very nature of things" (SL 22.10).

Finally, the development of international commerce gives governments
a great incentive to adopt policies that favor, or at least do not
impede, its development. Governments need to maintain confidence in
their creditworthiness if they wish to borrow money; this deters them
from at least the more extreme forms of fiscal irresponsibility, and
from oppressing too greatly those citizens from whom they might later
need to borrow money. Since the development of commerce requires the
availability of loans, governments must establish interest rates high
enough to encourage lending, but not so high as to make borrowing
unprofitable. Taxes must not be so high that they deprive citizens of
the hope of bettering their situations (SL 13.2), and the laws should
allow those citizens enough freedom to carry out commercial affairs.

In general, Montesquieu believes that commerce has had an extremely
beneficial influence on government. Since commerce began to recover
after the development of letters of exchange and the reintroduction of
lending at interest, he writes:

it became necessary that princes
should govern with more prudence than they themselves could ever have
imagined; for great exertions of authority were, in the event, found
to be impolitic ... We begin to be cured of Machiavelism, and recover
from it every day. More moderation has become necessary in the
councils of princes. What would formerly have been called a
master-stroke in politics would be now, independent of the horror it
might occasion, the greatest imprudence. Happy is it for men that they
are in a situation in which, though their passions prompt them to be
wicked, it is, nevertheless, to their interest to be humane and
virtuous. (SL 21.20)

Religion plays only a minor part in the Spirit of the Laws. God
is described in Book 1 as creating nature and its laws; having done
so, He vanishes, and plays no further explanatory role. In particular,
Montesquieu does not explain the laws of any country by appeal to
divine enlightenment, providence, or guidance. In the Spirit of the
Laws, Montesquieu considers religions "in relation only to the
good they produce in civil society" (SL 24.1), and not to their truth
or falsity. He regards different religions as appropriate to different
environments and forms of government. Protestantism is most suitable
to republics, Catholicism to monarchies, and Islam to despotisms; the
Islamic prohibition on eating pork is appropriate to Arabia, where hogs
are scarce and contribute to disease, while in India, where cattle are
badly needed but do not thrive, a prohibition on eating beef is
suitable. Thus, "when Montezuma with so much obstinacy insisted that
the religion of the Spaniards was good for their country, and his for
Mexico, he did not assert an absurdity" (SL 24.24).

Religion can help to ameliorate the effects of bad laws and
institutions; it is the only thing capable of serving as a check on
despotic power. However, on Montesquieu's view it is generally a
mistake to base civil laws on religious principles. Religion aims at
the perfection of the individual; civil laws aim at the welfare of
society. Given these different aims, what these two sets of laws
should require will often differ; for this reason religion "ought not
always to serve as a first principle to the civil laws" (SL 26.9). The
civil laws are not an appropriate tool for enforcing religious norms
of conduct: God has His own laws, and He is quite capable of enforcing
them without our assistance. When we attempt to enforce God's laws for
Him, or to cast ourselves as His protectors, we make our religion an
instrument of fanaticism and oppression; this is a service neither to
God nor to our country.

If several religions have gained adherents in a country, those
religions should all be tolerated, not only by the state but by its
citizens. The laws should "require from the several religions, not
only that they shall not embroil the state, but that they shall not
raise disturbances among themselves" (SL 25.9). While one can try to
persuade people to change religions by offering them positive
inducements to do so, attempts to force others to convert are
ineffective and inhumane. In an unusually scathing passage,
Montesquieu also argues that they are unworthy of Christianity, and
writes: "if anyone in times to come shall dare to assert, that in the
age in which we live, the people of Europe were civilized, you (the
Inquisition) will be cited to prove that they were barbarians; and the
idea they will have of you will be such as will dishonor your age, and
spread hatred over all your contemporaries" (SL 25.13).

Oakeshott, Michael, 1993, “The Investigation of the
‘Character’ of Modern Politics”, in Morality and
Politics in Modern Europe: The Harvard Lectures, Shirley
Letwin (ed.), New Haven: Yale University Press.

Pangle, Thomas, 1973, Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalism: A
Commentary on The Spirit of the Laws, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.

Rahe, Paul, 2009, Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty,
New Haven: Yale University Press.

Helvetius' Response to The Spirit of the Laws,
maintained by The Library of Economics and Liberty and Liberty Fund,
Inc., a private, educational foundation established to encourage the
study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible
individuals.

Condorcet's Response to The Spirit of the Laws,
maintained by The Library of Economics and Liberty and Liberty Fund,
Inc., a private, educational foundation established to encourage the
study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible
individuals.