No More Learning

If a Man should importune me to give a reason why I lov'd him
[Etienne de la Boëtic]; I find it could no otherwise be exprest,
than by making answer, because it was he, because it was I.
There is, beyond I am able to say, I know not what inexplicable
and fatal power that brought on this Union. We sought one
another long before we met, and by the Characters we heard of
one another, which wrought more upon our Affections, than in
reason, meer reports should do, I think by some secret appoint-
ment of Heaven, we embraced in our Names; and at our first
meeting, which was accidentally at a great City entertainment,
we found ourselves so mutually taken with one another, so ac-
quainted, and so endear'd betwixt our selves, that from thence-
forward nothing was so near to us as one another. He writ an
excellent Latin Satyr, which I since Printed, wherein he excuses
the precipitation of our intelligence, so suddenly come to perfec-
tion, saying, that being to have so short a continuance, as being
begun so late (for we were both full grown Men, and he some
Years the older), there was no time to lose; nor was ti'd to con-
form it self to the example of those slow and regular Friendships,
that require so many precautions of a long præliminary Conver-
sation. This has no other Idea, than that of its self; this is no
one particular consideration, nor two, nor three, nor four, nor a
thousand: 'tis I know not what quintessence of all this mixture,
which, seizing my whole Will, carried it to plunge and lose it self
in his, and that having seiz'd his whole Will, brought it back
with equal concurrence and appetite, to plunge and lose it self in
mine. I may truly say, lose, reserving nothing to our selves,
that was either his or mine.
Cotton's Translation, 1685.
OF BOOKS
From the Essays'
I
MAKE no doubt but that I often happen to speak of things
that are much better and more truly handled by those who
are masters of the trade. You have here purely an essay of
my natural parts, and not of those acquired: and whoever shall
catch me tripping in ignorance, will not in any sort get the bet-
ter of me; for I should be very unwilling to become responsible


## p. 10243 (#55) ###########################################

MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
10243
to another for my writings, who am not so to myself, nor satis-
fied with them. Whoever goes in quest of knowledge, let him
fish for it where it is to be found; there is nothing I so little
profess. These are fancies of my own, by which I do not pre-
tend to discover things but to lay open myself; they may, per-
adventure, one day be known to me, or have formerly been,
according as fortune has been able to bring me in place where
they have been explained; but I have utterly forgotten it: and if
I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retention; so
that I can promise no certainty, more than to make known to
what point the knowledge I now have has risen. Therefore, let
none lay stress upon the matter I write, but upon my method in
writing it. Let them observe, in what I borrow, if I have known
how to choose what is proper to raise or help the invention,
which is always my own. For I make others say for me, not
before but after me, what, either for want of language or want
of sense, I cannot myself so well express. I do not number my
borrowings, I weigh them; and had I designed to raise their
value by number, I had made them twice as many; they are all,
or within a very few, so famed and ancient authors, that they
seem, methinks, themselves sufficiently to tell who they are, with-
out giving me the trouble. In reasons, comparisons, and argu-
ments, if I transplant any into my own soil, and confound them
amongst my own, I purposely conceal the author, to awe the
temerity of those precipitate censors who fall upon all sorts of
writings, particularly the late ones, of men yet living, and in the
vulgar tongue which puts every one into a capacity of criticiz-
ing, and which seems to convict the conception and design as
vulgar also. I will have them give Plutarch a fillip on my nose,
and rail against Seneca when they think they rail at me.
I seek, in the reading of books, only to please myself, by an
honest diversion; or if I study, 'tis for no other science than what
treats of the knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to die
and how to live well.
·
"Has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus. "
I do not bite my nails about the difficulties I meet with in
my reading; after a charge or two, I give them over. Should I
insist upon them, I should both lose myself and time: for I have
an impatient understanding, that must be satisfied at first; what
*"Unto that goal my steed must needs make haste. "


## p. 10244 (#56) ###########################################

10244
MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
I do not discern at once, is by persistence rendered more obscure.
I do nothing without gayety; continuation and a too obstinate
endeavor darkens, stupefies, and tires my judgment. My sight is
confounded and dissipated with poring; I must withdraw it, and
defer my discovery to a new attempt; just as to judge rightly
of the lustre of scarlet, we are taught to pass the eye lightly
over it, and again to run it over at several sudden and reiter-
ated glances. If one book do not please me, I take another; and
never meddle with any, but at such times as I am weary of doing
nothing. I do not care for new ones, because the old seem fuller
and stronger; neither do I converse much with Greek authors,
because my judgment cannot do its work with imperfect intelli-
gence of the material.
But, to pursue the business of this essay, I have always
thought that, in poesy, Virgil, Lucretius, Catullus, and Horace
by many degrees excel the rest; and signally, Virgil in his
Georgics, which I look upon as the most accomplished piece in
poetry.
.
As to what concerns my other reading, that mixes a little
more profit with the pleasure; and whence I learn how to mar-
shal my opinions and conditions, the books that serve me to this
purpose are Plutarch (since he has been translated into French)
and Seneca. Both of these have this notable convenience suited
to my humor, that the knowledge I there seek is discoursed in
loose pieces, that do not require from me any trouble of reading
long, of which I am incapable. Such are the minor works of the
first and the epistles of the latter, which are the best and most
profiting of all their writings. 'Tis no great attempt to take one
of them in hand, and I give over at pleasure; for they have no
sequence or dependence upon one another. These authors, for
the most part, concur in useful and true opinions: and there is
this parallel betwixt them, that fortune brought them into the
world about the same century; they were both tutors to two
Roman emperors; both sought out from foreign countries; both
rich and both great men. Their instruction is the cream of
philosophy, and delivered after a plain and pertinent manner.
Plutarch is more uniform and constant; Seneca more various and
waving the last toiled and bent his whole strength to fortify
virtue against weakness, fear, and vicious appetites; the other
seems more to slight their power, and to disdain to alter his pace
and to stand upon his guard. Plutarch's opinions are Platonic,
gentle, and accommodated to civil society; those of the other are


## p. 10245 (#57) ###########################################

MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
10245
Stoical and Epicurean, more remote from the common use, but
in my opinion more individually commodious and more firm.
Seneca seems to lean a little to the tyranny of the emperors of
his time, and only seems; for I take it for certain that he speaks
against his judgment when he condemns the action of the gener-
ous murderers of Cæsar. Plutarch is frank throughout; Seneca
abounds with brisk touches and sallies, Plutarch with things that
heat and move you more: this contents and pays you better;
he guides us, the other pushes us on.
As to Cicero, those of his works that are most useful to my
design are they that treat of philosophy, especially moral. But
boldly to confess the truth (for since one has passed the barriers
of impudence, off with the bridle), his way of writing, and that
of all other long-winded authors, appears to me very tedious: for
his prefaces, definitions, divisions, and etymologies take up the
greatest part of his work; whatever there is of life and marrow
is smothered and lost in the long preparation. When I have
spent an hour in reading him, which is a great deal for me,-
and try to recollect what I have thence extracted of juice and
substance, for the most part I find nothing but wind; for he is
not yet come to the arguments that serve to his purpose, and to
the reasons that properly help to form the knot I seek. For me,
who only desire to become more wise, not more learned or elo-
quent, these logical and Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of
no use. I would have a man begin with the main proposition.
I know well enough what death and pleasure are: let no man
give himself the trouble to anatomize them for me. I look for
good and solid reasons, at the first dash, to instruct me how to
stand their shock; for which purpose neither grammatical subtle-
ties nor the quaint contexture of words are argumentations of
any use at all. I am for discourses that give the first charge
into the heart of the redoubt: his languish about the subject; they
are proper for the schools, for the bar, and for the pulpit, where
we have leisure to nod, and may awake a quarter of an hour after,
-time enough to find again the thread of the discourse. It is
necessary to speak after this manner to judges, whom a man has
a design to gain over, right or wrong; to children and common
people, to whom a man must say all, and see what will come
of it. I would not have an author make it his business to ren-
der me attentive.
I come already fully prepared from
my chamber.
I need no allurement, no invitation, no sauce;
•
·
-


## p. 10246 (#58) ###########################################

10246
MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
I eat the meat raw, so that instead of whetting my appetite by
these preparatives, they tire and pall it. Will the license of the
time excuse my sacrilegious boldness if I censure the dialogism
of Plato himself as also dull and heavy, too much stifling the
matter, and lament so much time lost by a man who had so
many better things to say, in so many long and needless pre-
liminary interlocutions? My ignorance will better excuse me, in
that I understand not Greek so well as to discern the beauty of
his language. I generally choose books that use sciences, not
such as only lead to them.
The historians are my right ball: for they are pleasant and
easy, and where man in general, the knowledge of whom I hunt
after, appears more vividly and entire than anywhere else: the
variety and truth of his internal qualities in gross and piecemeal,
the diversity of means by which he is united and knit, and the
accidents that threaten him. Now those that write lives, by
reason they insist more upon counsels than events, more upon
what sallies from within than upon what happens without, are
the most proper for my reading; and therefore, above all others,
Plutarch is the man for me.
Cæsar, in my opinion,
particularly deserves to be studied, not for the knowledge of
the history only, but for himself, so great an excellence and per-
fection he has above all the rest, though Sallust be one of the
number. In earnest I read this author with more reverence and
respect than is usually allowed to human writings: one while
considering him in his person, by his actions and miraculous
greatness, and another in the purity and inimitable polish of
his language, wherein he not only excels all other historians, as
Cicero confesses, but peradventure even Cicero himself; speak-
ing of his enemies with so much sincerity in his judgment, that
(the false colors with which he strives to palliate his evil cause,
and the ordure of his pestilent ambition, excepted) I think there
is no fault to be objected against him, saving this, that he speaks
too sparingly of himself,-seeing so many great things could
not have been performed under his conduct, but that his own
personal acts must necessarily have had a greater share in them
than he attributes to them.
Translation of William Carew Hazlitt.


## p. 10247 (#59) ###########################################

MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
10247
•
OF REPENTANCE
From the Essays'
O
THERS form man: I only report him; and represent a par-
ticular one, ill fashioned enough, and whom, if I had to
model him anew, I should certainly make something else
than what he is: but that's past recalling. Now, though the feat-
ures of my picture alter and change, 'tis not, however, unlike:
the world eternally turns round; all things therein are incessantly
moving,— the earth, the rocks of Caucasus, and the Pyramids of
Egypt, both by the public motion and their own. Even con-
stancy itself is no other but a slower and more languishing mo-
tion.
I must accommodate my history to the hour: I
may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
Could my soul once take footing, I would not essay but
resolve; but it is always learning and making trial.
I propose a life ordinary and without lustre; 'tis all one: all
moral philosophy may as well be applied to a common and pri-
vate life, as to one of richer composition; every man carries the
entire form of human condition. Authors communicate them-
selves to the people by some especial and extrinsic mark: I, the
first of any, by my universal being; as Michel de Montaigne, not
as a grammarian, a poet, or a lawyer. If the world find fault
that I speak too much of myself, I find fault that they do not
so much as think of themselves.
I have this, at least,
according to discipline, that never any man treated of a subject
he better understood and knew, than I what I have undertaken,
and that in this I am the most understanding man alive: sec-
ondly, that never any man penetrated farther into his matter,
nor better and more distinctly sifted the parts and sequences of
it, nor ever more exactly and fully arrived at the end he pro-
posed to himself. To perfect it, I need bring nothing but fidel-
ity to the work; and that is there, and the most pure and sincere
that is anywhere to be found. I speak truth, not so much as I
would, but as much as I dare: and I dare a little the more, as
I grow older; for methinks custom allows to age more liberty of
prating, and more indiscretion of talking of a man's self.
My book and I go hand in hand together. Elsewhere men may
commend or censure the work, without reference to the workman;
here they cannot: who touches the one, touches the other. .
I shall be happy beyond my desert, if I can obtain only thus


## p. 10248 (#60) ###########################################

10248
MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
much from the public approbation, as to make men of under-
standing perceive that I was capable of profiting by knowledge,
had I had it; and that I deserved to have been assisted by a
better memory.
Be pleased here to excuse what I often repeat, that I very
rarely repent, and that my conscience is satisfied with itself, not
as the conscience of an angel, or that of a horse, but as the con-
science of a man; always adding this clause,- not one of cere-
mony, but a true and real submission,- that I speak inquiring
and doubting, purely and simply referring myself to the com-
mon and accepted beliefs for the resolution. I do not teach, I
only relate.
Translation of William Carew Hazlitt.


## p. 10248 (#61) ###########################################



## p. 10248 (#62) ###########################################


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## p. 10248 (#63) ###########################################

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## p. 10248 (#64) ###########################################


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## p. 10249 (#65) ###########################################

10249
MONTESQUIEU
(1689-1755)
BY FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE
NTO whatever condition of life a man is born, he finds the
State made up. If he discovers that society is ever in a
flux, he will also discover that its foundations are laid deep.
The complexity of his surrounding may awaken his astonishment, his
acquiescence, or his resentment. With desire to know, he may work
out a political system of things and men. Its value to himself or to
others depends on his insight, his data, his conclusions.
These may
be narrow and limited. His intellection may remain only for a brief
time a part of his own little world. Or his may be the insight of
genius; his data, of the whole world; his conclusions, those of a
philosopher. He may have put into literary form for use and appli-
cation in that vast public business which we call government, the
experience of men in all ages, under different skies, and animated by
different conceptions of life.
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu,
was born at the château of La Brède, near Bordeaux in 1689. He
came of aristocratic stock on both sides, and inherited title, place,
and the life presidency of the Parliament of Bordeaux. With leisure,
money, scholarly tastes, and a great fondness for society, the young
man found life a delightful and instructive experience. At twenty-
five he was admitted counselor of the Parliament. At twenty-six he
married an heiress. At twenty-seven he found himself, by his uncle's
will, one of the richest and most influential men in the department.
And now, with the famous 'Persian Letters,' he began his serious
work in literature. This book was made up of correspondence be-
tween two imaginary Persians of high rank, supposed to be traveling
in Europe, and their friends at home. The letters satirize the social,
political, ecclesiastical, and literary follies of the time with brilliant
audacity. Though anonymous, the book was at once attributed to
Montesquieu, and at the height of its vogue was suppressed by a
ministerial decree. The irresistible wit of the letters, their crush-
ing satire, and their elegant style, made the decree of the censor the
trumpet of their fame; and from the day of their publication they
set a fashion in literature. Who will venture now to estimate the


## p. 10250 (#66) ###########################################

10250
MONTESQUIEU
number of jealous, discomfited, and unsuccessful authors whose cry
as gone up,-"Let us write some Persian letters also. "
Another anonymous work appeared thirteen years later: the 'Con-
siderations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the
Romans. ' Its authorship was soon suspected. Who save Montesquieu
had such comprehension, such reflections, such a style? Yet this
study of Roman civilization, that would make the reputation of any
author, proved to be only the herald of Montesquieu's great work
'The Spirit of Laws. ' It was published while he was in the midst
of his political studies; and it bears interesting, and perhaps organic
relation to the closing chapters of that work.
After its occupying him for twenty years, Montesquieu published
his masterpiece, the Spirit of Laws,' at Geneva, in 1748. In less
than two years it had passed into twenty-two editions. Time works
out all equations, and resolves individuals and nations into their true
elements. It has resolved Montesquieu into a political institution.
His function is akin to that of great masses of men, organized as
society, working out principles on which the State is laid. Because
he expounds rather than codifies, he differs from Moses and Solon.
Because he is a realist, and a modern, he differs from Plato and
Aristotle. The whole world, down to his time, is his political parish,
and he is singularly free from the prejudices that usually come from
race, religion, country, occupation, and age. Because of this mental
wholeness, his work provoked the hostility of sectaries, of political
schools, of established orders of men. It illustrated antiquity, and
marked the inauguration of a new order of the ages. Like great and
useful political institutions, it is more fitting to attempt to measure
its effects than to criticize its scope, plan, or character.
It appeared at a critical time. Democracy, in France, in England,
in America, was stirring like sap in early spring; and leaf, flower,
and bud, fruiting in revolution, were on the way. Yet it was not of
democracy, specially, that he wrote; nor of aristocracy; nor of des-
potism. He never discloses his politics. His theme was more pro-
found than a discussion of the mere form of the State. The State he
found in various forms, and his purpose was to discover the law that
regulates all forms. Analysis and illustration with him were way-
side inns along the road to principles. Amidst the flux of human
institutions he sought that which abides. His work therefore is
economic, and its whole spirit modern. He knew men: he could dis-
close the spirit of their laws.
A hundred and fifty years have passed since he wrote, and the
world has greatly changed: in large degree because of his instruc-
tion. Though he presents the State primarily as a compact, he shows
that it is so only in form: it is essentially an organism. Political


## p. 10251 (#67) ###########################################

MONTESQUIEU
10251
institutions fall wholly within the domain of law. Words of high rank
in the dictionary of politics—such as equality, luxury, education, mo-
rality, order, liberty- are in substance the masque of functions, and
they co-ordinate the State in administration. Taxation is a method
of common protection, whatever the form of the State. It is nature
that sets the pace in government; therefore let those who organ-
ize and administer the State duly consider race, soil, and climate, for
these affect the morals, the religion, the character of a people. Gov-
ernments become an illustration of his famed definition of the laws:
"the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. " These
relations extend throughout the sphere of human activities, and are
disclosed by the operation of forces more or less clear, whatever
the form of the State. Of these forces, which he called the spirit
of laws, he wrote. Passing over the field affected by this spirit, he
found all human interests inclosed within it.
A book of relations like this would make much of commerce
and its tributaries. In whatever way a people foster commerce, they
will thereby give a clew to the spirit of their political institutions.
This, it may be observed, is distinctively a modern view of the State.
Montesquieu anticipates our own time by recognizing that persons
outrank things in the State. Democracy in America has as yet not
fully caught up with this idea. He sees in money a sign or symbol
of values; and in wealth, the capacity of a people to realize the
opportunities of civilization. Fundamental to the State is the family;
whence the importance of the laws affecting marriage, the domestic
relations, the rights of women and children, and the relation the
State holds to them. Perpetuity is a paramount function of the
State; whence laws of religion and of war, those affecting ecclesi-
astical orders, church tenures, crimes and punishments. He suggests
but less often draws conclusions, and in this lies no small part of his
influence.
Though saying much of laws, he is not a mere legalist: other-
wise his work would be no more than a masterly treatise on codes
and decrees, or an abstruse speculation on human government. His
'Considérations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et de la Décadence des
Romains' has been pronounced by some to be his most learned work;
yet its learning has not given it the utility of the Spirit of Laws. '
It is rich in illustration; subtle in analysis; comprehensive in con-
clusions. But the Roman era closed, and the modern, the English,
began, about the time of the appearance of this book in 1734. An-
tiquity until then was the world's chief instructor; but after the
opening of the second half of the eighteenth century, the ancient
régime was found to demand translation, and much of its political
wisdom to be useless to the modern world. No one recognized this


## p. 10252 (#68) ###########################################

10252
MONTESQUIEU
more clearly than did Montesquieu; and his was the genius to trans-
form the whole estate of politics into a fee simple, vested in the
individual citizen of the new régime. His influence in England and
America illustrates this. Any nation is fond of the philosopher who
discovers its admirable qualities, and especially when they are ob-
scure to those who enjoy them. England stands in such an attitude
to Montesquieu. He is popularly credited with the discovery of the
tripartite form of the English Constitution, and was the first eminent
Continental scholar to locate liberty in its purest form in the British
Isles. If all this discovery was of a tendency rather than of a fact,
it still counted in administration; and though a mere tendency, its
consequences were bound to be great.
Among the first of Englishmen who spoke with authority and
recognized Montesquieu was Justice Blackstone. Early in his 'Com-
mentaries' he cited the 'Spirit of Laws' as of rank with the opinions
of Coke, of Grotius, and of Justinian. But this friendly citation was
less fruitful in political effects in England than in America. The
'Spirit of Laws' had been published ten years when Blackstone
entered upon his duties as Vinerian Professor of Law at Oxford, and
was known to the Americans. Almost at the opening of his 'Com-
mentaries, Blackstone quotes Montesquieu as authority that England
was perhaps the only country in which political and civil liberty was
the end and scope of the Constitution. A Frenchman who would say
that was sure of fame in English foot-notes. The Commentaries'
at their appearance became the text-book for all students of English
law, and in America were used with great ardor. There political
changes were pending. A revolution was at hand, and chiefly be-
cause the colonists believed that they were denied the ancient and
undoubted rights of Englishmen. Colonialism fast gave way to con-
tinentalism. A Congress assembled to take stock of grievances and
to appeal to the whole world. This included the inhabitants of
Quebec, to whom an address, written by John Dickinson, was sent.
He was its author because of his familiarity with the French lan-
guage.
The address consisted chiefly of pertinent quotations from
the Spirit of Laws. ' England was accused of attempting to subvert
civil authority in America. Was not this contrary to "your country-
man, the immortal Montesquieu? " Did he not say-"In a free State
every man, as is supposed of a free agent, ought to be concerned in
his own government: therefore the legislative should reside in the
whole body of the people, or their representatives;" "The political
liberty of the subject is the tranquillity of mind arising from the
opinion which a person has of his safety;" "In order to have this lib-
erty, it is requisite that government be so constituted that one man
need not be afraid of another;" "When the power of making laws


## p. 10253 (#69) ###########################################

MONTESQUIEU
10253
and the power of executing them are united in the same person, or
the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty, because appre-
hensions may arise lest the same monarch or magistrates should enact
tyrannical laws and execute them in a tyrannical manner;" "The
power of judging should be exercised by persons taken from the
body of the people at certain times of the year, pursuant to a form
and manner prescribed by law;" "There is no liberty if the power of
judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers;"
"Military men belong to a profession which may be useful, but is
often dangerous;" "The enjoyment of liberty, and even its support
and preservation, consists in every man's being allowed to speak his
thoughts and lay open his sentiments"?
What was the significance of all this, more than that Montes-
quieu knew the British Constitution, that he had pointed out the true
spirit of laws, and that he was the court of last resort when a civil
war was impending between the parts of an empire?
Had not Great
Britain accepted his interpretation of liberty, in the writings of the
greatest commentator on her laws? This was turning the tables,
and the Americans pressed their point. The Quebec address was
read with enthusiasm everywhere in America except Quebec. Mon-
tesquieu was henceforth the political guide-book of the new nation.
Here was to be found the wisdom of the ages all arranged for prac-
tical use, awaiting independent America. As the colonies became
commonwealths they modified the form of their constitutions; and
the men who made the changes knew Montesquieu as familiarly as
they knew the traditions of Englishmen. This is evident from the
speeches they made; the pamphlets they wrote; the constitutions
they adopted.
Montesquieu thus became grafted into American institutions during
that critical period from 1765 to 1776. Nor was this the end. A more
critical period followed. Jefferson shows the influence of Montesquieu
in the great Declaration. Madison, Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton, and
the men of their generation in America who received legal or collegi-
ate training, read Montesquieu (and the other political encyclopædists)
with intent to use his wisdom in practical politics. They knew him
even better than they knew Blackstone.
As soon as Washington decided to attend the Federal Conven-
tion at Philadelphia, "he made himself familiar with the reasonings
of Montesquieu. " His copy of the 'Spirit of Laws,' like Madison's,
attests by its marginal notes with what care it was read. In the
Convention, as the Constitution evolved, no writer was quoted as of
higher authority. On several occasions Dickinson showed that he
had not forgotten the Quebec address or its principal authority. Nor
was this the conclusion of the matter. Two of the framers of the


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10254
MONTESQUIEU
Constitution, Hamilton and Madison, and Jay, soon to be called to
expound it,-projected and wrote a series of newspaper articles,
known as the 'Federalist,' in exposition and defense of the proposed
plan; directed to the people of the State of New York, who at the
time were considering the question of ratification. Of the twenty
foot-notes to the Federalist,' three refer to Blackstone and three to
the Spirit of Laws'; but the references to Montesquieu are accom-
panied by quotations, one of which is the longest quotation in the
'Federalist. ' The ninth and the seventy-eighth numbers, in which the
quotations from Montesquieu occur, are by Hamilton. The paramount
influence of Montesquieu in the American constitutions is seen in the
practically successful separation of the three functions of the State,
"to the end," as the Constitution of Massachusetts puts it, that "it may
be a government of laws and not of men"; and, as this and others
provide, that one department shall never exercise the powers of either
of the others. The phrase "checks and balances in government," which
occurs so often in American political literature down to 1850, though
not originating with Montesquieu, is an American abbreviation of a
large use of him in practical politics. When it is remembered that
the American constitutions are the oldest written constitutions in
existence, that they have become precedents for all later republics,
and that they have powerfully affected the written and the unwritten
constitutions of European nations,—the influence of Montesquieu must
be acknowledged to be as wide-spread, in our day, as are the sources
on which he based his profound conclusions.
To this influence, as it were by dynastic and political succession,
there must be added the economic and educational influence he has
long exercised in all civilized countries. He has been a principal
text-book in politics for a century and a half. In English-speaking
lands he has quite displaced Aristotle; for he is found, on trial, to
be the only writer whom a modern student can understand without
such a body of corrective notes as to make the original text a mere
exercise in translation. Specialization, which characterizes modern
scholarship, has relegated portions of the Spirit of Laws' to the
epoch-making books of the past, and has left those portions as a sort
of political encyclopædia that the world has outgrown. Time is a
trying editor, and many who read Montesquieu now feel that they
are going over some old edition of a general treatise on government.
What change is this in a book which, as Helvetius and Saurin, fellow
Academicians, warned Montesquieu, contained so many innovations
that his reputation would be destroyed! His reply was, "Prolem sine
creatam" (Spare the born child).
Fortune favored Montesquieu at birth and through life. Ten years
in the hereditary office of chief justice at Bordeaux, near which city


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MONTESQUIEU
10255
he was born, completed his public services. He was thirty-seven
when he resigned and entered upon the life of the scholar. Montes-
quieu was an academician and an encyclopædist, and with Voltaire,
helped to turn the world upside down. But between the two men
acquaintance never ripened into love. The Persian Letters,' which
Montesquieu published at thirty-two, laid the foundations of his fame,
and started a controversy that raged even at his death-bed.
"Vous savez, Monsieur le President," began the curate of Saint
Sulpice, in exhortation, as Montesquieu lay dying, "Vous savez com-
bien Dieu est grand. " "Oui," quickly replied the philosopher, "et
combien les hommes sont petits. "
Francis Nurton Thorpe
ON THE POWER OF PUNISHMENTS
From The Spirit of Laws'
E
XPERIENCE Shows that in countries remarkable for the lenity
of their laws, the spirit of the inhabitants is as much affected
by slight penalties as in other countries by severer punish-
ments.
If an inconveniency or abuse arises in the State, a violent gov-
ernment endeavors suddenly to redress it; and instead of putting
the old laws in execution, it establishes some cruel punishment,
which instantly puts a stop to the evil. But the spring of gov
ernment hereby loses its elasticity: the imagination grows accus-
tomed to the severe as well as to the milder punishment; and as
the fear of the latter diminishes, they are soon obliged in every
case to have recourse to the former. Robberies on the highway
were grown common in some countries. In order to remedy this
evil, they invented the punishment of breaking upon the wheel:
the terror of which put a stop for a while to this mischievous
practice; but soon after, robberies on the highways became as
common as ever.
Desertion, in our days, was grown to a very great height;
in consequence of which it was judged proper to punish those
delinquents with death; and yet their number did not diminish.
The reason is very natural: a soldier, accustomed to venture his
life, despises, or affects to despise, the danger of losing it; he is
habituated to the fear of shame: it would have been, therefore,. .
* "You know how great God is. "-"Yes, and how small men are. »


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10256
MONTESQUIEU
much better to have continued a punishment which branded him
with infamy for life; the penalty was pretended to be increased,
while it really was diminished.
Mankind must not be governed with too much severity: we
ought to make a prudent use of the means which nature has
given us to conduct them. If we inquire into the cause of all
human corruptions, we shall find that they proceed from the im-
punity of criminals, and not from the moderation of punishments.
Let us follow nature, who has given shame to man for his
scourge, and let the heaviest part of the punishment be the
infamy attending it.
But if there be some countries where shame is not a conse-
quence of punishment, this must be owing to tyranny, which has
inflicted the same penalties on villains and honest men.
And if there are others where men are deterred only by cruel
punishments, we may be sure that this must, in a great measure,
arise from the violence of the government, which has used such
penalties for slight transgressions.
It often happens that a legislator, desirous of remedying an
abuse, thinks of nothing else: his eyes are open only to this
object, and shut to its inconveniences. When the abuse is re-
dressed, you see only the severity of the legislator;-yet there
remains an evil in the State, that has sprung from this severity:
the minds of the people are corrupted and become habituated to
despotism.
Lysander having obtained a victory over the Athenians, the
prisoners were ordered to be tried, in consequence of an accusa-
tion brought against that nation of having thrown all the captives
of two galleys down a precipice, and of having resolved, in full
assembly, to cut off the hands of those whom they should chance
to make prisoners. The Athenians were therefore all massacred,
except Adymantes, who had opposed this decree. Lysander
reproached Philocles, before he was put to death, with having
depraved the people's minds, and given lessons of cruelty to all
Greece.
"The Argives" (says Plutarch), "having put fifteen hundred
of their citizens to death, the Athenians ordered sacrifices of expi
ation, that it might please the gods to turn the hearts of the
Athenians from so cruel a thought. "
There are two sorts of corruption: one when the people do
not observe the laws; the other when they are corrupted by the
laws,—an incurable evil, because it is in the very remedy itself.


## p. 10257 (#73) ###########################################

MONTESQUIEU
10257
IN WHAT MANNER REPUBLICS PROVIDE FOR THEIR SAFETY
From The Spirit of Laws
I'
F A republic be small, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it
be large, it is ruined by an internal imperfection.
To this twofold inconveniency democracies and aristocra-
cies are equally liable, whether they be good or bad.
is in the very thing itself, and no form can redress it.
The evil
It is therefore very probable that mankind would have been,
at length, obliged to live constantly under the government of a
single person, had they not contrived a kind of constitution that
has all the internal advantages of a republican, together with the
external force of a monarchical government. I mean a confed-
erate republic.
This form of government is a convention, by which several
petty States agree to become members of a larger one which
they intend to establish. It is a kind of assemblage of socie-
ties that constitute a new one, capable of increasing by means of
further associations, till they arrive at such a degree of power as
to be able to provide for the security of the whole body.
It was these associations that so long ago contributed to the
prosperity of Greece. By these the Romans attacked the whole
globe; and by these alone the whole globe withstood them. For
when Rome had attained her highest pitch of grandeur, it was
the associations beyond the Danube and the Rhine,-associations
formed by the terror of her arms,- that enabled the barbarians
to resist her. From hence it proceeds that Holland, Germany,
and the Swiss Cantons are considered in Europe as perpetual
republics.
The associations of cities were formerly more necessary than
in our times. A weak defenseless town was exposed to greater
danger. By conquest, it was deprived not only of the executive
and legislative power, as at present, but moreover of all human
rights.
A republic of this kind, able to withstand an external force,
may support itself without any internal corruption; the form of
this society prevents all manner of inconveniences.
If a single member should attempt to usurp the supreme
power, he could not be supposed to have an equal authority and
credit in all the confederate States. Were he to have too great
an influence over one, this would alarm the rest; were he to
subdue a part, that which would still remain free might oppose
XVIII-642


## p. 10258 (#74) ###########################################

10258
MONTESQUIEU
him with forces independent of those which he had usurped, and
overpower him before he could be settled in his usurpation.
Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the confeder-
ate States, the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep
into one part, they are reformed by those that remain sound.
The State may be destroyed on one side and not on the other;
the confederacy may be dissolved, and the confederates preserve
their sovereignty.
As this government is composed of petty republics, it enjoys
the internal happiness of each; and with regard to its external
situation, by means of the association it possesses all the advan-
tages of large monarchies.
ORIGIN OF THE RIGHT OF SLAVERY AMONG THE ROMAN
CIVILIANS
From the Spirit of Laws
ONE
NE would never have imagined that slavery should owe its
birth to pity, and that this should have been excited three
different ways.
The law of nations, to prevent prisoners from being put to
death, has allowed them to be made slaves. The civil law of
the Romans empowered debtors, who were subject to be ill-used
by their creditors, to sell themselves. And the law of nature
requires that children whom a father in the state of servitude
is no longer able to maintain, should be reduced to the same
state as the father.
These reasons of the civilians are all false. It is false that
killing in war is lawful, unless in a case of absolute necessity;
but when a man has made another his slave, he cannot be said
to have been under a necessity of taking away his life, since he
actually did not take it away. War gives no other right over
prisoners than to disable them from doing any farther harm, by
securing their persons. All nations concur in detesting the mur-
dering of prisoners in cold blood.
Neither 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


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MONTESQUIEU
10259
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 barter his freedom. The freedom of every citizen
constitutes a part of the public liberty; and in a democratical
State is even a part of the sovereignty. To sell one's freedom.
is so repugnant to all reason as can scarcely be supposed in any
man. If liberty may be rated with respect to the buyer, it is
beyond all price to the seller. The civil law which authorizes a
division of goods among men, cannot be thought to rank among
such goods a part of the men who were to make this division.
The same law annuls all iniquitous contracts; surely, then, it
affords redress in a contract where the grievance is most enor-
mous
The third way is birth: which falls with the two former;
for if a man could not sell himself, much less could he sell an
unborn infant. If a prisoner of war is not to be reduced to slav-
ery, much less are his children.
The lawfulness of putting a malefactor to death arises from
this circumstance,- the law by which he is punished was made
for his security. A murderer, for instance, has enjoyed the ben-
efit of the very law which condemns him; it has been a continued
protection to him: he cannot therefore object against it. But it
is not so with the slave. The law of slavery can never be bene-
ficial to him; it is in all cases against him, without ever being
for his advantage; and therefore this law is contrary to the
fundamental principle of all societies.
If it be pretended that it has been beneficial to him, as his
master has provided for his subsistence, slavery at this rate
should be limited to those who are incapable of earning their
livelihood. But who will take up with such slaves? As to in-
fants,―nature, which has supplied their mothers with milk, has
provided for their sustenance; and the remainder of their child-
hood approaches so near the age in which they are most capable
of being of service, that he who supports them cannot be said
to give them an equivalent which can entitle him to be their
master.
Nor is slavery less opposite to the civil law than to that of
nature. What civil law can restrain a slave from running away,
since he is not a member of society, and consequently has no
interest in any civil institutions? He can be retained only by a
family law; that is, by the master's authority.


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10260
MONTESQUIEU
ON THE SPIRIT OF TRADE
From the Spirit of Laws
C
OMMERCE is a cure for the most destructive prejudices: for
it is almost a general rule, that wherever we find agree-
able manners, there commerce flourishes; and that wherever
there is commerce, there we meet with agreeable manners.
Let us not be astonished, then, if our manners are now less
savage than formerly. Commerce has everywhere, diffused
knowledge of the manners of all nations; these are compared
one with another; and from this comparison arise the greatest
advantages.
Commercial laws, it may be said, improve manners for the
reason as they destroy them. They corrupt the purest
morals; this was the subject of Plato's complaints; and we every
day see that they polish and refine the most barbarous.
Peace is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who traffic
with each other become reciprocally dependent; for if one has an
interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and thus
their union is founded on their mutual necessities.
But if the spirit of commerce unites nations, it does not in
the same manner unite individuals. We see that in countries
where the people are moved only by the spirit of commerce,
they make a traffic of all the humane, all the moral virtues: the
most trifling things-those which humanity itself demands — are
there done or there given only for money.
The spirit of trade produces in the mind of man a certain
sense of exact justice; opposite on the one hand to robbery,
and on the other to those moral virtues which forbid our always
adhering rigidly to the rules of private interest, and suffer us to
neglect this for the advantage of others.
The total privation of trade, on the contrary, produces robbery;
which Aristotle ranks in the number of means of acquiring, yet
it is not at all inconsistent with certain moral virtues. Hospi-
tality, for instance, is most rare in trading countries, while it is
found in the most admirable perfection among nations of vaga-
bonds.
It is a sacrilege, says Tacitus, for a German to shut his door
against any man whomsoever, whether known or unknown. He
who has behaved with hospitality to a stranger goes to show
him another house where this hospitality is also practiced; and


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MONTESQUIEU
10261
he is there received with the same humanity. But when the
Germans had founded kingdoms, hospitality was become bur-
thensome. This appears by two laws of the code of the Bur-
gundians: one of which inflicted a penalty on every barbarian
who presumed to show a stranger the house of a Roman; and
the other decreed that whoever received a stranger should be
indemnified by the inhabitants, every one being obliged to pay
his proper proportion.
ON THE TRUE NATURE OF BENEVOLENCE
From the Spirit of Laws
A
MAN is not poor because he has nothing, but because he does
not work. The man who without any degree of wealth has
an employment, is as much at his ease as he who without
labor has an income of a hundred crowns a year. He who has
no substance, and yet has a trade, is not poorer than he who,
possessing ten acres of land, is obliged to cultivate it for his sub-
sistence. The mechanic who gives his art as an inheritance to
his children has left them a fortune which is multiplied in pro-
portion to their number. It is not so with him who, having ten
acres of land, divides it amongst his children.
In trading countries, where many men have no other subsist-
ence but from the arts, the State is frequently obliged to sup-
ply the necessities of the aged, the sick, and the orphan. A
well-regulated government draws this support from the arts them-
selves. It gives to some, such employment as they are capable
of performing; others are taught to work, and this teaching
becomes of itself an employment.
The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfill the
obligations of the State, which owes to every citizen a certain
subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind
of life not incompatible with health.
Aurengzebe being asked why he did not build hospitals, said,
"I will make my empire so rich that there shall be no need of
hospitals. " He ought to have said, "I will begin by rendering
my empire rich, and then I will build hospitals. "
The riches of the State suppose great industry. Amidst the
numerous branches of trade, it is impossible but some must suffer;
,


## p. 10262 (#78) ###########################################

10262
MONTESQUIEU
and consequently the mechanics must be in a momentary neces-
sity.
Whenever this happens, the State is obliged to lend them a
ready assistance; whether it be to prevent the sufferings of the
people, or to avoid a rebellion. In this case hospitals, or some
equivalent regulations, are necessary to prevent this misery.
But when the nation is poor, private poverty springs from the
general calamity; and is, if I may so express myself, the general
calamity itself. All the hospitals in the world cannot cure this
private poverty; on the contrary, the spirit of indolence which it
constantly inspires, increases the general and consequently the
private misery.
Henry VIII. , resolving to reform the Church of England,
ruined the monks, of themselves a lazy set of people, that en-
couraged laziness in others; because, as they practiced hospitality,
an infinite number of idle persons, gentlemen and citizens, spent
their lives in running from convent to convent. He demolished
even the hospitals, in which the lower people found subsistence,
as the gentlemen did theirs in the monasteries. Since these
changes, the spirit of trade and industry has been established in
England.
At Rome the hospitals place every one at his ease except those
who labor, except those who are industrious, except those who
have land, except those who are engaged in trade.
I have observed that wealthy nations have need of hospitals,
because fortune subjects them to a thousand accidents; but it is
plain that transient assistances are much better than perpetual
foundations. The evil is momentary; it is necessary therefore
that the succor should be of the same nature, and that it be
applied to particular accidents.
ON RELIGION
From the Spirit of Laws
THE
HE different religions of the world do not give to those who
profess them equal motives of attachment: this depends
greatly on the manner in which they agree with the turn
of thought and perceptions of mankind. We are extremely ad-
dicted to idolatry, and yet have no great inclination for the reli-
gion of idolaters; we are not very fond of spiritual ideas, and


## p. 10263 (#79) ###########################################

MONTESQUIEU
10263
yet are most attached to those religions which teach us to adore
a spiritual being. This proceeds from the satisfaction we find in
ourselves at having been so intelligent as to choose a religion.
which raises the Deity from that baseness in which he had been
placed by others. We look upon idolatry as the religion of an
ignorant people; and the religion which has a spiritual being for
its object as that of the most enlightened nations.
When with a doctrine that gives us the idea of a spiritual
supreme being, we can still join those of a sensible nature, and
admit them into our worship, we contract a greater attachment
to religion; because those motives which we have just mentioned
are added to our natural inclinations for the objects of sense.
Thus the Catholics, who have more of this kind of worship than
the Protestants, are more attached to their religion than the
Protestants are to theirs, and more zealous for its propagation.
When the people of Ephesus were informed that the fathers
of the council had declared they might call the Virgin Mary the
Mother of God, they were transported with joy; they kissed the
hands of the bishops, they embraced their knees, and the whole
city resounded with acclamations.
When an intellectual religion superadds a choice made by
the Deity, and a preference of those who profess it to those
who do not, this greatly attaches us to religion. The Mahometans
would not be such good Mussulmans, if on the one hand there
were not idolatrous nations who make them imagine themselves
the champions of the unity of God; and on the other, Christians
to make them believe that they are the objects of his preference.
A religion burthened with many ceremonies attaches us to
it more strongly than that which has a fewer number. We have
an extreme propensity to things in which we are continually
employed: witness the obstinate prejudices of the Mahometans
and the Jews, and the readiness with which barbarous and sav-
age nations change their religion,-who, as they are employed
entirely in hunting or war, have but few religious ceremonies.
Men are extremely inclined to the passions of hope and fear:
a religion therefore that had neither a heaven nor a hell could
hardly please them. This is proved by the ease with which
foreign religions have been established in Japan, and the zeal
and fondness with which they were received.
In order to raise an attachment to religion, it is necessary
that it should inculcate pure morals. Men who are knaves by
retail are extremely honest in the gross: they love morality.


## p. 10264 (#80) ###########################################

10264
MONTESQUIEU
And were I not treating of so grave a subject, I should say that
this appears remarkably evident in our theatres: we are sure of
pleasing the people by sentiments avowed by morality; we are
sure of shocking them by those it disapproves.
When external worship is attended with great magnificence,
it flatters our minds, and strongly attaches us to religion. The
riches of temples, and those of the clergy, greatly affect us.
Thus, even the misery of the people is a motive that renders
them fond of a religion which has served as a pretext to those
who were the cause of their misery.
ON TWO CAUSES WHICH DESTROYED ROME
From the Grandeur and Decadence of the Roman Empire'
WH
HILST the sovereignty of Rome was confined to Italy, it was
easy for the commonwealth to subsist: every soldier was
at the same time a citizen; every consul raised an army,
and other citizens marched into the field under his successor: as
their forces were not very numerous, such persons only were
received among the troops as had possessions considerable enough
to make them interested in the preservation of the city; the
Senate kept a watchful eye over the conduct of the generals, and
did not give them an opportunity of machinating anything to the
prejudice of their country.
But after the legions had passed the Alps and crossed the sea,
the soldiers whom the Romans had been obliged to leave dur-
ing several campaigns in the countries they were subduing, lost
insensibly that genius and turn of mind which characterized a
Roman citizen; and the generals having armies and kingdoms at
their disposal were sensible of their own strength, and would no
longer obey.
The soldiers therefore began to acknowledge no superior but
their general; to found their hopes on him only, and to view the
city as from a great distance: they were no longer the soldiers
of the republic, but of Sylla, of Marius, of Pompey, and of Cæsar.
The Romans could no longer tell whether the person who headed
an army in a province was their general or their enemy.
So long as the people of Rome were corrupted by their trib-
unes only, on whom they could bestow nothing but their power,
the Senate could easily defend themselves, because they acted
consistently and with one regular tenor, whereas the common


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MONTESQUIEU
10265
people were continually shifting from the extremes of fury to
the extremes of cowardice; but when they were enabled to invest
their favorites with a formidable exterior authority, the whole
wisdom of the Senate was baffled, and the commonwealth was
undone.
The reason why free States are not so permanent as other
forms of government is because the misfortunes and successes
which happen to them generally occasion the loss of liberty;
whereas the successes and misfortunes of an arbitrary government
contribute equally to the enslaving of the people. A wise repub-
lic ought not to run any hazard which may expose it to good or
ill fortune; the only happiness the several individuals of it should
aspire after is to give perpetuity to their State.
If the unbounded extent of the Roman empire proved the
ruin of the republic, the vast compass of the city was no less
fatal to it.
The Romans had subdued the whole universe by the assist-
ance of the nations of Italy, on whom they had bestowed various
privileges at different times. Most of those nations did not at
first set any great value on the freedom of the city of Rome,
and some chose rather to preserve their ancient usages; but
when this privilege became that of universal sovereignty,— when
a man who was not a Roman citizen was considered as nothing,
and with this title was everything, the people of Italy resolved
either to be Romans or die: not being able to obtain this by
cabals and entreaties, they had recourse to arms; and rising in
all that part of Italy opposite to the Ionian sea, the rest of the
allies were going to follow their example. Rome, being now
forced to combat against those who were, if I may be allowed
the figure, the hands with which they shackled the universe, was
upon the brink of ruin; the Romans were going to be confined
merely to their walls: they therefore granted this so much wished-
for privilege to the allies who had not yet been wanting in fidel-
ity; and they indulged it, by insensible degrees, to all other
nations.
But now Rome was no longer that city the inhabitants of
which had breathed one and the same spirit, the same love for
liberty, the same hatred of tyranny; a city in which a jealousy
of the power of the Senate and of the prerogatives of the
great (ever accompanied with respect) was only a love of equal-
ity. The nations of Italy being made citizens of Rome, every


## p. 10266 (#82) ###########################################

10266
MONTESQUIEU
city brought thither its genius, its particular interests, and its
dependence on some mighty protector: Rome, being now rent
and divided, no longer formed one entire body, and men were
no longer citizens of it but in a kind of fictitious way; as there
were no longer the same magistrates, the same walls, the same
gods, the same temples, the same burying-places, Rome was no
longer beheld with the same eyes; the citizens were no longer
fired with the same love for their country, and the Roman senti-
ments were obliterated.
Cities and nations were now invited to Rome by the ambi-
tious, to disconcert the suffrages, or influence them in their own
favor; the public assemblies were so many conspiracies against
the State, and a tumultuous crowd of seditious wretches was
dignified with the title of Comitia. The authority of the people
and their laws-nay, that people themselves - were no more
than so many chimæras; and so universal was the anarchy of
those times, that it was not possible to determine whether the
people had made a law or not.