No More Learning

From his own conditions as mayor of Bordeaux, he
passes to comments on his father's attitude in the same office. Some


## p. 10238 (#50) ###########################################

10238
MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
of the tenderest pages in the Essays are devoted to this "kind
father," "the best father that ever was," who, carrying out peculiar
ideas of his own, had Michel pass his earliest years among peasants,
made him learn Latin before he did French, and woke him in the
morning by music. Many of these facts of his childhood are nar-
rated to enforce Montaigne's own ideas on education; which were
far beyond those of his age, and all of which have not even yet been
put into practice.
The physical details of his existence he speaks of with a frequency
and freedom to which nineteenth-century readers are not accustomed;
nor is he less open regarding his personal habits and humors. He
tells us with pleasant garrulity how he loved to talk and joke with
his friends, what an indolent dreamer he was in his library, and
yet what an eager traveler in foreign countries, even to the verge of
old age. His love of books, even while he asserts that he was little
of a reader, his special admiration for Plutarch, his thoughts about
death, illness, and old age, his hatred of medicine, his detestation of
deceit, his ignorances and awkwardnesses, his lack of memory, his
dislike of ceremonious customs, his conservatism, his pride, his over-
carefulness about money at one time and his over-carelessness at
another, his dislike of "affairs," of trouble of any kind, his more
than dislike of restraint, his thoughtful hours in his solitary tower
away from all the servitudes of life,-these topics, and such as these,
are all touched upon incidentally, and often illustrated by a quotation
from Horace or Seneca.
But there are other passages which are illustrated-and could
only be illustrated-by quotations from Plato. For the most part
these were written in his later years, and this is one of the many
proofs of the constant deepening and enriching of his thought. The
serious interest he took in the complicated public affairs of his time
turned his attention to questions regarding government, laws, beliefs,
and crimes; which unquestionably concerned himself as a citizen and
as a thinker, but which he considered from an admirably unpreju-
diced and impersonal point of view.
Thus we find that when Montaigne tells us he studies only him-
self, we must not take him too literally. He smiles behind the
words. His Gascon vivacity is far removed from all formality and
precision, and he makes no effort to be consistent, knowing that what
he thinks to-day he may condemn to-morrow; for "man is an ani-
mal unstable and varying. " But it is man, not himself alone, that
he depicts, and the knowledge he seeks is of man in general. And
he finds that knowledge is to be gained chiefly, but not only, by
studying himself. "This long attention," he said, "that I devote to
considering myself, trains me to judge also tolerably well of others;


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MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
10239
it often happens to me to see and distinguish more exactly the con-
ditions of my friends than they do themselves. " It is this blending
of insight, whether about himself or about others, with the power of
judging beyond all mere personality, that called forth Pascal's say-
ing: "It is not in Montaigne but in myself that I find all I see in
him. "
Many of Montaigne's best years he passed in active life, singularly
open to all social pleasures, with ardent affections that found a re-
sponse from his friend La Boëtie; who, dying only four years after
they had met, was constantly present to Montaigne's thought, and
was often nobly spoken of by him, during the thirty years that he
survived him.
It was only at the age of thirty-eight that Montaigne retired, as it
were, within himself; and closing "the great book of the world" he
had been reading, gave himself up deliberately to companionship with
the ancient authors familiar to him in youth, and always loved, and
to that self-analysis, never morbid or declamatory, which gradually
led him to the serene acceptance of things as they are, that manifests
itself more and more as we advance in the Essays.
-
This is not the mood of a skeptic-taking the word, as it is now
generally understood, to imply an absence of faith. Used in its prim-
itive sense, it may be applied to Montaigne. He was essentially an
examiner. He could see many sides in any matter he was consider-
ing, and they were all so vivid to him that the result was the ques-
tion, "Que sçais-je ? " which might be paraphrased, Who knows? Of
every form of dogmatism he was the enemy - the skeptical enemy.
But a man with such a high faith in human nature, and its possi-
ble development, as Montaigne shows himself to possess whenever he
touches on education, friendship, virtue, the true use of knowledge
and the true objects of life,- a man who admires the heroic side of
humanity as profoundly as he does, is no skeptic. The terrible
effects in his own day of religious and political intolerance, had forced
home on him the danger that lies in the imperative assertion of gen-
eral philosophical or moral conceptions; and it might perhaps be said
of him that for his age he was an agnostic, for he is almost dogmatic
about one thing alone, namely that on many points we must accept
the uncertainty of ignorance. His latent and sincere Catholicism re-
moved him far from what the term "agnostic" denotes to-day; but
to be "knowingly ignorant" is the state of mind he would have us
acquire. Complete ignorance - "A B C ignorance" is not wholly
bad; to think that one knows is much worse; but it is excellent to
have reached "the willing ignorance of those who know. " Let us
not try to climb impossible heights, but abide on the level of attain-
able good.
Such are the lessons he would have taught could he have
become didactic. Moderation in all things, but a moderation that
―


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10240
MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
accepts all heroisms as possible. If there seems to be an apparent
contradiction in this, it finds its corrective in his modest precept, "Do
thy deed and know thyself. " The "deed," the "doing," of each of us
according to his powers is the highest point we can ever reach. The
three "most excellent" men in his eyes were Homer and Alexander
the Great and Epaminondas: but his Psalm of Life would not bid us
"make our lives sublime," but make them wise and happy, contented
and resigned; wise with sobriety, happy with discretion, contented and
resigned, but not passive and idle. Thus this sage of the Renais-
sance, this humanist full of pagan reminiscences, reaches conclusions
which he himself phrases in the words of St. Paul: "Gloria nostra
est testimonium conscientiæ nostræ. "
Serenity, toleration in its broadest sense, not indifference, that is
the lesson we learn from the Essays. But even this vague definition
of their value is too narrow. The adopted daughter of Montaigne,
Mademoiselle de Gournay, said of him excellently, "Il désenseigne la
sottise" (he unteaches foolishness). We do not merely learn, but we
unlearn from him,- perhaps the greatest of benefits. We unlearn the
unwisdom of the foolish world.
It is scarcely more easy to put a label on the style in which the
Essays are written than on their contents. Its great charm lies in
its characteristic freedom, expressiveness, and clearness. Sometimes
eloquent, sometimes poetic and picturesque, it is always familiar.
But praise is checked by remembrance of Montaigne's saying that
he cared so much more for the meaning than the words, that when
he heard any one dwelling on the language of the Essays he would
rather they should be silent.
He did not aim at the distinction of being a great writer, still less
of being a great man. Yet he unquestionably takes a high place
among the representative men of humanity. But it is not as Mon-
taigne the Skeptic that he should be known, nor Montaigne the Ego-
tist, nor Montaigne the Epicurean; but as Montaigne the Sincere.
Zervines Böcher
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE. - - Two books of his Essays were first pub-
lished in 1580; a third book was added in 1588. The first posthumous
edition, with additions by the author, appeared in 1595; most of the
modern editions follow this. The Journal of his travels was pub-
lished in 1774. The Essays were translated into English early in the
seventeenth century by John Florio; later by Charles Cotton. The
best and latest translation, that by William Carew Hazlitt, is based
on these.


## p. 10241 (#53) ###########################################

MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
10241
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER
From the Essays
R
EADER, loe here a well-meaning Booke. It doth at the first
entrance forewarne thee, that in contriving the same, I
have proposed unto my selfe no other than a familiar and
private end: I have no respect or consideration at all, either to
thy service, or to my glory; my forces are not capable of any
such desseigne. I have vowed the same to the particular com-
modity of my kinsfolks and friends: to the end, that losing me
(which they are likely to do ere long) they may therein find some
lineaments of my conditions and humours, and by that meanes
reserve more whole, and more lively foster, the knowledge and
acquaintance they have had of me. Had my intention beene
to forestal and purchase the worlds opinion and favour, I would
surely have adorned my selfe more quaintly, or kept a more
grave and solemne march. I desire therein to be delineated in
mine owne genuine, simple and ordinarie fashion, without conten-
tion, art or study; for it is my selfe I pourtray. My imperfections
shall therein be read to the life, and my naturall forme discerned,
so farre-forth as publike reverence hath permitted me. For if
my fortune had beene to have lived among those nations, which
yet are said to live under the sweet liberty of Natures first and
uncorrupted lawes, I assure thee, I would most willingly have
pourtrayed my selfe fully and naked. Thus, gentle Reader, my
selfe am the groundworke of my booke: It is then no reason
thou shouldest employ thy time about so frivolous and vaine a
Subject. Therefore farewell.
Translation of John Florio.
The first of March. 1580.
OF FRIENDSHIP
From the Essays>
the rest, which we commonly call Friends, and Friend-
Fships, are nothing but Acquaintance, and Familiarities,
either occasionally contracted, or upon some design, by
means of which, there happens some little intercourse betwixt
our Souls: but in the Friendship I speak of, they mix and work
themselves into one piece, with so universal a mixture, that there
XVIII-641


## p. 10242 (#54) ###########################################

10242
MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE
is no more sign of the Seame by which they were first conjoin'd.
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. 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


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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


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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


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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


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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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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. »


## p. 10256 (#72) ###########################################

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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.