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The Spirit of Law

The Spirit of Law (French: De l'esprit des lois, originally spelled De l'esprit des loix[1]), also known in English as The Spirit of [the] Laws, is a treatise on political theory, as well as a pioneering work in comparative law by Montesquieu, published in 1748.[2] Originally published anonymously, as was the norm, its influence outside France was aided by its rapid translation into other languages. In 1750 Thomas Nugent published an English translation, many times revised and reprinted in countless editions. In 1751 the Roman Catholic Church added De l'esprit des lois to its Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books").

Author

French

law

non-fiction

1748

France

1750

paper

[[s:fr:De l’esprit des lois|]] at French Wikisource

The Spirit of Law at Wikisource

Montesquieu's treatise, already widely disseminated, had an enormous influence on the work of many others, most notably: Catherine the Great, who produced Nakaz (Instruction); the Founding Fathers of the United States Constitution; and Alexis de Tocqueville, who applied Montesquieu's methods to a study of American society, in Democracy in America. Macaulay referenced Montesquieu's continuing importance when he wrote in his 1827 essay entitled "Machiavelli" that "Montesquieu enjoys, perhaps, a wider celebrity than any political writer of modern Europe" [1].


Montesquieu spent about ten years (and a life of thought) researching and writing De l'esprit des lois,[3] covering a huge range of topics including law, social life and the study of anthropology. In this treatise Montesquieu argues that political institutions need, for their success, to reflect the social and geographical aspects of the particular community. He pleads for a constitutional system of government with separation of powers, the preservation of legality and civil liberties, and the end of slavery.[4]

Preface

Part I


Part II


Part III


Part IV


Part V


Part VI

For democratic republics (and to a somewhat lesser extent for republics), this spring is the love of virtue—the willingness to put the interests of the community ahead of private interests.

aristocratic

For monarchies, the spring is the love of honor—the desire to attain greater rank and privilege.

Finally, for despotisms, the spring is the fear of the ruler—the fear of consequences to authority.

.

The separation of the powers of government

A second major theme in The Spirit of Law concerns political liberty and the best means of preserving it. "Political liberty" is Montesquieu's concept of what we might call today personal security, especially in so far as this is provided for through a system of dependable and moderate laws. He distinguishes this view of liberty from two other views of political liberty. The first is the view that liberty consists in collective self-government—i.e. that liberty and democracy are the same. The second is the view that liberty consists in being able to do whatever one wants without constraint. Not only are these latter two not genuine political liberty, he maintains, but they can both be hostile to it.


Political liberty is not possible in a despotic political system, but it is possible, though not guaranteed, in republics and monarchies. Generally speaking, establishing political liberty on a sound footing requires two things:


This book mainly concerns explicit laws, but also pays considerable attention to cultural norms that may support the same goals. "Montesquieu believed the hard architecture of political institutions might be enough to constrain overreaching power — that constitutional design was not unlike an engineering problem," as Levitsky and Ziblatt put it.[5]

Political sociology[edit]

The third major contribution of The Spirit of Law was to the field of political sociology, which Montesquieu is often credited with more or less inventing. The bulk of the treatise, in fact, concerns how geography and climate interact with particular cultures to produce the spirit of a people. This spirit, in turn, inclines that people toward certain sorts of political and social institutions, and away from others. Later writers often caricatured Montesquieu's theory by suggesting that he claimed to explain legal variation simply by the distance of a community from the equator.


While the analysis in The Spirit of Law is much more subtle than these later writers perceive, many of his specific claims lack rigour to modern readers. Nevertheless, his approach to politics from a naturalistic or scientific point of view proved very influential, directly or indirectly inspiring modern fields of political science, sociology, and anthropology.

Comparative law

Democracy

Doux commerce

Letter and spirit of the law

Rule of law

Mutual Liberty

Montesquieu, L'esprit des loix. Texte établi et présenté par Jean Brethe de La Gressaye (Paris: Societe Les Belles Lettres, 1950–1961. Takes account of variants in all editions issued between 1748 and 1757.

Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller, and Harold Samuel Stone. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge: , 1989.

Cambridge UP

Montesquieu: The Spirit of Law, trans. Philip Stewart, 2018.

http://montesquieu.ens-lyon.fr/spip.php?rubrique186

Bok, Hilary, "", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Baron de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat

Volpilhac-Auger, Catherine, Montesquieu, Paris: Gallimard, "Folio Biographies", 2017.

Sheila Mason, Montesquieu’s Idea of Justice, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975.

Mark Hulliung, Montesquieu and the Old Regime, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

Stephen J. Rosow, "Commerce, Power and Justice: Montesquieu on international politics," Review of Politics 46, no. 3 (July 1984): 346–366.

Anne M. Cohler, Montesquieu’s Comparative Politics and the Spirit of American Constitutionalism, Lawrence KS: University Press of Kansas, 1988.

Thomas L. Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism: a commentary on "The Spirit of the Laws", Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

David W. Carrithers, "Montesquieu’s philosophy of punishment," History of Political Thought 19 (1998), p. 213-240.

David W. Carrithers, Michael A. Mosher, and Paul A. Rahe, eds., Montesquieu’s Science of Politics: essays on "The Spirit of Laws", Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.

Robert Howse, "Montesquieu on Commerce, War, and Peace," Brookings Journal of International Law 31, no. 3 (2006): 693–708.

http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_060042.pdf

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

Andrea Radasanu, "Montesquieu on Moderation, Monarchy and Reform," History of Political Thought 31, no. 2 (2010), p. 283–307.

Rolando Minuti, Studies on Montesquieu: mapping political diversity, Cham (Switzerland): Springer, 2018. (Translation by Julia Weiss of Una geografia politica della diversità: studi su Montesquieu, Naples, Liguori, 2015.)

Andrew Scott Bibby, Montesquieu’s Political Economy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Joshua Bandoch, The Politics of Place: Montesquieu, particularism, and the pursuit of liberty, Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2017.

Vickie B. Sullivan, Montesquieu and the Despotic Ideas of Europe: an interpretation of "The Spirit of the laws", University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Keegan Callanan, Montesquieu’s Liberalism and the Problem of Universal Politics, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

The Rule of Law in Montesquieu, Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Sharon R. Krause

Vickie V. Sullivan, "Montesquieu on Slavery," in K. Callanan, The Cambridge Companion to Montesquieu, New York, 2023, p. 182-197.

"The Spirit of Laws" (Free – The Internet Archive, High Resolution)

de Secondat, Charles, Baron de Montesquieu

"The Spirit of Laws: Volume 1 ", 1793 (Free – Librivox, Audiobook)

de Secondat, Charles, Baron de Montesquieu

"The Spirit of Laws" 2 vols. Originally published anonymously. 1748; Crowder, Wark, and Payne, 1777. Trans. Thomas Nugent (1750). Rev. J. V. Prichard. ("Based on a public domain edition published in 1914 by G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., London. Rendered into HTML and text by Jon Roland of The Constitution Society.") Accessed May 16, 2007.

de Secondat, Charles, Baron de Montesquieu

A Montesquieu Dictionary, Société Montesquieu, open access: " Archived 2022-02-27 at the Wayback Machine"

[2]

Montesquieu: The Spirit of Law. Trans. Philip Stewart, 2018. Open access: "".

[3]