Montesquieu presents The Spirit of the Laws as “the work of twenty years.” The Persian Letters and The Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline act as precursors, providing Montesquieu with a written record of his attempts to work out the particulars of his thought. His seminal work has puzzled scholars for centuries due to the seemingly incompatible combination of objective observations and the promotion of universal goods such as liberty, the separation of powers, European monarchy and quasi-capitalist economics. Understanding the relationship between these two elements represents the key to understanding Montesquieu’s thought. As he himself says: “I have set down the principles, and I have seen particular cases conform to them as if by themselves, the histories of all nations being but their consequences, and each particular law connecting with another law or dependent on a more general one” (Spirit of the Laws, Preface).

Natural Law

The Spirit of the Laws begins with an examination of laws in general, starting with natural law. In the Montesquieuan state of nature, man feels his weakness and fears others, leading him to avoid others and seek peace. This is the first natural law. Prior to the first law of nature, Montesquieu says, “The law that impresses on us the idea of a creator and thereby leads us toward him is the first of the natural laws in importance, though not first in the order of these laws” (Spirit of the Laws 1.2). When this is combined with his description of the impossibility of God changing any of the laws he created, a clearer picture of Montesquieu’s understanding of man’s relation to religion comes to the fore.

Montesquieu hopes to diminish the power of religion in human life as well as diminish the capacity of the Catholic Church to meddle in political affairs. For Montesquieu, religion can have a salutary influence—especially in despotic governments—but the power of the Church and the way they execute those powers has an extremely negative impact on human happiness and freedom. While he attempts to make his critique fairly quiet, and occasionally praises religion generally and certain aspects of Christianity, there can be no doubt that Montesquieu hopes to create a larger separation between political life and religious life than he experienced in eighteenth century France. This quietly radical interpretation of religion clearly demonstrates why the Catholic Church condemned or banned many of his books.

Returning to his description of natural law, Montesquieu says man also feels his needs, so the second natural law would inspire him to seek nourishment. The third law relates to man’s sociability. Even though humans fear each other at first, the mutual fear would induce them to approach one another, and they would feel pleasure at the proximity of another being of their species. The pleasure of the opposite sex would induce them to come together; this is the third law. Over time, they also gain knowledge which differentiates them from other animals and gives them another reason to come together into society. This is the fourth natural law.

Despite man’s natural sociability, he does not maintain peaceful relations with other men once they are all in society. This occurs, because the natural law does not have sufficient force to be respected and people are fallible.[1] This demonstrates two things: first, natural law is weak; it cannot enforce itself. Second, humans are weak; they do not always do what is best or know what is best. Man’s fallibility and his feelings lead him astray: he can be ignorant or act incorrectly; his passions may win out over his reason.

For Montesquieu, this demonstrates the necessity of positive law. It is only through the establishment of positive laws that man can live peacefully with others—which he wants by nature—once they have left the state of nature.  For Montesquieu it is necessary to find law “which attains its purpose with the least trouble,” and “controls men in the manner best adapted to their inclinations and desires” (Letter #80) while also taking into consideration the spirit of the laws:

They should be related to the physical aspect of the country; to the climate, be it freezing, torrid, or temperate; to the properties of the terrain, its location and extent; to the way of life of the peoples, be they plowmen, hunters, or herdsmen; they should relate to the degree of liberty that the constitution can sustain, to the religion of the inhabitants, their inclination, their wealth, their number, their commerce, their mores and their manners; finally, the laws are related to one another, to their origin, to the purpose of the legislator, and to the order of things on which they are established. (The Spirit of the Laws I.1).

Regime Typology

Montesquieu proceeds to examine regime types: republics, monarchies and despotisms. Each type has a nature—what makes it what it is—and a spring—the human passion that causes it to move. The first type involves two kinds: democracy and aristocracy. The nature of democracy is the sovereignty of the people. In democracy all of the people have the sovereign power while in an aristocracy, it is only a portion of the people. Its spring is political virtue. Montesquieu defines it as the love of the homeland and equality. Without virtue the state would become corrupt. It is therefore imperative for republics to maintain virtue, something Montesquieu presents as very difficult and contrary to human nature. It requires “a renunciation of oneself” where “ambition” is limited to “the single desire, the single happiness, of rendering greater services to one’s homeland than other citizens.” For Montesquieu, creating this situation requires an immense effort from the state to manipulate its citizens. It therefore does not represent a form of government he wishes to promote.

Monarchy is a state in which one person has the sovereign power and intermediary bodies rule with “fixed and established laws.” The sovereign’s power is filtered through intermediary institutions such as an independent judiciary or a noble class with political power. Its spring is honor which naturally channels man’s selfish desires toward the good of the state due to the structure of the institutions:

“You could say that it is like the system of the universe, where there is a force constantly repelling all bodies from the center and a force of gravitation attracting them to it. Honor makes all the parts of the body politic move; its very action binds them, and each person works for the common good, believing he works for his individual interests.”

This is arguably Montesquieu’s preferred regime type. It allows for the possibility of the separation of political powers; it does not require a great deal of effort to maintain and it allows human nature to exist in a fairly natural form. The difficulty stems from its corruption. When a monarchy becomes corrupt, it becomes a despotism.

While Montesquieu’s presentation of monarchy invites questions, his presentation of despotism does not. Despotism represents the worst regime type for Montesquieu due to its dehumanizing character. Despotism is a state in which one man rules without any intermediary bodies or fixed laws; its spring is fear. “In despotic states,” Montesquieu writes “the nature of the government requires extreme obedience… It is useless to counter with natural feelings, respect for a father, tenderness for one’s children and women, laws of honor, or the state of one’s health; one has received the order and that is enough” (The Spirit of the Laws III.10). There is no place in this state for “natural feelings;” human nature is denied. Montesquieu’s link between the evils of despotism and its denial of “natural feelings,” reinforces his perception of healthy states presented earlier in The Persian Letters. In this work, he says states should have a constitution that “attains its purpose with the least trouble,” and “controls men in the manner best adapted to their inclinations and desires” (Letter #80). A view he reiterates over and over in The Spirit of the Laws.

Liberty and the Separation of Powers

Montesquieu arguably presents England as an example of a state that fulfills these criteria. In Book 11 of The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu discusses the concept of liberty and how it is protected by the separation of powers in England. There are two aspects of liberty: liberty in the constitution and liberty in the citizen. Liberty in the constitution relates to the capacity of the institutional structure to cause powers to check each other. When a state is free constitutionally people have “the right to do everything the law permits” and no one “could do what they forbid;” otherwise they “would no longer have liberty because the others would likewise have this same power” (The Spirit of the Laws, XI.3). In order to create these circumstances the state needs clear laws that they applied uniformly. It is also necessary to separate the executive, legislative and judicial powers into different branches of government, allowing people in the different branches to check each other and reducing the possibility of abuses of power.

To further this goal, there should be some overlap. The executive will, however, have the power to veto legislative acts—giving this branch a small amount of legislative power. The legislature should be divided into two houses so each has the power to slow down or veto legislation if necessary. Montesquieu’s greatest contribution to modern constitutionalism is the separation of the judiciary from the executive which renders “the power of judging, so terrible among men…invisible and null” because “judges are not continually in view; one fears the magistracy, not the magistrates.”

Liberty in the citizen “is that tranquility of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security….” It is a psychological state: one that exists when citizens do not fear each other. In principle, these two forms of liberty should co-exist. As Montesquieu’s explains, however, having either form of liberty, does not necessarily guarantee the other.

It can happen that the constitution is free and that the citizen is not. The citizen can be free and the constitution not. In these instances, the constitution will be free by right and not in fact; the citizen will be free in fact and not by right (The Spirit of the Laws XII.1).

The English arguably have both liberty in the constitution and liberty in the citizen because their institutional system facilitates the full expression of human emotions without allowing those emotions to alter the laws. The laws remain fixed and equally applicable while citizens can co-exist with their compatriots without worrying that their liberty could be taken away at any moment due to the whims of either the government or other citizens. This would therefore make the English state Montesquieu’s ideal. Yet in his description of the English institutions Montesquieu presents the separation of powers as both theoretically beneficial for all states (since it protects liberty and he presents it as a universally desirable good) and unique to England. This juxtaposition of universal goods and particularism is compounded by his description of geographic determinism.

Climate and Geography

Montesquieu thinks that the climate and geography of a country influence the psychological state of its inhabitants and their laws should reflect these unique qualities. In colder climates, “men are more vigorous” causing them to have greater confidence, more courage and more self-confidence. Hot climates have the opposite effect: “peoples in hot countries are timid like old men” (The Spirit of the Laws XIV.2). There is also a difference in how each deals with pleasures and pain. Those in cold climates do not feel them very strongly while those in hot climates are very susceptible to both real and imagined pleasures and pains.

The quality of the soil affects what form of government a people will accept. Fertile land is associated with monarchy while barren land is associated with republics. Those with fertile land value security over political liberty, making them happy to accept the security associated with a monarchy so they can focus on farming. Moreover, fertile land is more desirable and typically easier to conquer—since farmland must be flat over a large area. Due to the fact that monarchies are more inclined to conquer, fecund areas are coveted and conquered by monarchs who find a willing population. Those who try to extract nourishment from inhospitable soil “must procure for themselves what the terrain refuses them” making them “industrious, sober, inured to work, courageous, and fit for war” (The Spirit of the Laws 18.4). Cultivation for Montesquieu comes from the degree of liberty of a state, not the fertility of the soil. Montesquieu uses these theories to explain the differing levels of freedom in Europe and Asia. The geography and violent shift from frigid temperatures to tropical ones gave the northern people a decided advantage. This allowed northern monarchies to expand south, meeting little resistance, gradually becoming despotic. The fertility of the land made people susceptible to this (as did the extent of the plains) and the lack of natural barriers in large areas such as mountain or wide rivers made it possible. Comparatively, the climate in Europe gradually shifts from hot to cold making states compete with their equals within a smaller area. As a consequence, Europe has many smaller monarchies rather than one large despotism.

The impact of these factors has led many to think that Montesquieu is deterministic. He does not, however, think that states exist within closed borders, unable or unwilling to communicate with others. The most important form of communication for Montesquieu, is commerce.

Commerce

Montesquieu’s understanding of commerce and its capacity to unite the world and soften mores represents the link between his discussion of universal principles and particular circumstances. As both a classical liberal and a pluralist he engages with the tension between these two principles. While he clearly wishes to promote commercial expansion and political liberalization, he is also a strong advocate for respecting sovereignty and cultural diversity. He can thus help us understand how and when it is acceptable to value one over the other. If we can agree that more stability, wealth, security and rights protections are obvious goods, Montesquieu’s understanding of the effects of commercial expansion help us determine how and when to promote liberalization.

The theory goes as follows: As more nations engage in trade, the number of commercial goods increases. Commerce continuously expands and if countries facilitate economic freedom, this increases the standard of living domestically. Each commercial activity leads to more, and traders move from one place to another seeking new people to trade with and new goods to bring back to their country. As they do, they create communication among people because “the history of commerce is that of communication among peoples” (The Spirit of the Laws XXI.5). And this, for Montesquieu leads to a gentler form of enlightenment that will increase the liberty of the people and potentially encourage political change.

This comes in two forms: eliminating “destructive prejudices” and changing mores. Montesquieu says he would be the happiest of mortals if he “could make it so that men were able to cure themselves of their prejudices” (The Spirit of the Laws, xliv). That is exactly what he wants to do by encouraging commerce: “[it] cures destructive prejudices…commerce has spread knowledge of the mores of all nations everywhere; they have been compared to each other, and good things have resulted from this” (The Spirit of the Laws XX.1).

Communication leads to a softening of mores. This process will necessarily “corrupt” pure mores, or any society that has closed itself off to communicating with others. It corrupts them because interaction gives people the opportunity to hear about different cultures and different laws. It stops them from thinking their laws are the best simply.

For Montesquieu, differences between peoples stem from differences of climate, geography, local cultures and a host of other things. He does not think these differences create unbridgeable divides among different societies. Instead he hopes to demonstrate that we all appeal to the same basic ideals and we simply access the truth about how human beings should live through the prism of our particular culture. As we communicate with each other, we begin to develop a fuller picture of how societies work and through that knowledge begin to see how societies should work. This knowledge “makes men gentle” and it makes them more humane, “only prejudice causes these to be renounced” (The Spirit of the Laws XV.3).

The reason Montesquieu thinks we are likely to become gentler towards each other is because this is our natural way of interacting together, thus bringing his thought full circle back to his presentation of man in the state of nature and how prejudices created at the inception of society caused us to cease our peaceful interaction and begin fighting with one another. While commerce is not a panacea, for Montesquieu it offers the gentle means of increasing liberty and peace while still respecting the unique combination of forces that act upon a given society.

For further introductory reading, see

Lowenthal, David. “Montesquieu.” in History of Political Philosophy. ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Shklar, Judith N. Montesquieu. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.