Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalism: A Commentary on the Spirit of the Laws 0226645436, 0226645452

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MONTESQUIEU'S PHILOSOPHY OF

LIBERALISM

MONTESQUIEU'S PHILOSOPHY OF

LIBERALISM A Commentary on

The Spirit of the IJ!,ws

Thomas L. Pangle The University of [hicago Press CHICAGO AND LONDON

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THEUNIVER ITYOFCHICAGOPRE S,CHIC GO6063 7 Tl IE UNIVERSITY OF CHIC GO PRESS, LTD ., LONDON

© 1973 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. Published 1973 Paperback edition 1989 Printed in the United States of An1erica 98 97 96 95 94 93 92 91 90 89 6 5 4 3 2 International Standard Book Number: 0-226-64543-6 (cloth); 0-226-64545-2 (pbk.) Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 7 3-77139

To My Father JAMES

L.

PANGLE

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CONTENTS

PREFACE

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tX

1.

INTRODUCTION

I

2.

MONTESQUIEU'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WRITING

II

3.

HUMAN NATURE AND NATURAL LAW

20

4.

PARTICIPATORY REPUBLICANISM

48

5.

LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM

I07

6.

THE OBSTACLES TO FREEDOM: CLIMATE, GEOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY

I6I

7.

COMMERCE AND THE CHARM OF NATIONAL DIVERSITY

200

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Contents

8.

RELIGION

2 49

9.

NATURAL LAW AND THE PRUDENCE OF THE LEGISLATOR

260 NOTES

3o7 INDEX 327

Vttt

PREFACE

This book gre\v out of my doctoral dissertation; it therefore represents a kind of testimonial to the efforts of my teachers. Joseph Cropsey served as the chairman of the dissertation committee. The help he gave in this capacity is but a very sn1all part of the aid and encouragement given by him to me throughout my graduate career. To a degree to \vhich he cannot be aware, the gentle po\ver of his heart and mind illumines all my studies. Richard Flathman and Herbert J. Storing also served on the dissertation committee. From the latter I have learned much of \vhat I kno\v about the American tradition of political life and thought; and since "I do not know how it is, but somehow our own things please me more," I O\Ve to him a debt of a special kind. Ralph Lerner read the manuscript and made characteristically careful and thoughtful suggestions for improvement. During much of the time I spent writing this book I lived away from the United States, but in the same city as Allan Bloom. Only those who know what it means to live in the atmosphere of taste and thought created by that benevolent being will understand how much I owe to him. And finally, whatever grace this work possesses is due to the painstaking and most perceptive criticism of my wife, Diane. Unless otherwise noted, all references to the works

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ix

Preface

of Montesquieu are to the Pleiade edition edited by Roger Caillois: Oeuvres compfetes, 2 vols. (Paris: Librairie Gallimard, 1949-51). This edition will be cited as Works, followed by the volume and page reference (for example, Works, II, 100). Clarity and ease of reference have suggested that we refer to books of The Spirit of the Laws by capital roman numerals and to chapters by arabic numerals (for example, X 5 for Book X, chapter 5). Occasionally a more exact reference within a chapter and book cited will include the page number of the second volume of the Pleiade edition (for example, X 5, p. 381). All translations appearing in the text from this and any other work not printed in English are the author's own except where otherwise indicated. THOMAS

X

L. p ANGLE

1 INTRODUCTION

The necessity and importance of the study of Montesquieu is more evident today than it has been for many generations. Serious reflection on books like The Spirit of the Laws should be a central part of our response to the gro,ving crisis in the theoretical foundations of our political principles. Liberal democracy, or the regime devoted to the principle that the purpose of governn1ent is the securing of the equal right of every individual to pursue happiness as he understands it, has for about t,vo centuries dominated the life and thought of the \Vest. But as ,ve enter the final quarter of the twentieth century we find that the regime and the tradition of thought which have for so long reigned supreme are exposed to ever more widespread and searching questions and to increasingly serious doubts. A heterogeneous combination of thinkers frequently referred to as the New Left appear as the spokesmen or inspirers of a radical ferment that has been developing for a number of years and now pervades much of thinking society in America as well as Europe. This ferment, which threatens to provoke some degree of serious political transformation in the coming years, has brought about an end to the "end of ideology" and has aroused in almost all thoughtful observers a rene\ved awareness of the need to understand our liberal principles and to be able to give a I

C'hapter One coherent defense of them. We find today an increasing consciousness of the fact that there exist in the tradition of political philosophy powerful and legitimate alternatives to liberal republicanism. As Hanna Pitkin has expressed it: We have begun to rediscover that other tradition of political thought which does not regard political life as a means for achieving pragmatic, nonpolitical goals, but takes political participation as a positive value in itself, necessary to the good life and to the completion of a human being's full development. 1 More and more we are forced to see liberalism as something problematical; we are hence impelled to think through again its foundations. What we require and what we do not meet with in contemporary attempts to defend the liberal, open society is a sympathetic inquiry that goes to the roots, that does not take this society's existence or its desirability for granted. We seek an analysis that does not attempt to see in liberal society the rational means to every attractive political aspiration or way of life, an analysis which takes seriously the fact that the choice for liberal democracy is a decision for one way of life and a decision against other ways of life, and which tries to demonstrate the extent to which this way of life more nearly fulfills the needs of human nature than the alternative ways. What must be shown is not only the superiority of liberal democracy to totalitarianism or tyranny, but its merit as compared with other forms of republicanism and limited monarchic rule. This situation in which deep and long-standing 2

Introduction political commitments are being shaken makes only more evident the always-present need to understand the kind of human being our modern democratic regime -·was intended to foster. Only by becoming much more aware than we no,v are of ,vhat distinguishes the, political and social goals of liberalism from the alternatives will we come to understand \Vhat is compatible and ,vhat is incompatible \Vith the basic principles of our modern liberal \Vorld. Only thus \vill we understand the bounds ,vithin which ,ve must act-what things \Ve can hope and build for and \Vhat things we must, in public life at any rate, do ,vithout. And the latter half of this double lesson may not be a merely negative part of the re\vard for undertaking such an investigation. For it 1nay be that it is only when our commitment to public action is qualified that our commitment to private thought and the truth can be unqualified. It is clear that to engage in such an inquiry it is necessary that we n1ove beyond the familiar horizon of the modern \Vorld. \Ve n1ust try to place ourseh·es vicariously in a situation ,vhere there exist \'iable and attractive alternatives, in thought and action, to our modern republican order. \Ve must try to assun1e a perspective ,vhich sees the proposal for liberalism as a truly debatable proposal. Gi\'en our O\Vn lack of direct experience of such a world, the only trustworthy procedure is to turn to the thought of the founders of liberalism to find the analysis \Ve seek. It is there that one finds reflections by intellects of the first rank \vho did not li\'e in a climate of opinion \V here any of the modern princi pies \Vere taken for

3

Chapter One granted. Those thinkers ,vere cornpelled to justify a ne,v forn1 of political society and a ne,v \\'ay of thinking about politics in the presence of a ,veil-established and skeptical ,vorld ,vith its o,vn solidly based theoretical tradition. Of the handful of thinkers ,vho truly stand at the origins of the liberal tradition-Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and Montesquieu-Nlontesquieu en1erges as the most helpful and relevant for us. A-lontesquieu adopted the principles of his great predecessors. But he subjected those principles to a ne,\' analysis based on a con1prehensive investigation into political experience as revealed by the history of the European nations and the accounts available to hin1 of nonEuropean peoples. ~fhe result ,vas a considerable n1odification of his predecessors' teaching. :\n i1nportant part of that n1odification ,vas a ne,\' and nn1ch broader presentation of the liberal principles, a presentation ,vhich included careful study of a variety of possible objections to liberal rcpublicanisn1 and of the kinds of regin1cs i1nplied in such objections. In particular, 1\ 1lontcsquieu cxa1nined at length the kind of rcpublicanisn1 he considered the greatest challenge to his principles, that characterized by extensive direct politic al participation, dc-cn1 phasis of 111a teria I prosperity, and a deep sense of con1n1unity. l lc drc,v his cn1pirical inforn1ation fron1 nun1erous republics ancient and n1odcrn. l lc focused on the passion of pub Ii c spirit or '\·i rt u c" , v hi ch an i111 ates such a co n1n1 unity. In th is cxa111 i nation of political vi rt uc .\ lon tcsq u icu bccan1c the unkno,ving founder of the n1oralpol itica I tradition to ,v h ic h the nc \\', as ,vc II as the old, Lcft's attack on libcralis111 is the heir. For the 1

4

Introduction classical or traditional understanding of \·irtue \\'as inegalitarian: \'irtue set demands on n1en \\'hich not all \\'ere equally capable of n1eeting, and by the standard \·irtue the n1ost just fonn of go\·ernn1ent appeared to be aristocracy. ~1ontcsquieu clain1ed to reveal the truth about \\'hat virtue actually \\·as in the republics that practiced it, as opposed to virtue as the philosophers interpreted it. FollO\\'ing a trail blazed by l\ 1lachiavclli, ~lontesquieu gave a theoretical account of \'irtuc as egalitarian and of participatory den1ocracy as the only truly \'irtuous regin1e. In this he prepared the \\'ay for Rousseau and Kant. I lo\Ve\·er, one n1ust in11nediately add that The Spirit of the Laws is a 1nassive den1onstration of the irreconcilable tension bet\\'een virtue and freedon1. Beginning to son1e extent \\'ith Rousseau, but unan1biguously in Kant, l--Iegel, and .\'larx, this tension \\'as denied or thought to be su perable. In studying .\lontesquieu \\'e come to see the fascinating gulf bet\\'een the origins of the n1odern moralisn1 and its e\·entual developn1ent. \\7hile giving credit to the \'irtuous republic's claim to greatness, ~1ontesquieu tries to shO\\' in a dispassionate \vay its contradictions and its incompatibility \Vith human nature. lontesq uieu \\'as also n1uch concerned \\'ith the establishment of \\'hat is no\\' often referred to as a "hun1anized" or "hun1ane" society. Indeed, it \Vas \\'ith .\ lontesquieu that "hun1anity," as a substitute for Christian charity, can1e to occupy a central place in political discourse. I-le \\'anted to uncO\'er the root of this passion and to discover the political conditions that pro1note it. l--Ie clain1ed to have shO\\'O that, in \\' hat Rousseau and his successors \\'ere to call the

of

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1

1

5

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Chapter One "bourgeois" world, humanity would be less threatened than in any other political order. A.t the same time, Montesquieu recognized a certain lack of romance and of poetry and art in this ne\v bourgeois \vay of life. :-\ccording to him, such things find their home in monarchical political orders like that of France. On this account he held certain reser\'ations against liberal republicanism; but for reasons \Ve ,vill examine he belie\'ed that these reser\'ations \Vere not ultimately compelling. Finally, 1\1ontesquieu opposes to our n1odern critics' \'ague pronouncements about man's need for creati\'e self-expression an exhausti\'e en1pirical examination of human nature-its needs and its potential. In the course of this exan1ination he sho\\'S himself to be a\vare of a considerable malleability in man. _But at the same time he claims to sho\\' the necessary limits to this malleability, the lin1its fanned by the needs of hun1an nature. Exactly \Vhat "hun1an freedom" is, and \vhat political system n1ost truly provides this freedon1, is the chief then1e of The Spirit of the Laws. In reading Montesquieu ,ve confront a thinker \Vho in the course of laying do\vn the principles of liberal republicanisn1 con1es to grips \Vith the most in1portant of the persistent theoretical objections to that political doctrine. But the \'alue of The Spirit of the Laws goes beyond \\'hat is involved in the peculiar breadth of l\ !lontesquieu's presentation of these principles. For in studying The Spirit of the Laws \Ve \vill also come to understand better that profound transformation of thought \vhich is the deepest source of the dilemmas 6

Introduction of modern liberal thought: the replacement of Nature by History as the final standard for normative judgment. As ev~ry reader of the Declaration of Independence knows, liberalism originally understood itself to be based on the idea of natural right. All of the great founders of the ne,v republicanism conceived their project to be grounded in deductions made from a nonarbitrary insight into the permanent hierarchy of needs of human nature. This conception persisted in most quarters until the late years of the nineteenth century. At that time there began to spread, from Germany to England and eventually to America, a new, unprecedented "historical consciousness" ,vhich claimed to have discovered that man, unlike all the other beings, lacked a permanent nature or natural hierarchy of needs. This ne,v way of thinking asserted that not only peripheral or secondary characteristics, but the very core of man's being-his heart, his soul, and above all his mind-changed throughout history. :-\s a direct consequence, it came to be asserted that all comprehensive understandings, and in particular the liberal understanding, ,vere in fact only the limited and erroneous "world vie,vs," the "ideologies" or selfdeceptive myths, of a particular "culture" in a particular ti1ne. For a long time it ,vas believed by some of the greatest of the philosophers of history that this historicist insight did not necessarily imply the fatal undermining or chaotic destruction of man's evaluative reasoning faculty. It ,vas claimed that all past historical change must be understood as a growth to,vard a final

7

Chapter One or culminating epoch, the end of history, in ,vhich the human situation would fully reveal the pern1anent potential toward which all earlier epochs had been aiming and in the light of ,vhich every earlier period was to be seen as a stage in a meaningful and rational historical process. A serious attempt ,vas made to integrate the liberal principles into this frame,vork: the liberal state and society ,vas to be understood as the goal of the historical process. But n1ore and n1ore the modern consciousness, including that of the most thoughtful Marxist, 2 has come to doubt the notion of a term or completion to the "gro,vth" of the kno,ving mind in history; as a result the modern mind has become increasingly doubtful of its own capacity to discover solid and lasting moral or political standards of judgment. This new, radical skepticism about reason represents the intellectual dogma of our time: no established school of thought dares seriously to question the fundamental presupposition of the ne,v historical consciousness. Liberal intellectuals have lost the ability to satisfy the dissatisfied, to refute the critics, because they have lost faith in the validity of evaluative reason. The crisis of liberalism has its roots in the modern crisis of reason itself. The philosophy of history en1erged as a response to what were seen as decisive ,veaknesses in the liberal tradition of natural right. This modern liberal tradition had itself come into being through a conscious break with the classical tradition of natural right. If we are ever to understand our situation, as the first step to,vard overcoming it, we ,vill have to rediscover

8

Introduction \vhat it \Vas about the n1odern tradition of natural right \vhich compelled political philosophy to take the e\'entually se,~f-destructive step of transforn1ing itself into the philosophy of history, or \\'hat it \vas about the ne\v conception of nature \vhich led the greatest thinkers to think it through to the point of abandoning it. Only \vhen \Ve ha\'e ourseh'Cs rethought the reasons for this transforn1ation \\'ill \\'e be able to judge \\'hether the transforn1ation \vas necessary, and \\'hether other alternati\·es, including a return to the classical tradition, n1ay not ha\'e been pren1aturely and un\visely rejected. \\'hen one atten1pts to trace the historical approach to its roots one is led, by the authority of obsen·ers so con1petent as Kant and Hegel, to Rousseau. But the precise bearing and significance of Rousseau's truly sen1inal reflections on nature and history \viii not be fully understood until one sees these reflections .as the atte,npt to pro\·ide ans\vers to problen1s that Rousseau had been taught to recognize through long n1editation on the philosophy of 1'1ontesquieu. It is in the thought of Montesquieu that the need to deri\'e son1e n1oral and political standards fron1 history, history understood as opposed to or as the replacen1ent for nature, con1es into the foreground of the tradition of political philosophy. Yet although The Spirit of the laws opens the door to the historical consciousness, it denies the necessity for a con1plete surrender to that perspecti\·e. In i\1ontesquieu \\'e see n1ore clearly perhaps than in any subsequent thinker the reasons \vhy the historical approach became in son1e sense a necessity, and at the sa,ne ti,ne \Vhat are son1e of the !)

Chapter One grave objections to the full development of that approach. The elaboration of these themes is the purpose of the commentary on The Spirit of the Laws which follows. Such a commentary is, however, exposed to a massive difficulty: the peculiar style and manner of Montesquieu's writing.

10

2 MONTESQUIEU'S STYLE AND "

MANNER OF WRITING

:\ny commentary on The Spirit of the Laws must confront, the almost universal scholarly opinion of t\VO centuries that the \\'Ork lacks order and a unifying plan: "E\'eryone is convi~ced that this book lacks 1nethod, that there is neither plan nor order and that after one has read it one doesn't kno\\' \\'hat he has read. . .. " 1 The disorder of ~1ontesquieu 's greatest \vork is held to reflect the disorder of his thought-a thought \Vhich is unconsciously enmeshed in fundan1ental contradictions: "The fact is that \Ve are dealing in the Esprit des Lois \Vith an eclecticism that accepts discordant \'ie\vpoints and that fits them into a system \Vith apparently little idea of the confusion arising thereby. " 2 The only \Vell-kno\vn commentator \Vho persuasi\'ely opposes the general vie\V is d' 1\lem bert. Speaking of "the pretended lack of method of \vhich some readers ha\·e accused ~1ontesquieu," d' :\lembert says: :\n assiduous and meditative reading can alone make the merit of this book felt . . . . One must distinguish apparent disorder from real disorder. ... The disorder is merely apparent \\'hen the author puts in their proper places the ideas he uses and lea\'es to the readers to supply the connecting ideas: and it is thus that ~1ontesquieu thought he could and should proceed in a book I I

...

Chapter Two destined for men who think, whose genius ought to supply the voluntary and reasoned omissions. The order ,vhich makes itself seen in the grand divisions of The Spirit of the laws reigns no less in the details: we believe that the more one oenetrates the work the more one ,vill be convinced of this . . . . We ,vill say of the obscurity that can be permitted in such a ,vork, the same thing ,ve said about the lack of order; ,vhat ,vould be obscure for vulgar readers is not for those ,vhom the author had in view. Moreover, voluntary obscurity is not obscurity: Montesquieu, having to present sometimes important truths ,vhose absolute and direct enunciation might wound without bearing any fruit, has had the prudence to envelop them, and by this innocent artifice, has veiled them from those to ,vhom they ,vould be harmful, ,vithout letting then1 be lost for the ,vise. 3 J.

This enlightening and too often neglected statement is substantiated by the testimony of Nlontesquieu himself, ,vho spoke with considerable frankness about the purposeful obscurity of his manner of ,vriting. In the Preface to The Spirit of the laws Montesquieu voices a fear that this '\vork of t,venty years" ,vill be attacked after only a brief reading. I Ie speaks of the in1portance of the "plan of the ,vork" and tells the reader that it is only in discovering this plan that he ,viii find "the plan of the author": 1'1any truths ,viii not make the1nselves felt until after one has the chain ,vhich links them to others. rfhe n1ore one ,vill reflect on the details, the more one will feel the certitude of the principles. rfhese details themselves, I have not always 12

Montesquieu's Manner of Writing given: because who could say all without a mortal boredom? These remarks are in full accord with Montesquieu's more extensive discussion of the proper way to read in his Pensees: When one reads a book, it is necessary to be in a disposition to believe that the author has seen the contradictions that one imagines, at the first glance, he is meeting. Thus it is necessary to begin by distrusting one's own prompt judgments, to look again at the passages one claims are contradictory, to compare them one with another, then to compare them again with those passages that precede and those that follow to see if they follow the same hypothesis, to see if the contradiction is in the things or only in one's own manner of conceiving. When one has done all that, one can pronounce as a master, "there is a contradiction." This is, however, not always enough. When a work is systematic, one must also be sure that one understands the whole system. You see a great machine made in order to produce an effect. You see wheels that turn in opposite directions; you would think, at first glance, that the machine was going to destroy itself, that all the turning was going to arrest itself, that the machine was going to halt. It keeps going: these pieces, which seem at first to destroy one another unite together for the proposed object. This is my reply to the [critique of The Spirit of the Laws] of the Abbe de la Porte. 4 Montesquieu denied that his way of writing was peculiar or unique in the philosophical tradition. He

13

Chapter Two did not read philosophical texts rne way they are usually read today; he tended to think that many of the philosophers had hidden their true doctrines. For example, he claimed that Spinoza was an atheist; 5 that Descartes denied the existence of the soul; 6 that the Stoics were atheists; 7 and that "the doctrine of a superior intelligent being was founded by Plato only as a safeguard and a defensive arm against the calumnies of zealous pagans. " 8 A style of writing that requires so much effort to lay bare its meaning is likely to appear somewhat perverse to the modern reader. But there are sound reasons, alluded to by d'Alembert, for such reticence. The first and most obvious is the fear of persecution. Some scholars are aware that, Montesquieu wrote \Vith the Censor and the Index always before his eyes . . . . In Montesquieu's time, it was not ahvays safe to dot your i's. And that his nervousness \Vas not unfounded is shown by the fact that, not\vithstanding his precautions, his book found its \vay onto the Index, and remained for two years under the ban of the civil censor. 9 Montesquieu himself makes the situation abundantly clear. The Preface to The Spirit of the Laws begins with a disclaimer of any criticism of the existing order of things. In the rest of the Preface and, indeed, throughout the \Vhole work, Montesquieu never tires of reiterating such disclaimers. But \vhile this fear is sufficient to account for many more obscurities than n1ost scholars have ackno\vledged, it is by no means the sole reason for Montesquieu's elusive style. A more important reason is

Montesquieu's Manner of Writing revealed by d' :\lembert's suggestion that Montesquieu wrote for two different kinds of readers. .~s d' Alembert explains, Montesquieu believed that men are radically unequal in their intellectual capacities, that only a few are capable of understanding the truth and benefiting by it, and that the vast majority ,vould find the truth, if openly stated, both confusing and harmful. An additional reason for Montesquieu's "voluntary obscurity" is, then, the desire to hide the truth from the many unwise readers. The possible harmfulness of the truth about human nature and politics will be clearer after our exposition of Montesquieu's teaching. We shall see that Montesquieu's understanding of man as a selfish or egoistic being is shocking to generally held vie,vs of morality and religion, the views which formed the legitimating principles of most regimes in his time, if not in ours. It is true that Montesquieu wished to change the basis of political life and that he was willing to go very far in ,veakening morality and religion. But as he emphasizes in the Preface, he feared the effects of unguided, radical change. And even in the kind of political order he envisioned as a goal, he did not feel it was possible to dispense entirely with salutary moral prejudices. Some remnant was needed to help preserve order and cooperation. He wished to lessen the restraints on human selfishness, but he still held that the selfishness must be channelled and guided. At the same time, it is not sufficient to say that Montesquieu ,vished only to hide the truth from the vast majority of readers. D' Alembert fails to remark that Montesquieu ,vished to have a widespread popular effect. As he says at the beginning of Book lj

Ch~pter Two XX, he hoped that his book \Vould have a far-reaching influence on political thought. In order to have such an influence, Montesquieu not only had to educate the few wise or philosophic readers; he also had to set in motion a large number of less intelligent and less studious men. The wise need "follo\vers" \Vho will be the "leaders" of the multitude. A.ccordingly, while veiling the first principles of politics, Montesquieu portrays with attractive clarity many key practical proposals for specific nations and situations. Montesquieu is famous for having presented with inimitable power and unforgettable clarity the case for federation, separation of po\vers, moderation of criminal law, the encouragement of commerce, and the necessity for prudent attention to the particular character of each nation. No one who reads The Spirit of the Laws, no matter ho\v little he understands its unity or ultimate basis, can fail to be affected by these and other forceful ideas. Nlontesquieu 's rhetoric is so successful because he bases his appeal for these proposals partly on principles acceptable to almost everyone-freedom and prosperity-\vhile he refuses to delineate too clearly ho\v these principles come into conflict \Vith others-like piety or moral virtue. In addition, Montesquieu pleases and attracts us through his stimulating and graceful prose. The beauty of this prose style is often noted, but its underlying rhetorical intention seems to have been perceived and described only by Hippolyte Taine. The first, and most lasting, impression conveyed by ~1ontesquieu is a tone of moderation: No \vriter is n1ore master of hin1self, n1ore outwardly caln1, more sure of his meaning. His voice is never boisterous; he expresses the 1nost po\ver16

Montesquieu's Manner of Writing ful thoughts ,vith moderation. There is no gesticulation; exclan1ations, the abandonn1ent of impulse, all that is irreconcilable ,vith decorum is repugnant to his tact, his reser,·e, his dignity. 10 The intention to instill such moderation in the reader is part of the reason for the numerous brief chapters in The Spirit of the Laws. In a series of these chapters .\ 1ontesquieu can sketch quickly but incisi\'ely the manifold particularity to ,vhich any universal political principle 1nust be applied: he thus succeeds in in1itating the complex n1ultiformity of political life. \Vhile n1aking both particular and general proposals, he at the san1e tin1e educates the reader in political prudence and caution. But the n1ore fundan1ental rhetorical intention is that \\'hich is divined by those ,vho call 1'1ontesquieu's style epigran1matic. This characterization is not unjust, for the style often seen1s to be a kind of imitation of the Latin ,vriters ,vhom ~1ontesquieu found most beautiful. 11 .~\n epigran1 is graceful, brief, men1orable, and clear, yet it sun1marizes in a paradoxical or thought-pro,·oking manner a ,,·hole range of reflections. In reading A1ontesquieu, one experiences a sin1ilar effect, repeated n1any times. ~ot only do the brief chapters resen1ble epigrams, but often the relation of a chapter or series of chapters to ,vhat precedes and follo,vs is perplexing. \Vhat begins as light paradox in a single passage turns into a deeper puzzle of obscure transitions and connections. But the puzzles are so presented as to in,·ite atten1pts at solution: I le seen1s to be ahvays addressing a select circle of people ,vith acute n1 inds, and in such a ,vay

Chapter Two as to render them at every moment conscious of their acuteness. No flattery cou Id be more delicate; \Ve feel grateful to him for making us satisfied \Vith our intelligence. We must possess some intelligence to be able to read him, for he deliberately curtails developments and omits transitions; \Ve are required to supply these and to comprehend his hidden meanings. He is rigorously systematic but the system is concealed, his concise completed sentences succeeding each other separately, like so many precious coffers or caskets. . .. Open the1n and each contains a treasure; here is placed in narrO\\' compass a rich store of reflections, of emotions, of discoveries, our enjoyn1ent being the more intense because \Ve can easily retain all this for a moment in the palm of our hand . . . . he thinks in summaries; ... the sun1n1ary itself often bears the air of an enigma, of \vhich the charm is t\vofold; ,ve ha\'e the pleasure of comprehension accompanying the satisfaction of di\'ining. 12 Montesquieu's is a style that can at once create \videsprea