MONTESQUIEU. 243 of these into a consistent sensationalism, into the morality of interest, and into materialism ; finally, the reaction against the illumination of the understanding in Rousseau's philosophy of feeling.* I. The Entrance of English Doctrines. Montesquieu t (1689-1755) made Locke's doctrine of constitutional monarchy and the division of powers (pp. 179-180), with which he joins the historical point of view of Bodin and the naturalistic positions of the time, the common property of the cultivated world. Laws must be adapted to the character and spirit of the nation ; the spirit of the people, again, is the result of nature, of the past, of manners, of religion, and of political institutions. Nature has bestowed many gifts on the Southern peoples, but few on those of the North ; hence the latter need freedom, while the former readily dispense with it. Warm climates pro- duce greater sensibility and passionateness, cold ones, muscular vigor and industry; in the temperate zones nations are less constant in their habits, their vices, and their virtues. The laws of religion concern man as man, those of the state concern him as a citizen ; the former have for their object the moral good of the individual, the latter, the welfare of society; the first aim at immutable, the second at mutable good. Laws and manners are closely interrelated. Right is older than the state, and the law of justice holds even in the state of nature; but in order to assure peace positive right is required in three forms, international, political, and civil. Each of the four political forms has a passion for its under- lying principle : despotism has fear ; monarchy, honor (per- sonal and class prejudice) ; aristocracy, the moderation of the nobility; democracy, political virtue, which subordinates personal to general welfare, and especially the inclination to
- On the whole chapter cf. Damiron, M/moires pour Servir h F Histoire de la
Philosophie au XVIII. Siick, 3 vols., 1 858-64 ; and John Morley's Voltaire, 187a [1886], Rousseau, 1873 [1886], and Diderot and the Encyclopedists, 1878 [new ed., 1886].
Montesquieu, Persian Letters, 1721; Considerations on the Causes of the
Greatness of the Romans and of tlieir Decadence, 1734; Spirit of Lazvs, 1748.
