THE ANALYSIS OF "THE SPIRIT OF LAWS" BY JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT HE generality of literary men who have mentioned “The ΤΗ it than to give a just idea of it, we shall endeavor to supply what they ought to have done, and to explain its plan, its nature, and its objects. Those who may think this Analysis too long will, perhaps, be of opinion, after having read it, that there was no other way of making the author's method properly understood. It ought also to be remembered that the history of celebrated writers is little more than that of their thoughts and their works, and that this part of their history is the most essential and most useful. BOOK I.-Men in the state of nature, abstracted from all religion, in those disputes which they may have, know no other law than that of all animals, the right of the strongest; the establishment of society ought to be regarded as a kind of treaty against this uniust title-a treaty destined to establish a sort of balance between the different divisions of the human race. But it happens in the moral, as in the physical equilibrium, that it is seldom perfect and stable, and the treaties of the human race are like treaties among our princes-perpetual sources of dispute. Interest, necessity, and pleasure made men associate together. The same motives urge them continually to desire the advantages of society without the burdens of it; and it is in this sense that we may say with our author that men, from the time they enter society, are in a state of war. For war supposes in those who make it, if not an equality of strength, at least an assumption of this equality: whence arise the mutual desire and hope of conquest. Now, in a state of society, if the balance among men be never perfect, neither is it, on the other hand, very unequal. But, in a state of nature, on the contrary, they would either have nothing to dispute about, or, if neces sity obliged them to it, nothing would be seen but weakness flying before force, oppressors meeting with no resistance, and those who were oppressed tamely submitting. Behold, then, men, united and hostile at the same time, on one side, if we may be allowed the expression, embracing each other, and on the other endeavoring mutually to wound each other. Laws are the chains, more or less efficacious, which are destined to suspend or to restrain their blows. But the prodigious extent of the globe which we inhabit, the different nature of the regions of the earth, and of the people who are spread over it, not permitting that all mankind should live under one and the same government, the human race was obliged to divide itself into a certain number of states, distinguished by the difference of those laws to which they are subjected. Under one single government the human race would have been no more than one enfeebled and languishing body, extended without vigor over the surface of the earth. The different governments are so many robust and active bodies; by mutually assisting each other they form one whole, whose reciprocal action maintains and keeps up motion and life everywhere. Book II. We may distinguish three sorts of governments: the republican, the monarchical, the despotic. In the republican, the people in a body possess the sovereign power. In the monarchical, one single person governs by fundamental laws. In the despotic, no other law is known than the will of a master, or rather of a tyrant. Not that there are in the universe only these three kinds of government, or that there are states which belong only and strictly to some one of these forms. For the greatest number of them the three forms are mixed or blended the one with the other. Here monarchy inclines to despotism; there the monarchical government is combined with the republican; elsewhere it is not the whole people, it is only a part of them, which make the laws. But the preceding division is not on that account the less just and exact. The three kinds of government which it includes are so distinguished that they have properly nothing in common; and yet all the governments which we know participate the one in the other. It was, therefore, necessary to form particular classes of these three kinds, and afterwards to determine the laws which are proper for each; it would be easy afterwards to adapt those laws to any par Mack ticular government, according as it might belong more or less to one of those different forms. In different states the laws ought to have relation to their nature, that is to say, to that which constitutes them; and to their principle, or, to that which supports them and puts them in motion: an important distinction, the key of an infinite number of laws, and from which the author draws many consequences. The principal laws in relation to the nature of democracy are, that the people be in some respects the monarch, and in others the subject; that it elect and judge of its magistrates, and that the magistrates on certain occasions pronounce decisions. The nature of monarchy requires that there be between the monarch and the people some body to whom the laws are intrusted, and which ought to be a mediator between the subject and the prince. The nature of despotism requires that the tyrant exercise his authority, either by himself alone or by one who represents him. Book III.-As to the principle of the three governments, that of democracy is the love of the commonwealth, that is, of equality. In monarchies, where the single person is the dispenser of distinctions and rewards, and where they are accustomed to confound the state with this single man, the principle is honor, that is, ambition and the love of esteem. Lastly, under despotism, it is fear. The more vigorous these principles are, the more fixed the government is; the more these are altered and corrupted, the more it tends to its destruction. When the author speaks of equality in democracy, he does not mean an extreme, absolute, and consequently chimerical equality. He means that happy equilibrium which renders all the citizens equally subject to the laws and equally interested in observing them. BOOK IV. In every government the laws of education ought to be in relation to the principle of that government. We understand here by education that which is received in entering upon the world, and not that of parents and of schoolmasters, which is often contrary to it, especially in some states. In monarchies, education ought to have for its object politeness and reciprocal civilities; in despotic states, terror and the debasing of the spirits of men. In republics they have occasion for all the power of education; it ought to inspire a sentiment which is noble but hard to be attained, namely, that disregard of one's own interest whence arises the love of one's country. BOOK V. The laws which the legislator makes ought to be conformed to the principle of each government-in a republic, to maintain equality and frugality; in monarchy, to support the nobility without ruining the people; in a despotic government, to silence and to keep equally under subjection those of every condition. M. de Montesquieu ought not to be accused of having pointed out to sovereigns the principles of arbitrary power, the very name of which is so odious to a just prince, and still more so to a wise and virtuous citizen. To point out what is necessary to maintain it is to labor to destroy it; the perfection of this government is its ruin, and an exact system of the laws of tyranny, such as our author describes to us, is at the same time a satire upon, and the most formidable scourge of, tyrants. With respect to other governments, they have each their advantages: the republican is more appropriate to small, the monarchical to great, states; the republican is more subjected to excesses, the monarchical to abuses; the republican executes the laws after more mature deliberation, the monarchical with more promptitude. BOOKS VI and VII.-The difference of the principles of the three governments must produce many differences in the number and object of laws, in the form of judgments, and the nature of punishments. The constitution of monarchies, being invariable and fundamental, requires more civil laws and tribunals that justice may be administered in the most uniform and least arbitrary manner. In moderated governments, be they monarchical or republican, there cannot be too many formalities in criminal law. Punishments ought not only to be in proportion to the crime, but also as gentle as possible, especially in a democracy: the opinion attached to punishments will often have more effect than their severity. In republics, judgment must be given according to law, because no individual has the power to alter it. In monarchies, the clemency of the sovereign can sometimes soften the law; but crimes ought never to be judged there except by magistrates expressly intrusted with that office. Lastly, it is principally in democracies that the laws ought to be severe against luxury, looseness of morals, and debauching of women. Their very softness and weakness render them fit enough to govern in monarchies; and history proves that they have often worn a crown with glory. BOOKS VIII and IX.-M. de Montesquieu, having thus run over each government in particular, afterwards examines them in the relation which they may bear to each other, but only from the most general point of view, that is to say, from that which has reference only to their nature and their principle. Viewed in this light, states can have no relations but that of defending themselves or of attacking. Republics by their nature, supposing their state to be small, cannot defend themselves without alliances; but it is with republics that they ought to ally themselves. The defensive force of a monarchy consists principally in having frontiers secured from insults. BOOK X.-States, like men, have a right to attack for their own preservation; from the right of war that of conquest is derived a right necessary, lawful, calamitous, which always lays an immense debt upon us, if we would discharge what on that account becomes due from us to human nature, and the general law of which is to do as little harm as possible to the conquered. Republics can conquer less than monarchies; immense conquests suppose despotism already in a state, or render its approach certain. One of the great principles of the spirit of conquest ought to be to render the condition of the conquered as much better as possible; this is to fulfil, at once, the law of nature and a maxim of state. Nothing is more noble than that treaty of peace which Gelo made with the Carthaginians, by which he forbade them for the future to sacrifice their own children. The Spaniards, when they conquered Peru, ought in the same way to have obliged the inhabitants no more to have sacrificed men to their gods; but they thought it more advantageous to sacrifice these people themselves. There remained nothing to them as a conquest but a vast desert; they were obliged to depopulate their own country, and forever weakened it by their own conquest of it. It may sometimes be necessary to change the laws of the conquered people; it can never be so, to deprive them of their observances, or even of their customs, which are often all they have for observances. But the surest way of retaining a conquest is to put, if it is possible, the conquered on a level with the conquerors, to grant them the same |