Summary: The Spirit of Laws

The aim of The Spirit of Laws is to identify the fundamental principles that govern the history of political societies.
Events in our societies do not unfold at random. There are general laws that must be identified:

I have laid down the first principles and found that particular cases naturally conform to them; that the histories of all nations are merely their consequences ¹.

Montesquieu defines laws as the necessary relationships that derive from the nature of things ². All things—animals, men, God—therefore have their laws. This is the necessary condition for the world, once created, to persist rather than collapse in on itself, and the existence of these laws is demonstrated by the very persistence of the world.

These laws have existed since time immemorial—even human laws, which exist in potential before they are enacted.

Man, as an intelligent and free being, nevertheless has the power to violate the laws that define him: It is far from the case that the intelligent world is as well governed as the physical world ³.

The laws of nature, which precede political laws, are those that govern human beings before the establishment of societies. But what are they?

This amounts to describing the state of nature, a political theme popularised by Hobbes. Unlike Hobbes, however, Montesquieu does not describe it as a state of war in which every man is a wolf to his neighbour.

In this state, each man feels weak ⁴ and instinctively avoids the company of others. The state of nature is therefore a state of peace.

Hobbes asks why men lock their houses if they are naturally sociable. But Montesquieu shows this to be a misguided question: it attributes to them elements of civil society—a house, a key—and therefore desires that cannot arise in the state of nature.

In this state, four fundamental determinations characterise us: we have some idea of God, we seek to feed ourselves, we desire to reproduce, and we feel the urge to live in society, mixed with fear.

These, then, are the four natural laws of human beings.

As soon as we enter society, the state of war begins. Montesquieu thus describes a historical process that runs counter to Hobbes's, for whom people enter society precisely to escape the state of war that characterises the state of nature.

For Montesquieu, the state of war is twofold: men within the same society go to war with one another, as each loses awareness of his own weakness; and nations go to war with each other.

Three kinds of laws emerge from this (constituting three different types of rights):

- those governing relations between peoples: the law of nations

- those governing the relationship between rulers and the ruled: political law

- those governing relations between citizens: civil law

What form of government is most suited to human nature?

Many political thinkers before Montesquieu attributed this quality to monarchy: the monarch commands his subjects as a father commands his children, making it the most natural political system.

Montesquieu objects that after the death of the father, power passes to sons or brothers, giving rise to a government of many. The family is therefore not the model from which the most natural form of government can be derived.

One might expect Montesquieu to argue in The Spirit of Laws that democracy is the political system most in keeping with human nature. This is not the case. The most natural government is the one that best fits the people for whom it is established.

The diversity of peoples gives rise to a great diversity of laws and, in turn, to a great variety of political regimes. There are few universal laws, and therefore no political regime that is universally valid:

Laws must be so peculiar to the people for whom they are made that it is a very great accident if those of one nation can suit another ⁵.

¹ The Spirit of Laws, preface
² I, chap.1
³ ibid.
⁴ I, chap.2
⁵ I, chap.3