Montesquieu, Charles De Secondat
Montesquieu, Charles De Secondat
(1689-1755) French historian and writer in the field of politics. His Lettres persanes, thinly disguise trenchant criticism of the decadence of French society through the letters of two Persian visitors. His masterpiece, L’Esprit des Lois, gives a political and social philosophy in pointing the relation between the laws and the constitution of government. He finds a relation between all laws in the laws of laws, the necessary relations derived from the nature of things. In his analysis of the English constitution, he stressed the separation of powers in a manner that has had lasting influence though based on historical inaccuracy. — L.E.D.