The Spirit of Laws, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint): With d'Alembert's Analysis of the Work (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from The Spirit of Laws, Vol. 1 of 2: With D'alembert's Analysis of the Work

But Montesquieu had no personal reasons for disliking either Church or State. No insult had embittered his early life, his unwounded pride never festered at the recollection of per sonal maltreatment. He was always decorous, conservative and prudent. In the rich soil of his generous nature, no seed had been sown from which hatred could grow. He was a lover of the human race, and sought to promote its happiness. If, in the effervescence of his early youth, he allowed his brilliant pen to enter upon dangerous fields of controversy, he never intended other than good results. He meant to cure, not to kill: he hoped to make, not to mar: he sought to repair and to improve, not to tear down and to destroy. His warm Gascon nature exulted in the mere fact of existence, the sunshine of the merry Gascon country was in itself a delight. He would have had the whole world as happy as himself. He loved the companionship of friends, he delighted in the society of books.

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Charles Louis Secondat de la Brede, was born at the Chateau de la Brede, near Bordeaux, in the month of January, 1689. He lived sixty-six years, and died on the tenth day of Februarj755. If we should omit his literary performances from the record of his life, and consider his existence apart from his books, the record would end here, and it might be said of him, as has been justly said of some royal personages, that he was born, he lived and he died. Not only was that life uneventful, but it was studiously shut off from the public eye. He shrank from those who would peer into his privacy, and reserved that part of himself for his family and his friends. He loved fame, that is, the honorable repute that grew out of the intellectual productions with which he enriched the world. A part from these, as Horace, whom he resembled in many ways, has said of himself: He sought the secret way and unfrequented path of life that steals away unknown. That he was thoroughly a gentleman in the best sense of the word courteous, gentle, kindly and unassuming all who knew him testify: withal a genuine Gascon in the sparkle of his speech, in the southern brogue that he patriotically exaggerated, in his wit and effervescence, in all the qualities that he derived from the sunny atmosphere of his native Gascony and the ruddy wines that flowed so freely from the land that he dearly loved to the end. Writers with an ingenious turn for the discovery of analogies have compared him to Voltaire, who was born but a few years after Montesquieu, and survived him many years. Voltaire was undoubtedly a man of rare genius and unequalled skill when it came to the work of destruction. To demolish ancient things was the task in which he excelled and which he delighted to perform.
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