In this important work M. de Montesquieu, without insisting, like his predecessors, upon metaphysical discussions, without confining himself, like them, to consider certain people in certain particular relations or circumstances, takes a view of the actual inhabitants of the world in all their conceivable relations to each other.  Most other writers in this way are either simple moralists, or simple lawyers, or even sometimes simple theologists.  As for him, a citizen of all nations, he cares less what duty requires of us than what means may constrain us to do it; about the metaphysical perfection of laws, than about what man is capable of; about laws which have been made, than about those which ought to have been made; about the laws of a particular people, than about those of all peoples.  Thus, when comparing himself to those who have run before him in this noble and grand career, he might say, with Correggio, when he had seen the works of his rivals, “And I, too, am a Painter.”

Filled with his subject, the author of the ‘Spirit of Laws’ comprehends so many materials, and treats them with such brevity and depth, that assiduous reading alone discloses its merit.  This study will make that pretended want of method, of which some readers have accused M. de Montesquieu, disappear.  Real want of order should be distinguished from what is apparent only.  Real disorder confuses the analogy and connection of ideas; or sets up conclusions as principles, so that the reader, after innumerable windings, finds himself at the point whence he set out.  Apparent disorder is when the author, putting his ideas in their true place, leaves it to the readers to supply intermediate ones.  M. de Montesquieu’s book is designed for men who think, for men capable of supplying voluntary and reasonable omissions.

The order perceivable in the grand divisions of the ‘Spirit of Laws’ pervades the smaller details also.  By his method of arrangement we easily perceive the influence of the different parts upon each other; as, in a system of human knowledge well understood, we may perceive the mutual relation of sciences and arts.  There must always remain something arbitrary in every comprehensive scheme, and all that can be required of an author is, that he follow strictly his own system.

For an allowable obscurity the same defense exists.  What may be obscure to the ignorant is not so for those whom the author had in mind.  Besides, voluntary obscurity is not properly obscurity.  Obliged to present truths of great importance, the direct avowal of which might have shocked without doing good, M. de Montesquieu has had the prudence to conceal them from those whom they might have hurt without hiding them from the wise.