Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

History must be illustrated by the laws, and the laws by history.

When I read Montesquieu, I envision him holding the globe in his hand, or rather in his mind, as he studies the history of mankind, the laws and customs of nations and peoples around the world. The Laws are deposits of wisdom, and indirect reflections of the characters and histories of the peoples. If one comprehends the spirit of the laws, one comprehends the world.

Montesquieu is to political science what Darwin is to biology, in that he subsumed all the diverse elements in the field into a unified system, and laid the groundwork for further studies. Unlike Darwin's magnum opus, however, The Spirit of the Laws is full of humour, so much so that Montesquieu had to check himself, "lest I should be suspected of writing a satire". (Book III. Ch. VI)

The framers of the Constitution of the United States cited Montesquieu as an preeminent authority on the principle of separation of powers, the bedrock principle of the constitutions of some of the greatest nations; The fact that he, an 18th-century Frenchman who had never been to China, captured the spirit of that ancient empire, long before modern scholars arrived at similar conclusions, is another testament to his acumen as a philosopher-scholar.

(Read full review at )