[12] "The real importance of Esprit des lois is not that of a formal treatise on law, or even on polity. It is that of an assemblage of the most fertile, original, and inspiriting views on legal and political subjects, put in language of singular suggestiveness and vigour, illustrated by examples which are always apt and luminous, permeated by the spirit of temperate and tolerant desire for human improvement and happiness, and almost unique in its entire freedom at once from doctrinairism, visionary enthusiasm, egotism, and an undue spirit of system. The genius of the author for generalization is so great, his instinct in political science so sure, that even the falsity of his premises frequently fails to vitiate his conclusions." (Saintsbury, George, in Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. XVIII, p. 777.)
[13] "By the captivating prospects which he held out of future progress, and by the picture which he drew of the capacity of society to improve itself, Turgot increased the impatience which his countrymen were beginning to feel against the despotic government, in whose presence amelioration seemed to be hopeless. These, and similar speculations of the time, stimulated the activity of the intellectual classes, cheered them under the persecutions to which they were exposed, and emboldened them to attack the institutions of their native land." (Buckle, H. T., History of Civilisation in England, vol. I, p. 597.)
[14] Duruy, V., History of France, p. 523.
[15] Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. viii, p. 204.
[16] "The real king of the eighteenth century was Voltaire; but Voltaire, in his turn, was a pupil of the English. Before Voltaire became acquainted with England, through his travels and his friendships, he was not Voltaire, and the eighteenth century was still undeveloped." (Cousin, History of Philosophy.)
[17] "The first Frenchmen who in the eighteenth century turned their attention to England were amazed at the boldness with which, in that country, political and religious questions of the deepest moment were discussed—questions which no Frenchman in the preceding age had dared to broach. With wonder they discovered in England a comparative freedom of the public press, and saw with astonishment how in Parliament itself the government of the Crown was attacked with impunity, and the management of its revenues actually kept under control. To see the civilization and prosperity of England increasing, while the power of the upper classes and the King diminished, was to them a revelation…. England, said Helvetius, is a country where the people are respected, a country where each citizen has a part in the management of affairs, where men of genius are allowed to enlighten the public upon its true interests." (Dabney, R. H., Causes of the French Revolution, p. 141.)
[18] Tennyson, in his "You ask me why," well describes the growth of constitutional liberty in England when he says that England is:
"A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where freedom broadens slowly down,
From precedent to precedent."
[19] James I, in 1604, had declared: "As it is atheism to dispute what God can do, so it is presumption and a high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do." For this attitude the Commons continually contested his authority, his son lost his crown and his head, and his grandson was driven from the throne and from England. By contrast, and as showing the different attitude toward self-government of the two peoples, the German Emperor William II, three centuries later, so continually boasted of his rule by divine right that "Me and God" became an international joke, and to his assumption the German people took little or no exception.
[20] The passage of the Bill of Rights (1689) ended the divine-right-of- kings idea in England for all time. This prohibited the King from keeping a standing army in times of peace, gave every subject the right to petition for a redress of grievances, gave Parliament the right of free debate, prohibited the King from interfering in any way with the proper execution of the laws, declared that members ought to be elected to Parliament without interference, and gave the Commons control of all forms of taxation.