BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCLX. OCTOBER, 1845. Vol. LVIII.

MONTESQUIEU.

Montesquieu is beyond all doubt the founder of the philosophy of history. In many of its most important branches, he has carried it to a degree of perfection which has never since been surpassed. He first looked on human affairs with the eye of philosophic observation; he first sought to discover the lasting causes which influence the fate of mankind; he first traced the general laws which in every age determine the rise or decline of nations. Some of his conclusions were hasty; many of his analogies fanciful; but he first turned the human mind in that direction. It is by repeatedly deviating into error that it can alone be discovered where truth really lies: there is an alchemy in the moral, not less than in the material world, in which a vast amount of genius must be lost before it is discovered that it has taken the wrong direction. But in Montesquieu, besides such occasional and unavoidable aberrations, there is an invaluable treasure of profound views and original thought—of luminous observation and deep reflection—of philosophic observation and just generalization. His fame has been long established; it has become European; his sayings are quoted and repeated from one end of the world to the other; but to the greater part of English readers, his greatness is known rather from the distant echo of continental fame, than from any practical acquaintance with the writings from which it has arisen.