Monteqzlieds Methodology:

Holism, Indiuidzldlism, and M orality

BY
DAVIDYOUNG*
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose political philosophy has

L
IKE
engendered varying schools of interpretation, Montesquieu has
provided much ground for dispute among commentators. Hi5
aphoristic style and the lack of a n obvious plan in his major
works almost seem to invite misunderstanding and controversy. He has
been viewed as a reformer and a reactionary, a republican and a
monarchist, a n exponent of aristocratic privilege and the scourge of the
old regime, and a n optimist and a pessimist.’ All these perspectives may
be defended plausibly with support from Montesquieu’s writings.
Perhaps n o aspect of Montesquieu’s thought has aroused so much
argument a5 ttir question of his relationship to the natural law theorists
of the sevrnteenth and eighteenth centuries. T h e writers of the natural
law school asserted that there are certain basic features of human nature

“The author is Associate Professor of History at Central Missouri State University.

He would like to acknowledge the support of the National Endowment for the
Humanities. and he would also like to express his indebtedness to Professors Stephen B.
Baxter and Maurice Mandelbaum for their guidance in the work that led to this essay.
All references herein to the works of Montesquieu, unless otherwiseindicated, are to
the Pl6iade edition, edited by Roger Caillois: Oeuures complktes, 2 vols. (Paris, 1949,
1951). Except in references to the works indicated below, this edition will be cited as
Oeuzms. followed by the volume and page numbers
T h e Esprit des lois is in the second volume of Oeuvres and will be cited as Lois with
the book number indicated in Roman numerals and the chapter in Arabic numerals. For
instance, thc third chapter of the tenth book will be cited as Lois X 3. The Considhations
sur 1es causes de la grandeur des romains et de leur d&adence, also in the second volume of
Oeuvres, will be cited as Romains with the chapter number given in Roman numerals.
That is, the eighteenth chapter will be cited as Romains XVIII. Finally, the Lettres
persanes, in the first volume of Oeuvres, will be cited as Lettres with the letter number
given in Arabic numerals. For example, the eighty-fourth letter will be citedas Lettres 84.
Page references will be given for all works.
All translations in the text are the author’s.
’David Wallace Carrithers, Introduction to The Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu,
ed. David Wallace Carrithers, trans. Thomas Nugent (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1977),3-
88; cf. Thomas I.. Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Literalism: A Commentary on
the Spirit of the Laws (Chicago, 1971), 11-19.

36
 Mon tesquieu
manifested in every individual; they endowed these traits, whether
rational or instinctive, with normative value and proceeded to judge
social and political arrangements by their conformity to human nature.
Further, the natural law theorists were generally methodological and
ontological individualists, believing that all statements about social
phenomena could be reduced ultimately to statements about persons
and that the individual is metaphysically and morally prior to the
community. Thus they frequently used the device of an original
contract or contracts among independent individuals to explain the
foundations of social or political obligation or both.2 These
generalization’s are not meant to deny the very real differences among
Grotius, Pufendorf, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Gravina, Cumberland,
Burlamaqui, and others but merely to indicate some of the common
features of their approaches to social and political problems.
One interpretation of Montesquieu has been that he broke radically
from the natural law school; that he concentrated on an analysis of
irreducible societal facts; that he had far more interest in what is than in
what ought to be; that he had little or no concern with human natureas
such, let alone with judgments based upon human nature; that he paid
scant attention to the individual; and that he avoided moralizing save
when he forgot himself. In short, many have seen him as a positivistic
sociologist or, at any rate, as a protopositivist.
Such an interpretation does find some support in Montesquieu’s
writings. In the Preface to T h e Spzrzt of the Laws he explicitly
disclaimed any intention of censuring any established institution or
usage whatever; on the contrary, he declared that he intended to offer a
dispassionate analysis of facts3 His treatment of the laws of nature and
of the state of nature appears rather sketchy, and his great work made no
mention at all of an original contract of society or government.4 Indeed,
he dismissed the very idea of a social contract as ridiculous in the Persaan
Letters.5
A number of eighteenth-century commentators saw Montesquieu as
a pure social scientist. The Abbe’ Fontaine de La Roche, editor of the
Nouuelles eccllszastzques and Montesquieu’s bitter critic, charged that
T h e Spzrzt of the Laws merely explained but did not condemn such

‘Joseph Dedieu, Montesquieu, ed. Jean Ehrard (Paris, 1966; original edition, 1913),
90-93; Mark H. Waddicor, Montesquieu and the Phzlosophy of Natural Law (The Hqgue,
1970), 1-15; cf. Christopher J . Berry, “From Hume to Hegel: The Case of the Sncial
Contract,” Journal of the History of Ideas 38(1977): 691-96; C.B. Macpherson, T h e
Political Theory of Possessive 1ndivtdualism:Hobbes to Locke(Oxford, 1962),74-78, 148-
54, 255-57.
jPreface, Lozs, 230.
~ I - o z . \ 1, 2, 4135-36; t f . Robert Shac kleton, Montesquzeu: A C r i f i t a l Biography
(Oxford, 1961), 247-53; John Plamenati, Man and Sotzety, vol. 1 (London, 1963),260-62.
SLettres 94, 269.

37
 The Historian
moral outrages as suicide and polygamy.6 In irnile, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau complained that Montesquieu had concentrated on what is
and had neglectedaltogether what ought to be.7 Condorcet substantially
shared the Genevan's opinion.8
In the nineteenth century, Montesquieu's alleged departure from the
school of natural law received a more favorable evaluation. In the "Plan
of Scientific Works Necessary for the Reorganization of Society" and in
the forty-seventh lecture o f the Course of Positive Philosophy, Auguste
Comte praised Montesquieu for seeing social phenomena as subject to
law and f?r being concerned with facts rather than dogmas.9 Later in the
century, Emile Durkheim seconded Comte's praise and devoted his
Latin thesis, Quid Secondatus politicae scientiae instituendae
contulerit (What Montesquieu contributed to the establishment of
social science), to showing that Montesquieu was a forerunner of
positivistic sociology.1oMore explicitly than Comte, Durkheim lauded
Montesquieu for refusing to reduce social phenomena to individual or
psychological phenomena and for founding a science of irreducible
societal facts."
A number of twentieth-century scholars, especially positivists and
Marxists, have continued the line of argument which Comte and
Durkheim began. Thus Sergio Cotta has hailed Montesquieu as one of
the first true social scientists.'* Thus the Marxist Louis Althusser has
applauded Montesquieu's supposed break with the natural law school,
arguing that natural law doctrines were only value judgments

T h e AbbGdc la Roche published hi5 attacks o n the Esprzt des Lot.\ in theNou~vI1es
01 0~
rcc~ld;za.~tiqur.~ robei 9 and 16, 1749. These ate reprinted in Oeu?~rr.\drMon/c.\yzczeu,
rd. k:douard I.almulaye, vol. 4 (Paris, 1878). 115-37. For a hclplul enumeration o f the
passage trnsuird by the Abbe de la Roc he and other e(t Ic,siastics,scrappcndix 1 and the
accornpariying notrs. Thc.Spzrzt of the I.ctu'\. etl. <:ailithers, 467-68;cf.Drfrn.tedr/'b;sprrt
drs / O I S , i n Orzc7trr5, 2: 1134-36.
'Jean-Jacques Rousseau, h n i l e , ou de l'education, in Oeuvres compl2fe.s dr
Rousseau, ed. B. Gagnebin and M. Raymond, vol. 4 (Paris, 1969), 836.
8Marquis de Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire, in Oeuvres de Condorcef, vol. 4 (Paris,
1847), 170-71.
gAuguste Comte, "Plan de traveaux srientifiques nkessaires pour &organizer la
sociiti.," printed as the third part of thegeneral appendix toSyst~medepolitiqueposzfiue,
vol. 4 (Paris, 1854): 103, 107; Auguste Comte, Cours dephtlosophieposifzur,vol. 4 (Paris,
1893): l?S-ZOl.
'OEmile Durkheim, Montesquieu's Contribution to the Rise of Social Science, in
Montesquieu and Rousseaur Forerunners of Sociology, ed. and trans. A. Cuivillier (Ann
Arbor, Mich., 1965), 1-64.
"lbld., 15-23, 36-49.
"S(*rgiri< i > t t a . hlonfr,\quzru c / a ,A(w n z u d r / / a .\of tcfi (Turin, 1959), pa.\.\irn; c 1.
M ' V I I I ~Stalk.
I M o n / r . \ q u ~ c zPzonrrr
~ of //re S o c io/ogy of K n o w l r d g c (l'oionto. l960).
pmctm: Simonc Goyard-Fabtc. L a philo.wphzP du drozt dr hi'onfrsquz~u(Paris, 1973),
pn.\.\rm.
 Montesquieu
masquerading as science.Ig Most recently, in the United States, Mark
Hulliung has contended that natural law theory was in decay by the
middle of the eighteenth century and, to the extent that Montesquieu
wished to make moral judgments, he turned to fiction and to history as
“surrogates” for natural law. l 4
On the other hand, Montesquieu could also be portrayed as a
follower of the natural law school. Both the Persian Letters and The
Sfizrzt of the Laws affirm their author’s belief in u priori principles of
justice independent of human convention.15 One of Montesquieu’s
fondest aims was to refute Thrasymachian notions of justice, and he was
a lifelong opponent of the view commonly imputed to Hobbes, that the
sovereign’s command is the only standard of right and wrong.I6 In the
1720s, Montesquieu wrote his Treatise on Duties which now survives
only in fragments among his notes and which was obviously inspired by
natural law writers, particularly Pufendorf.17 Montesquieu himself
declared his debt to the school of natural law when he wrote in 1749, “I
give thanks to Messrs. Grotius and Pufendorf for having accomplished
what a great part of this work[The Spirzt of the Laws] required of me
with a height of genius to which I could never have attained.”lS
Some eighteenth-century writers did believe that Montesquieu was
indeed a disciple of the natural law school, and they saw in his works a
demand for reform, a call to bring existing institutions into closer
harmony with human nature. This appears to be the light in which
Cesare Beccaria read Montesquieu’s works, especially the Persian
Letters. l 9 The Neapolitan Gaetano Filangieri seems to have interpreted
Montesquieu similarly.20
A number of modern critics have taken u p the argument that
Montesquieu was a follower of the natural law school. Marshall
Berman has presented the Montesquieu of the Persian Letters as a

13LouisAlthusser, Montesquieu: la politique et l’histoire (Paris, 1964), 5-27.

“Mark Hulliung, Montesquieu and the Old Regime (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1976), 108-72.
15Lettres83, 256-57; Lois I 1, 232-34.
16Montesquieu to Msgr. de Fitz-James, 8 October 1750, in Oeuvres c o m p l h de
Montesquieu, ed Andre Masson, vol. 3 (Paris, 1955), 1328; cf. Waddicor, Montesquieu, 65-
85; Shackleton, Montesquzeu, 248.
17Pen.rde.r602-609, in Oeuvres, 1 : 1128-50; cf. “Analyse du Traite‘des devoirs,” ibid.,
108-1 1.
l*Pensies 191, in Oeuvres, 2: 1038.
lgCesare Beccaria, Dei delitli e delle pene. Con una raccolta di lettere e documenti
relativz alla nasczta dell‘opera e alla sua fortuna nell’Europa del Settecento, ed. Franco
Venturi (Turin, 1!965), 10-12; cf. Beccaria to Morellet, 26 January 1766, ibid., 364.
20Rosario Romeo, “Illuministi merdionali, 2, del Genovesi ai patrioti della
Repubblica partenopea,” in La cultura illurninistica in Italia, ed. Mario Fubini (Turin,
1957), 176-78; cf. Paolo Berselli Ambri, L’opera di Montesquieu nel Settecento ilnliano
(Florence, 1960), 156-57.

39
 The Historian
radical methodological and ontological individualist, which would
lead one to conclude that Montesquieu had very close affinities with the
natural law philosophers.2I Thomas L. Pangle, whose interpretation of
T h e Spirit of the Laws is quite like that of Mark Hulliung in many
respects, is diametrically opposed to Hulliung in arguing that
Montesquieu was a firm believer in natural law and that he judged
social structures by their conformity to human nature.22 With
magisterial erudition, Mark H. Waddicor has sought to demonstrate the
similarities between Montesquieu and the school of natural law.z3Most
recently, the editor of a new English edition of T h e Spirit of the Laws
has argued persuasively that Montesquieu was deeply indebted to
Grotius, Pufendorf, and other natural law writersz4
These two interpretations of Montesquieu, one of which views him
as a positivist at odds with natural law philosophy and the other which
sees him as a champion of natural law doctrines, appear at first glance to
be utterly contradictory. It would seem that the best for which one might
hope by way of a synthesis is that Montesquieu was simply not
consistent and that he never reached a firm position.25 I believe,
however, that a better reconciliation may be achieved-one which does
more justice to Montesquieu’s thought. I hope to show that
Montesquieu was a methodological holist; that is, to use the language of
twentieth-century controversies, that he did not believe that statements
about social phenomena can be reduced to statements about individuals
without remainder.26 On the contrary, he held that there are irreducible
societal facts which cannot be explaincd simply by reference to persons.
In this he may be deemed a forerunncr of positivistic sociology fully
meriting the accolades of Comte and Durkheim. In espousing
methodological holism, Montesquieu parted company with most
representatives of the natural law school. On the other hand, I hope to
show that Montesquieu was by no means an organicist: he did not hold
that statements about persons could be totally reduced to statements
about social structures; rather he held that there isan irreduciblehuman
21MarshallBerman, T h e Politics of Aufhenticity: Radical Indiilrdualism and the
Emergence of M o d e m Society (New York, 1970), 3-53. The subtitle of Berman’s book is
most impoi tant.
22Pangle,Montesquteu’s Philosophy, 20-47.
2SWaddicor,Montesquieu, passim.
24C:arrithers,Introduction, 30-34.
2~3Plamcmaw A l r i r i crud Soc rely. 2fiO-&5: ( 1. R;tymond Aron, l ’ o / i / / {5 and fft.\/on:
j f / c ( / e df , \ \ c / y \ . c d . ;end I I : I I I \ . Mil iani Hi,trihcim <:oiiarir (New Y o l k . 1978). 72-73.
2bMauriceMandelbaum, ”Societal Fac ts.” in British Journal of Soc iology 6 ( 1955):
S O 5 17; c-f. Mauric-e Mandlebaum, ”Psychology and Societal Facts,” in 1-ogic, I.aws, and
l - i f e ,ed. Robert C;. (hlodny, Chiversity of Pittsburgh Series in the Philosophyof Science,
vol. 6 (Pittsburgh, 1977). 235-53; Samuel M . Hines, Jr., “Accommodating Biological
Facts: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives in Biopolitiral Inquiry,” paper presented for
the Foundations of Political Theory Group Panels at theannual meetingof the American
Political Science Association, New York, 1-3 Septembrr 1978, 26-30.

40
 Mon tesquieu
nature manifested in every individual. Further, he gave moral force to
what he took 10 be the principles of human nature and used these values,
these natural laws (in both the descriptive and the normative senses of
the term), as fundamental criteria for evaluating institutions and
regimes.Z7In this he may be deemed a follower of the natural law school
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In brief, without
inconsistency, Montesquieu was a methodological holist, but he was
also an exponent of natural law doctrines. He did not seek to reduce the
institutional t o the individual or the individual to the institutional.
Several considerations would lead one to conclude that Montesquieu
was a methodological holist. Perhaps the most striking expression of
the methodological individualism of many seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century political writers was their useof a n original contract
to explain the foundations of social or political obligation or both.28As
several commentators have noted, however, none of Montesquieu’s
major works makes any mention of such a c0rnpact.2~Montesquieu
appears to have rejected the device o n two grounds, and both are worthy
of note.
First, at a relatively superficial level, Montesquieu held that people
are inherently sociable; hence a n original contract is a forced and
affected explanation of social, or even political, relationships. Thus in
the Persian Letters, Usbek, one of Montesquieu’s traveling Iranians,
launches into a n attack on contract theory:
I have never heard anyone speak about public law without carefully
inquiring into the origin of societies, which appears ridiculous to me. If
men formed none, if they separated and fled from one another, it would be
necessary to ask the reason and to seek why they kept themselves isolated.
But they are born linked to one another; a son is born in his father’shome
and remains there: there you have society and the origin of society.30
In the fable of the Troglodytes which Usbek recounted earlier, the only
mention of a compact is an explicitly antisocial contract into which the
wicked Troglodytes enter, resolving to live apart from one a n ~ t h e r . ~ ’
Again, in the first book of The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu

27Fora discussion and critique of organicism and an appraisal of its relationship to

irreducible psychologird1 facts and KO moral judgments, see Maurice Mandelbaum,
H i s t o y , Man, and Reason: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Thought (Baltimore, 1971),
170-71, 250-62.
Z8Berry, “horn Hume to Hegel,” 691-96; cf. Plamenatz, Man and Society, 220-23.
29Althusser, Montesquieu, 18-21; Dedieu, Montesquieu, 192% Shackleton,
Montesquieu, 264; Hulliung, Montesquieu, 112; Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosoflhy, 41-
43.
3oLettres94, 269.
SILettres1 1 , 146. Waddicor claims to see a contract of government in the story of the
Troglodytes. Even he, however, admits that Montesquieu rejected any form of contract
theory later in his career. Waddicor, Montesquieu, 91-99.

41
 The Historian
expressly mentions five descriptive (and normative) laws of human
nature, fundamental impulses inherent in every person. Of these, at
least three make people sociable: the desire for peace, which arises from
innate timidity; sexual attraction (the “natural prayer” which men and
women offer to one another); and the conscious desire to live in society.s2
Montesquieu, however, did not reject the notion of an original
contract simply because he deemed people to be basically sociable. At a
more fundamental level, he denied, though often implicitly, that
individuals as such are the immediate components of a society; rather
he held that institutions and institutionally defined roles form a social
organization. This view becomes clear when Montesquieu crosses
swords with Grotius and Pufendorf, methodological individualists who
had affirmed that a conqueror has a right to kill a defeated people and,
consequently, to reduce a vanquished nation to slavery:
What has made them [the authors of our public law] think this way is that
they believed that the conqueror had the right to destroy the society; thence
they concluded that he had the right to destroy the men of whom it was
composed. This is a false consequence drawn from a false principle. For,
from the destruction of a society, it does not at all follow that the men who
formed it ought to be destroyed t o o . Society is the union of men and not the
men themselves; the citizen may perish and the man remain.33 (Italics
added.)
By rejecting methodological individualism, by declaring that a society
is composed of citizens (that is to say, roles) rather than of persons as
such, Montesquieu reaches a more humane conclusion than the natural
law writer^.^' More to the present point, such a holistic perspective
would make it absurd to speak of an original contract or any other
device which would seek to explain social and political phenomena
merely by reference to individual behavior.
Again, Montesquieu is careful to distinguish the “nature” of each
regime from its “principle.” The former refers to the institutional
structure of a polity; the latter is “what makes it act,” ”the human
passions which make it move.”35 Thus virtue animates a republic,
honor a monarchy, and fear a despotism.36 At first glance, one might
think that Montesquieu is seeking to explain societal facts by reference
to the psychology of individuals. A closer examination, however,
reveals that he is not really speaking merely of psychological facts. Far
from being descriptions of individual temperament, the princi,ples of
the various regimes are the passions which the roles composing them

s2Lo~sI 2. 235-36.
3 3 ~ 0 2 sx 3, 379.
Wf. Dedieu. Montesquieu, 177-78; Hulliung, Montesquieu, 176-77; Waddic or,
Mon tesq u icu , 1 50-58.
s5L017 111 1, 250-51.
111 2-10,
s6L01~ 251-61.

42
 Mon tesquieu
demand. T h u s the role of a citizen in a republic requires virtue; thus one
must have a sense of honor to be a good subject (especially a noble) in a
monarchy; thus the role of a slave in a despotism requires fear.
Montesquieu concludes his discussion of the principles of different
governments with these words:
Such are tht. principles of the three governments. This does not mean that,
in a certain republic, one is virtuous, but that one ought to be. This does not
prove either that, in a certain monarchy,one has a sense of honor or that in a
despotic state one has fear, but that oneought to have it. Without this, the
government would be imperfect.37
In the same vein, Montesquieu does not try to explain the "general
spirit" or national character of a people in terms of the psycholocgy of
individual behavior.3s He looks rather to institutional factors: religion,
laws, maxims (of government, precedents, morals, and manners. T h e
interaction of these societal rather than psychological variables
constitutes the explanation of the nature and character of a nation.39
T h e only noninstitutional determinant which he mentions in this
regard is climate, and its importance in Montesquieu's work has often
been overstated. He believed that societal forces could overcome climatic
influence and that such influence is paramount only among savages.'O
Indeed, a brief survey of the books of The Spirit of the L a w s ,
especially the first twenty-five or twenty-six, shows that Montesquieu
believed that the components of a society are institutions and
institutionally defined roles, not persons. Having set forth the nature
and principle of each regime, he discusses the relationships of these to
various societal facts: educational institutions and practices; civil and
criminal codes; laws pertaining to luxury and the status of women;
military institutions; fiscal systems; civil slavery; domestic slavery; the
general spirit of a people and the structures which shape it; the size of
the population (a prime example of a n irreducible societal fact); and
religious doctrines and institutions. All of this bespeaks a holistic
perspective, a denial that a society can be adequately conceived as a
collection of individuals or fully discussed merely by considering the
interaction of persons.
Montcsquieu's holism is nowhere more evident than in his
Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and of
 The Historian
Their Decline. Montesquieu was perfectly capable of giving vivid
psychological portraits of individuals, but this was by n o means his
central concern. His history of Rome ‘was in ~ titu tio n a l.~Briefly,
’ he
contended that those social and political structures which were
admirably suited to Roman conquest and expansion were by n o means
conducive to the maintenance of a large empire. T h e forces and
institutions which caused the republic to expand were undermined by
the expansion itself, and the growth of Rome precipitated the fall of the
republic. In the long run, conquest led to the utter collapse of the
Roman state and of Roman society.42Montesquieu was at pains todeny
that the actions of individuals as such were central to the explanation of
Rome’s history. T h e disposition of institutions, not persons, decided
the fate of Rome.4’ Thus, when speakingof the last years of therepublic,
Montesquieu declares,
If Caesar and Pompey had thought like Cato, others would have thought
like Caesar and Pompey, and the republic, destined to perish, would have
been led over the brink by another hand.44
Montesqiiicw, then, saw society as the interaction of institutional,
not individual, components, and he was interested in how such
components lit together. Above all, he was concerned with the ways in
which diffrrent aspects of a social system form a harmonious working
whole. As Durkheim, Carrithers, and others have suggested,
Montesquieu had what today would be termed a functionalist
~ r i r n t a t i o n . ~Many
’ o f the judgments which he makes on persons and
social structures may be considered functionalist. In this regard, the
words “should” and “must” occur frequently in TheSpirit o f t h e Laws,
particularly in the first eight books. Montesquieu used these terms in
discussing those institutions which are functional and those which are
dysfunctional under a particular sort of government. T h u s he assures
his readers that there ought to be laws banning luxury in a republic but
not in a monarchy; such statutes are in accord with the nature and
principle of the former regime, but not with those of the latter.46Again.
Montesquieu upbraids Cardinal Richelieu for his attempts to simplify
French legal pi-ocedure excessively. Such a n undertaking would have
been quite appropriate in a despotic- state, but it was utterly contrary to

“Cf. Dedieu, Montesquieu, 131-33. Pangle seems rather inclihed to overemphasize

the role of individuals in Montesquieu’s historiography. Pangle, Montesquieu’s
Philosophy, 280; cf. Hulliung, Montesquteu, 140-72.
‘?See especially Rornains IX, 116-20 XVII-XVIII, 164-76.
4SRornninsXI, 124; XVIII, 172-73.
“Romazn.\ XI, 129.
45EmileDurkheirn, Montesquteu’~Contrzbutzon to the RiseofSoraal Science, 56-57;
Carrithers. Introduction, 27-28.
“Loz.\ VII 2-4, 334-37.

44
 Mon tesquieu
the principles and institutions 01 niotl;irc.hic.al France.47 Though there
(.;in be no doubt. about Montesquieu's 1i;itrcd of despotism, at a certain
Ic\.c~lhe was lvilling to use the same func~ionalistcriteria in evaluating
~ piepared to allow that, to thccxtc~nttowhich adespotism can
i t . € 1 M'X
rolciate social and political strut turcs at all, such practices as the
c*xticiiic subjugation o f women, sla\.cry, and brutal punishments are
functional and therefore "good" in such a regime.48O n the other hand,
it would IM,"wrong," that is to say, dysfunctional, to attempt to
introduce constitutional government there:
If he [a good person in a despotic polity] loved the state, he would be
tempted 10relax the springs of government. If hedid not succeed, he would
be ruined; if he did succeed, he would run the risk of ruining himself, the
prince, and the empire.49
O n the subject of despotism, one may say that, o n a broader level,
Montesquieu's execration of this regime stemmed from his view of
despotism as dysfunction incarnate, the very limit of the political and
the social properly so called.50 Montesquieu defined despotism as the
rule of one man unchecked by any social or political constraint. There
can be n o law other than the ruler's moqentary whim, n o institution
which his caprice cannot destroy.5' Despotism as Montesquieu portrays
i t is inherently destructive of any fixed social order. "I d o not know,"
says Montesquieu of despotic states, "upon what the legislator may givc
laws or the magistrate pass judgment."5* All institutions are swallowed
u p by the person of the despot; the government of the country becomes
synonymous with the running of his household, and the household
revolves about his person.53T h e whole state is utterly devoted to the
pleasure of the prince. T h e one fundamental law of a despotism, the
appointment of a vizir, is psychological rather than political: the ruler
capriciously delegates all his power to a slave so that he may gratify his
appetites without interruption.j4 T h e only limits on a despot's power
are purely psychological (religious beliefs) or else physico-
psychological (the influence of climate).jj In sum, as Montesquieu saw
i t , despotism is the regime in which the social and the political arc
reduced to the personal with a vengeance. Despotism is inherently
dysfunctional and can only be made to work despite itself.56
-"l.OlS 1' 10, 289.
'"LOUVI 9, 318-39; \'I1 9, 341-42; XV I , 490; XV 6, 495; XVI 9-11, 514-17.
4qZ.ozsI\' 3, 266.
5OC:f. Althussei, Montesquiru, 77-85; Hulliung, Monlrsquzeu, 45, 101, 107;
Plamenatr, Man nrid Soczrty, 269-71.
5 ' I . ~ I1 ~ s1. 239; \' 14-16. 292-300.
~ ~ Z \'I m 2,s 408.
"'LOZSV 14. 5193-94; d.L O Z VIII C 6. 355.
5 4 Z . ~ 1 . \I1 5, 21-15-94;cf. Althusser, Montesquiru, 278.
5 " I . ~ ~ ~ \ I 1 4, 249; \' 14. 294; V 15, 297-98; VIII 10, 357; XIX 12, 563; XXIV 3, 716-17.

S h Z - 0 1 5 VII 10. 357.

45
 The Historian
'1-0 a largc extent, then, one may agree with Comte, Durkheim, and
other-s w h o have seen Montesquieu as a methodological holist.
R;1oritesquieu did not believe that social and political phenomena can he
explaincd simply by reference to individual behavior or t o the
dispositions o f persons. Even many of his judgments were founded
upon the harmon). or disharmony o f social structures and roles, not
upon a morality deriving from psychological considerations. In his
holism, Xfontescluieu parted company with the methodologic-a1
individualists o f the seventeenth- arid eighteenth-century school o f
natural law. N o doubt he would have taken issue with twentieth-
ceii tury champions of methodological individualism such as Isaiah
Berlin. Karl Popper, and j.M'.N. M'atkins.s7 Their position would
utterly preclude a social science of the sort which he was trying t o
establish.
T h e difficulty with those tvho have seen Montesquieu quite
completely as a mettiodologic.al holist is that they have all too often
imputed an orgartic-ist outlook t o him. That is, they have frequently
suggested that Montcsquieu belie\.ed that virtually all statements about
persons ('an be totally rrduced t o ataternentsabout social structures; that
persons havv n o reality apart from thc community; and that psychology,
tht. study o f individual consc-iousness or behavior, if not a totally
spc-cious discipline, explains w i - y little.58 Many nineteenth-century
critics of the methodological individualism of the natural law school
did indeed espouse some form of organicism. Hegel, for instance,
vehemently denied that the individual has any ontological standing
apart from the community. H e insisted on this point particularly when
he attacked social contract
More germane to the present subject, several writers and schools
tvith a n organicist outlook have been inclined toattributesimilar views
to Montesquieu. Comte, who spoke of Montesquieu as a founder of
positive social science, denied that the individual has any proper reality.
Further, Comte rejected the idea that there could be a positivescienceof
p\)( holog\; his hit.rarchy of disc ip1iilt.s moves directly frorn biolOgy t o
\o( iolog! <:omte wenied inc1inc.d to ascribe analogous opinions to
.'p0

'7F-01 a thorough discussion of rncthodological individualism, see W.H. Dray.

"€lolisrn a n d Individualism in History arid Social Science," in The Encycloppdza of
Plzrfosophy, td. Paul Edwards, vol. 4 (New York, 1967), 53-58; cf. Mandelbaum.
"Psvchology and So( ietal Facts," 235; Hints, "Actommodating Biological Facts," 26-30;
Karl R. Popper. Thr P o r w l y of Hzslorlcwn (.London, 1957), pusszm; J.W.N. Watkins,
"Ilistorical I..xplanatiim in the Social Sc iciires," in Brztt.~hJournal f o r thr Phzlo.~ophyof
Science 8 (1957): 503-14.
58Cif. Mandelbaum, IIistory, Man, a n d Krason, 163-71.
59C;.N'.F. Hegc.1, Philosophy ~f R i g h t , ed. and trans. T.M.Knox(Oxford 1952). 33.
13.5. 156-57,242, 279; t f . Berry, From Hunw l o Hegel, 696-703.
60(;omtt,, Cows d e phzlosofihir f i o . ~ z t z r v , ~ 0 1 . 4(Paris, 1893), 324-99; vol. 6 (Paris,
1894), 692-94; c 1. Mandrlbaum, H t s t o r y . Alan, und Rea.\on, 171-74.

46
 Mon tesquieu
Montesquieu, and it is scarcely surprising that some latter-day
positivists have followed suit.61
Durkheim did not go so far as Comte in denigrating the ontological
status of the individual, and he did allow some scope for psychology as a
valid discipline. He restricted that scope greatly, however, and
contended that most mental and behavioral phenomena could be
explained in terms of societal facts.62 In his commentary on
Montesquieu, he maintained that the author of The Spirit of the Laws
held similar views.63
Again, Karl Marx, especially when he repudiated Feuerbach, denied
that one could properly speak of human nature, at least until a classless
society had been established. He argued that the dispositions and
behavior of persons may be explained only in terms of economic and
social institutions and c i r c u m s t a n c e ~Some
. ~ ~ modern Marxists, notably
Louis Althusser, have tended to see a similar organicism in
Mon tesquieu .65
Although Montesquieu was a methodological holist, i t by n o means
follows that he was an organicist. In our ownday, W.H. Dray and, more
especially, Samuel Hines and Maurice Mandelbaum have argued very
cogently that methodological holism has no necessary connection
whatever with organicism.66 One may equally deny that all statements
about social phenomena can be totally reduced to statements about
individuals and that all statements concerning persons can be totally
reduced to statements about social phenomena. There is no
contradiction at all in affirming that there are irreducible societal facts
and irreducible psychological facts.67 Montesquieu might serve as a case
in point to the arguments of Hines and Mandelbaum. Though
Montesquieu’s social science was based upon methodological holism,
he believed that there is a fundamental human nature manifested in

Wotta, Montesquzeu, 89-103, 342-68; Dedieu, Montesquieu, 131-37: cf. Georges

Gurvich, “La sociologie juridiquede Montesquieu,” Rmue de metaphysique et de morale
16( 1939i: 61 1-26.
62Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, ed. and trans.
Joseph Ward Swain (London, 1915), 1-20, 415-47.
t?’DuiLIici;li.~ ~ f J i i / / , . \ C / i ~ / / (, i;~o’ n~ t r i ~ u / w i i I, S . 19-21; c I . t~ulliutig.A ! o J ~ / c \ c / ~ I ~ P u .
27. 43. (2. 108-1 I ? . On t t i i \ point, Hulliung‘s i t t t ~ t ~ ~ ~ t ~ f Monrcwluicw ~ i ~ i ( ~ ? ~ ~ ;) I lJ ) ~ ~ u I \ to tw
i i t t t 1 c . i siniilai t o IhlLticini’\.
b4KarlMarx. “Theses on Feuerbac-h,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Baszc
Cl’rztzngs, ed. Lewis S . Feuer (Garden City, Ncw York, 1959), 243-45; Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engrls, ”Excerpts from 7 h e German Ideology,” ibid., 246-60; cf. Mandelbaum,
History, Man. and Reason, 186-91.
b5Althusser,Montesquieu, 5-25, 42-46.
66Dray. “Holism and Individualism,” 53-58; Hines, “Accommodating Biological
Facts,” 26-30: Mandelbaum, Hzstory, Man, and Remon, 250-62.
67Mandelbaum, “Psychology and Societal Farts,” 241-50; cf. Mandelbaum,
“Societal Facts,” 312-17.

47
 T h e Historian
every person. Further, he held that social and political structures should
conform to that nature.
Near the beginning of The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu
expressly proposes to examine human nature completely apart from
any social institution or convention:
Prior to all these [positive]laws are the laws of nature, so called because they
derive solely from the constitution of our being. To know them well, one
must consider man before the establishment ofsociety. The laws of nature
would be those which he would receive in such a state.68(Italics added.)
Montesquieu proceeds to list five basic principles of human nature.
With a bow to the religious authorities, hedeclares that a belief in God is
the first natural law in order of importance, though by n o means the
first of which a person in a state of nature would becognizant. Turning
to the more fundamental laws which are his trueconcern, heargues first
that men, naturally timid, seek peace. Second, they tend to feed and
otherwise maintain themselves. Third, the two sexes are attracted to one
another. Fourth, people consciously desire to live in society.69
Montesquieu, then, held that there is a fundamental human natureand
that its principles, in bare essentials, are the desires to conserve one’s
own being, to mate, and to defend one’s family.7O
As several commentators have noted, however, Montesquieu merged
the descriptive and normative senses of natural law. Having described
human nature, he proceeded to treat his descriptions as values.7’ This
was quite in keeping with the methods of the natural law writers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who derived their standards of
judgment from alleged facts about human nature.72 David Hume
remarked that in the systems of morality with which he was acquainted,
there was always a quiet (and, in his view, unwarranted) transition from
descriptive to normative ~tatements.7~ Montesquieu might well have
merited Hume’s stricture in this regard. Thus, having asserted that
people defend themselves, Montesquieu concludes that they have a right
to do so, and he declares that a man may lie under oath sooner than
incriminate himself. Forced self-incrimination violates the natural
right of ~ e l f - d e f e n s eIn
. ~the
~ same vein, Montesquieu condemns slavery
as contrary to natural law. T h o u g h this institution may have a rational

681aoisI 2, 235-36.
691bid.
70Pangle,Montesquieu’s Philosophy, 31, 142, 164, 170, 226, 260-64; Waddicor,
Montesquieu, 49-52, 118: Carrithers, Introduction, 30-34.
71Shackleton,M o n t e ~ q u i e u ,245-64: Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy, 28-38;
Waddicor, Montesquieu, 47-52.
72Waddicor,Montesquieu, 1-14, 52: cf. Macpherson, Political Theory, 70-87.
7SDavid Hurne, A Treatise of H u m a n Nature, in Hume’s Ethical Writings, ed.
Alasdair Mac Intyre (New York, 1965), 183-96.
7 t 0 i s VI 13, 322.

48
 Mon tesquieu
physical cause in hot climates, it is an outrage against the propensity
(and therefore the right) of every person to preserve himself; the exercise
of that right requires liberty.75 Again, having insisted that sexual
attraction is i3 descriptive (and normative) law of nature and, by
extension, that the preservation of family life is a natural law,
Montesquieu condemns statutes which require children to testify
against their parents or wives against their husbands.76
One could easily multiply examples of Montesquieu’s natural law
judgments. Though he believed that persons as such are not the
immediate components of a society, he did hold that institutions ought
to conform to the irreducible nature of persons. In this regard, he
reserved his harshest censure for despotism. Not merely did he view this
type of regime as inherently dysfunctional; he saw it as an outrage
against human nature. Though other regimes might violate natural law
in some particular respects, he contended that despotism does so
continually and systematically. “After all that we have said,” he wrote,
“it would seem that human nature would constantly rise u p against
despotism.”77To the extent that a despotism has institutions at all, they
are affronts to natural law. As we have seen, he held slavery to be
contrary to natural law, though it is at home in a despotic society.
Again, Montesquieu suggested that arbitrary legal proceedings and
cruel punishments, violations of the natural right of self-defense, are
indigenous in despotic lands.78 Polygamy and the extreme subjugation
of women, though “natural” or functional in the context of a despotic
society, are contrary to human nature. A harem household,
Montesquieu wrote, not only belies the natureof men and women, but it
leads both sexes to the “love which nature disavows.”79
Nowhere did Montesquieu return a more damning indictment of
despotism as a violation of human nature than in the harem story of the
Persian Letters. Usbek’shousehold, motivated by fear, is a microcosm of
a despotic society. The social arrangements abuse the humanity of every
person. Usbek’s wives are the victims of constant violation in every
sense. Usbek himself eventually loses all psychological integration; he
had never obtained fulfilment from his role as a husband and master in
any case. The epitome of the unnatural is the corps of eunuchs,
denatured guardians of an unnatural order.80 After Usbek has been

iiLois XV 2, 491-92; XV 7-8, 496-97; XXVI 3, 752.

76L0i~ XXVI 4, 753-54; rf. Lois XXVI 5, 754-55.
ii&ois V 15, 297; rf. L-ois VII 8, 356.
78L02.5VI 1-3, 307-11; VI 9, 318-19; VI 13, 322-23.
79L0isXV 6, 513; cf. L.ois XVI 2-4, 509-11; XVI 9, 514-15; XVI 1 1 , 517. Echoinga
rommon belief in his notebooks, Montesquieu derlared that homosexuality and “the sin
of Onan” are rontrary to natural law. Pens& 1928, in Oeuvres, 1: 1463-65.
”“Fot a m l p e \ ol the harem \tory. w e Berman, 1’01ztz(s, 3-53; Hulliung,
n l o t t / P , \ q i ~ r p 2 ( , 108-39: Konald Giini\Iey, “?‘he Idea ol Nature i n the I x t t r m P m w n m , ’ ’
F r m ( I t . S / t i d w \ 5 (19.51 ): 203-26; and D;I\ id Kettlet. “Montequit.u on 1 . o ~Notc8s : o n the

49
 T h e Historian
a1)seiit for ~n;rnyyears, his wives revol t against harem discipline, and the
despot orders a sanguinary repression. One of the women commits
suicide. but not before telling him, "I have rewritten your laws after
t h o s t ' o t 1 x 1 t 11re. ' ' 8
I n ;I very important respect, then, Montesquieu was at one with the
natural law school of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Bt4iwing in a n irreducible human nature, he based many of his
judgments o n that nature. condemning institutions which did not
(.onform to i t . Many of those commentaiors who have quite justly
;qqxec~i;itcd what one may term the moral individualism of
Montesquieu, however, have tended to asc.ribe to him a methodological
01 ts\ tm ;I inetaphysical individualism: the belief that social structures
ha\ e no pioper rvality and that virtually all social phenomena may be
explained 111 psychological terms."' A s we have seen, such was not the
casc. blontesquieu was not willing to discuss societal facts in that
ni;iiint'r.
111 his methodological holism, then, Montesquieu may be seen as a
founder of modern so( ial science; he parted company with many social
theorists of his own and the preceding century and anticipated the
investigations of later times. He was even prepared to make
functionalist judgments and to evaluate. social structures by how well
the!, harmonized with a certain social order rather than by extraneous
criteria. This did not mean that he was a pure positivist, and he had n o
intention of abandoning moral judgments. Basing himself on what he
took to be irreducible psychological facts, he weighed institutions by
theii conlormity to hilman nature. As a methodological holist,
blontesqirieu ma): justly becalled apioneerof thescienceof society. Asa
moralist w h o recogniivd the importance of a universal human nature
ni;iriifcstcd in t v ~ t indii idual, he Iemained ttue to thc s( hool o f natural
>'

la\\.. ;is on('w h o ('spoused both positions, he was an exponc.nt o f Mrhai

P ( s t c . i (;a,. II;IS apt 1) te~medthe "s( icwc o f 1rrwiom."H:j
(3

Lrttrrs Prrsanrs," Amrrtcnn Political Srientr Kr11irw 58 (1964): 648-61.

HILeftrrs161, 372.
H2Waddicorr,hfontrsquieu, 95-97, 194-95; Pangle, Montesquieu's Philosophy, 178-
79, 189-90;Berman, Politics, 3-53;rf. Bercaria, Dcz drlitte e dellepenr, 12- 13. Of Berman's
discussion. Mark Hulliung writrs (quite justly, I believr), "One of the few efforts to take
the 'siory' of the Prr.\zan 2.rttrcs seriously is that of M. Berman. . . . LJnfortunately. his
analysis i c flawed by an uttrrly wrongheadrd insistence. upon 'disrovering' his own
romaniir indibidualism in Moniesquieu." Ilulliung, Monfesquwu. n. 9 io chap.5. 242.
"'PetrrGay, T h r Enlightenment: A n Intrrprrtafzon, vol. 2, T h r Scirncr of Freedom
( K e w Y o l k , 1960). 319-43; cf. David Young, "Libertarian Demography: Montrsquitu's
Essay on Depopulaiion i n thc Leftres Prrsanrs," Journal of the HZJt07y of/rfras36(1975):
680-8'2.

50