T h e Founding Godfather
Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism: A commentary on the Spirit
of the Laws, by Thomas L. Pan$, chic a p : The University of Chicago Press,
1973. x
336 pp. $10.00.
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ONE WOULD EXPECT, given the fairly clear
evidence of Montesquieu’s influence on the
Constitution of the United States, and consequently on the American way of life, that
L’Esprit des Lois would have been the subject of intense investigation by commentators on the Constitution and by students of
American social history. But this has not
been the case. Why?
Most likely it is because of what Franz
Neumann has described as “the initial bewilderment which is the inevitable fate of
every reader of The Spirit of the Laws.”’
Most would be explicators of the work,
from Montesquieu’s contemporary, Voltaire, to Lawrence Levin in the twentieth
century, have been pretty much stuck with
their “initial bewilderment” and have assumed that there is no order to the book
and that Montesquieu’s ideas are somewhat
confused. Professor Thomas Pangle is the
first interpreter to go, at book length, beyond the initial impression of bewilderment. He is unwilling to second-guess the
author, but scrupulously searches into the
details of the text for clues to the design
and for the command of the subject matter,
which Montesquieu in his Preface claims
to be there.
Professor Pangle argues persuasively
that the apparent obscurity and confusion
of Montesquieu’s writing were intentional
and for the following reasons: (1) Because
he feared that clarity might provoke civil
and ecclesiastical persecution ; (2) because
he hoped to veil the disturbing implications
of some of his concrete political proposals,
and (3) because he sought to educate rather than indoctrinate a certain select group
of his readers who were capable of study
and reflection ; his apparent contradictions
and obscurities, he felt, would stimulate
such readers to make their own searches for
the truth.
There is, Professor Pan& maintains, a
development of thought in The Spirit of the
Laws viewed as a whole, beginning with
Montesquieu’s discussion of human nature
and of the basic forms of government befitting that nature, and leading on to an
examination in the final books of the political situation in the France of his day. The
purpose of this development is the education of legislators and the principal theme
has to do with discovering the kind of government that best provides for human liberty. It proves to have been in his view the
government of England in the early eighteenth century, though variations of climate, geography, terrain, commercial conditions and the peculiarities of history inhibit any worldwide applicability of the
English model ; but it is Montesquieu’s dedication to liberty that justifies the identification of his philosophy as “liberalism’y
in the title of Professor Pangle’s book.2 It
does not appear, however, that Montesquieu
had a like dedication to equality, certainly
none that would qualify him as a “liberal”
in the twentieth century sense of the term.
In the course of his task of explicating
and interrelating the thirty-one books of
The Spirit of the Laws Professor Pangle develops several interesting and illuminating
discussions, viz. : (a) Montesquieu’s essential kinship with the modems Hobbes and
Locke, for whom the aim of government is
the preservation of the lives and property
of citizens, as opposed to the ancients, Plato
and Aristotle, for whom the aim of government is the development of virtue in the
citizens; (b) the difference between Montesquieu’s division of the functions and
powers of government and Aristotle’s; ( c )
Montesquieu’s adherence to the tradition
which holds political factors to be more important influences than economic and social
factors in the shaping of laws and living
patterns; (d) Montesquieu’s reasons for
philosophizing, and (e) how the closing
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books of The Spirit of the Laws serve as an
example of how political history can be
used to inform theory and also as a vehicle
for recommending changes in France.
There is one point, however, though well
made by Professor Pangle, on which this
reviewer must register disagreement. It has
to do with the kind of government that
Montesquieu saw as existing in his ideal
England of the early 1700’s. After classifying governments into three types-republican, monarchic, despotic-Montesquieu
comes (in Book XI) to a description of the
government of England. Pangle maintains
that Montesquieu sees England as a republic, albeit a new kind of republic, a liberal
republic. Pangle cites as his main proof a
passage (Book V, Chapter 19) where
Montesquieu refers to an unnamed nation
(which almost certainly is England) as one
“where the republic hides itself under the
form of monarchy.” It appears that Professor Pangle has misinterpreted the passage,
since by “form” Montesquieu means that
which essentially defines something, its
“soul,” as it were. Thus when he refers to
England as monarchical in ‘‘form,’y he
means that England, though it has some
hidden republican aspects, is essentially
monarchical. This interpretation accords
better with other passages in The Spirit of
the Laws ( e g . XI, 7) which definitely refer
to England as a monarchy, and also with
the fact that “the freedom of all the passions,’, described (XIX, 27) as animating
the government of England, is closer to, if
not identical with, the ambitious striving
for preferments and titles animating
monarchies, rather than to the love of country and equality animating republics.
This disagreement may seem captious,
but if we accept Pangle’s assumption that
Montesquieu underneath his seeming obscurity and confusion has a plan and has
his subject matter under tight control, it is
only by paying careful attention to the
smallest details that we can fathom his message. Hence the disagreement and the necessity of its correct resolution acquire a
certain significance. And if we consider the
influence that Montesquieu is supposed to
have had on the character of the Federal
Constitution, the resolution of the question
becomes highly important.
Our Founding Fathers certainly believed
that they were establishing a republic of
some sort; but inasmuch as they were borrowing certain ideas, such as the separation
and balance of powers, from Montesquieu’s
description of eighteenth century England,
they may have been-if that England was
really a monarchy-inadvertently
relying
on monarchical principles more than they
would have liked to admit, even to themselves. They may have been counting more
on ambitious striving than on love of country and equality as the mainspring to move
the government and people of the United
States. And, whether intentionally or not
and whether for good or ill, they were laying the foundation for an “imperial presidency’, or a “Watergate presidency,” which
in counteracting the legislative and judiciary powers has often had recourse to extralegal actions, or at least to actions for which
it seeks to be accountable only to itself. It
is interesting to reflect that by freezing a
balance and separation of powers in a written Constitution, the Founding Fathers
seem to have made it possible for twentieth
century America to be more monarchical
than twentieth century Britain, whose
monarch, of course, has lost all real power
to Parliament.
But whatever the merit of this criticism,
there is no doubt that Professor Pangle has
accomplished a valuable work in helping
us to understand the real meaning of The
Spirit of the Laws and thereby to understand the philosophy that underlies our
Constitution and our way of life.
Reviewed by FREDERIC
M. FENGER
‘See Neumann’s introduction to the Hafner
edition of The Spirit of the Laws (p. mi).
“‘Liberty is not a means to a higher political
end. It is itself the highest political end.” Lord
Acton: Lecture on The History of Freedom in
Antiquity, 1877.
Modem Age
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