Spirit of Laws

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu 18 January 1689 - 10 February 1755), is most generally referred to as Montesquieu. He was a French lawyer, highly educated in the schools of his day, and wrote prolifically of political philosophy. He is most noted for his concepts of the theory of separation of powers in government. His view of humanity was that the quest for power was insatiable and natural and that it was incumbent on the political system to restrict that quest by separating power and being suspicious of its motivations. Montesquieu is credited as initiating a system of evaluating historical governmental systems and creating sort of an anthropology of government, and created a system for the classification to the political forms in human societies. The French political anthropologist Georges Balandier considered Montesquieu to be "the initiator of a scientific enterprise that for a time performed the role of cultural and social anthropology.