‎(MONTESQUIEU, CH.L. DE SECONDAT, BARON DE.)‎
‎De l'Esprit des Loix ou du Rapport que les loix doivent avoir avec la Constitution de chaque Gouvernement, les Moeurs, le Climat, la Religion, le Commerce, &c. à quoi l'Auteur a ajouté des Recherches nouvelles sur les Loix Romaines touchant les Successions, sur les Loix Françaises, & sur les Loix féodales.‎

‎A Genève, Chez Barillot & fils, (1748). 2 volumes. (8), xxiv, 522, (2, errata) pp.; (4), xvi, 564 pp. 4to. Contemporary mottled calf, triple gilt fillet on sides, spines richly gilt with raised bands, labels with gilt lettering, red edges, a very nice copy. Printing and the Mind of Man 197; En Français dans le Texte 138; Cabeen 97; Conlon 48:672; Tchemerzine-Scheler, iv, pp. 929-930; INED 3253; Kress 4920; Goldsmiths 8375; Le Petit 496-497. First issue of the second edition, probably printed by Prault in Paris, only one month after the first edition, in December 1748, and the only one with errata. The first edition can be recognized through various points: the name of Barillot is written with a double 'r'; the title reads 'Loix Féodales'; there are numerous cartons (all listed by Tchemerzine and Le Petit) and no errata. Here the name of Barillot is written with one 'r', the title reads 'Loix féodales' and there are no cartons present, the text is modified and this copy contains in volume one the errata for both volumes. Montesquieu was one of France's most influential Enlightenment authors. His writing resonates with the values of human freedom, moderation, and toleration, while demonstrating a realist and detailed attentiveness to the complexity of rules, customs, physical forces, and human motivations that shape social and political life. The Esprit de Loix is his major work and Hume, a correspondent of Montesquieu, praised the work as "the best system of political knowledge that, perhaps, has ever yet been communicated to the world." The main significance of Montesquieu as a political theorist may be his success in recognizing the embeddedness of state institutions in a wide web of human practices, such as religion, commerce, customs, and morals. Political effectiveness depends on the state's ability to recognize and work with the complexity of human associational life, and this in turn requires political moderation (Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, iii, pp. 83-88). Jonathan I. Israel calls the book, in his Radical Enlightenment (p. 12) "a landmark of moderate Enlightenment."'In many ways one of the most remarkable books of the eighteenth century, 'The Spirit of the Laws', owing in the main to the high plane of generalization on which it is written, defies easy classification and for that reason has never enjoyed a great popularity. So, too, its author puzzled his contemporaries, and very diverse opinions were passed on him and his work even by the philosophes, whose predecessor Montesquieu was. It took him four years to write the book and when it was finished all his friends advised him not to publish it. Montesquieu paid no attention and it was printed in Geneva in the autumn of 1748. It consists of six main sections, the first dealing with law in general and different forms of government, and the second with the means of government, military matters, taxation, and so on. The third deals with national character and the effect on it of climate: a subject of peculiar originality and the one most discussed at the time. The fourth and fifth deal with economic matters and religion; the last is an appendix on law - Roman, feudal and modern French. The most distinctive aspect of this immense syllabus is its moderation. The scheme that emerges of a liberal benevolent monarchy limited by safeguards on individual liberty was to prove immensely influential. His theories underlay the thinking which led up to the American and French revolutions, and the United States Constitution ..... is a lasting tribute to the principles he advocated' (PMM). Despite the succes of the work Montesquieu was severely attacked. He published his Défense two years later but he could not prevent his Esprit des Loix being put on the Index (29 November 1751) and its condamnation by the Sorbonne. ‎

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