also do the little asides by which he takes his readers into his confidence, as when he reminds himself that if he dwells too much on the absence of any need for virtue in a monarchy, he may be suspected of irony, or when he gives expression to the feelings of lassitude and discouragement which overtake him towards the end of his task.
Charm of style, then, counts for much in explaining Montesquieu's influence. But freshness and originality count for much more. The orthodox way of dealing with a subject of political or legal science was to start from general propositions laid down authoritatively, and derived either from Aristotle, or, more often, from the Roman jurists, and to deduce from them certain general conclusions. Bodin's great treatise on the Republic, to which Montesquieu was much indebted, especially for his theory on the influence of climate, was framed on these lines. But Montesquieu broke away from the old lines. His starting-point was different. He began at the other end. He started from the particular institutions, not from the general principles.
I have dwelt at length, perhaps at undue length, on the Persian Letters, not because, as has been inaccurately said, the Spirit of Laws is merely a continuation of the earlier work, but because the Montesquieu of the Spirit of Laws is still the Montesquieu of the Persian Letters, matured and ripened by twenty-seven years of study and experience, but in essentials still the same.
He began his literary career with no preoccupied theory or object, but as a detached and irresponsible critic and observer of man in his infinite diversity, the man ondoyant et divers of Montaigne. And he retained
