What was Montesquieu?s aim in writing The Spirit of the Laws? Essay

I ask a favour that I fear will not be granted it is that wholeness not judge by a moments reading the flow of twenty years, that one approve or condemn the book as a whole and not some few sentences. If one wants to seek the design of the author, one can find it only in the design of the work. (Montesquieu 1989 preface)The mettle of the Laws took Montesquieu twenty years to write and was first published in Geneva in 1748. It was distributed freely, without the hindrance of censorship and deemed and instant success, despite negative feedback from friends to whom the manuscript was shown. afterwards two years and twenty-two impressions made across Europe many critics arose of his work, however this merely added to the fame of the author. Despite his critics, Montesquieu knew he had created a worthy and original work of political theory expressed by the phrase of his last preface an offspring made without a mother. (Montesquieu 1989 preface) This suggests that Montesquieu intended to create a characteristic political theory which was unlike any of his predecessors. Although he quotes famous predecessors such as Plato and Aristotle, he treats them as sources of information rather than philosophical fundamentals.The Spirit of the Laws was Montesquieus last work and undeniably over the course of twenty years he implemented what Judith Shklar suggests as his entire intellectual capital as a judge, scientist, novelist, historian, and traveller... (Shklar 1987 67) It is his work ...