Until about the middle of the century, Montesquieu was the dominating figure in French thought. His second book--_Considérations sur la Grandeur et la Décadence des Romains_--is an exceedingly able work, in which a series of interesting and occasionally profound historical reflections are expressed in a style of great brilliance and incisiveness. Here Montesquieu definitely freed history from the medieval fetters which it had worn even in the days of Bossuet, and considered the development of events from a purely secular point of view, as the result of natural causes. But his greatest work, over which he spent the greater part of his life, and on which his reputation must finally rest, was _L'Esprit des Lois_ (published in 1748). The discussion of this celebrated book falls outside the domain of literature, and belongs rather to the history of political thought. It is enough to say that here all Montesquieu's qualities--his power of generalization, his freedom from prejudice, his rationalism, his love of liberty and hatred of fanaticism, his pointed, epigrammatic style--appear in their most characteristic form. Perhaps the chief fault of the book is that it is too brilliant. When Madame du Deffand said that its title should have been _De l'Esprit sur les Lois_ she put her finger on its weak spot. Montesquieu's generalizations are always bold, always original, always fine; unfortunately, they are too often unsound into the bargain. The fluid elusive facts slip through his neat sentences like water in a sieve. His treatment of the English constitution affords an illustration of this. One of the first foreigners to recognize the importance and to study the nature of English institutions, Montesquieu nevertheless failed to give an accurate account of them. He believed that he had found in them a signal instance of his favourite theory of the beneficial effects produced by the separation of the three powers of government--the judicial, the legislative, and the executive; but he was wrong. In England, as a matter of fact, the powers of the legislative and the executive were intertwined. This particular error has had a curious history. Montesquieu's great reputation led to his view of the constitution of England being widely accepted as the true one; as such it was adopted by the American leaders after the War of Independence; and its influence is plainly visible in the present constitution of the United States. Such is the strange power of good writing over the affairs of men!