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LETTER XL.: To the Same. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 4 Familiar Letters; Miscellaneous Pieces; The Temple of Gnidus; A Defence of the Spirit of Laws [1777]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 4.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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LETTER XL.

To the Same.

WHAT you have marked to me in your billet of yesterday cannot determine me to renounce my adopted principle* . When at your return I shall know what you have heard concerning the two parliamentary counsellors in question; I may perhaps be able to judge if it be worth my while to give any farther illustration of those points that seem to have shocked their delicacy. I am of opinion that they only echo the censure of the ecclesiastic news-writers, whose idle declamations should never be attended to by ingenuous minds. As for the plan which the little minister of Wirtemburg wishes I had followed in a work, whose title is, The Spirit of Laws, tell that pragmatic gentleman, my intention was to compose my own work, not his. Adieu.

[* ]Not to answer any criticism on the Spirit of Laws.