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• Familiar Letters. By President De Montesquieu.
• Letter I.: To Father Cerati * of the Congregation of the Orators of Saint Philip At Rome.
• Letter II.: To the Same.
• Letter III.: To Monsieur L’abbé Venuti * , At Clerac.
• Letter IV.: To the Abbé Nicolini * , At Florence.
• Letter V.: To Mr. Cerati, At Pisa.
• Letter VI.: To Abbé Venuti At Clerac.
• Letter VII.: To Abbé De Guasco, At Turin.
• Letter VIII.: To the Count of Guasco, Colonel of Foot.
• Letter IX.: To the Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter X.: To the Same.
• Letter XI.: To the Same.
• Letter XII.: To the Countess De Pontac.
• Letter XIII.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XIV.: To Abbé De Guasco At Clerac.
• Letter XV.: To the Same.
• Letter XVI.: To the Same.
• Letter XVII.: To the Same.
• Letter XVIII.: To the Same.
• Letter XIX.: To the Same Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter XX.: To the Same.
• Letter XXI.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXII.: To Abbé De Guasco, At Aix.
• Letter XXIII.
• Letter XXIV.: To the Same.
• Letter XXV.: To the Same.
• Letter XXVI.: To the Same.
• Letter XXVII.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXVIII.: To Prince Charles Edward.
• Letter XXIX.: To the Grand Prior Solar, Ambassador From Malta, At Rome.
• Letter XXX.: To the Abbé and Count De Guasco, At Paris.
• Letter XXXI.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXXII.: To Abbé Venuti.
• Letter XXXIII.: To the Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter XXXIV.: To the Abbé Venuti, At Bourdeaux.
• Letter XXXV.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXXVI.: To Abbé Venuti.
• Letter XXXVII.: To Abbé Venuti.
• Letter XXXVIII: To the Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter XXXIX.: To Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter Xl.: to the Same.
• Letter Xli.: to the Same.
• Letter Xlii.: to the Same, At Bourdeaux.
• Letter Xliii.: to the Same.
• Letter Xliv.: to the Same Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter Xlv.: to the Same At Vienna.
• Letter Xlvi.: to the Same Abbé De Guasco At Vienna.
• Letter Xlvii.: to the Same, At Verona.
• Letter Xlviii.: to the Same.
• Letter Xlix.: to the Same, At Naples.
• Letter L.: to the Same.
• Letter Li.: to Mr. Cerati.
• Letter Lii.: to the Abbé Marquis Nicolini.
• Letter Liii.: to Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter Liv.: to the Same.
• Letter Lv.: to the Auditor Bertolini, At Florence.
• Letter Lvi.: to Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter Lvii.: a Billet to the Same.
• Letter Lviii.: to the Grand Prior Solar, At Turin.
• Letter Lix.: the Fragment of a Letter From M. De Montesquieu, to the King of Poland, Duke of Lorraine, to Solicit His Majesty For a Place In the Academy of Nantz.
• Letter Lx.: Fragment of the King of Poland’s Answer, to the Foregoing Letter.
• Letter Lxi.: to M. De Solignac, Secretary to the Literary Society At Nantz.
• Letter Lxii.: From M. De Montesquieu. to the Author of a Short View of the Philosophical Works of Lord Bolingbroke.
• Letter Lxiii.: to the Dutchess of Aiguillon.
• Letter Lxiv.: From the Dutchess of Aiguillon, to Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter Lxv.: an Article Taken From a Letter of Baron Secondat De Montesquieu, to the Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter Lxvi.: Article of a Letter to the Same.
• Miscellaneous Pieces of M. De Secondat, Baron De Montesquieu.
• An Oration Pronounced the 24th of January, 1728. By President Montesquieu: When He Was Received Into the French Academy, In the Room of the Late M. De Sacy.
• An Essay Upon Taste, In Subjects of Nature, and of Art.
• Of the Pleasures of the Soul.
• Of the Mental Faculties * .
• Of Curiosity.
• Of the Pleasures of Order.
• Of the Pleasures of Variety.
• Of the Pleasures of Symmetry.
• Of Contrasts.
• Of the Pleasures of Surprize.
• Of Different Causes That Produce Sensation.
• Of Sensibility.
• Of Delicacy.
• Of the Je Ne Scais Quoi.
• The Progression of Surprize.
• Of Beauties Which Result From an Embarrassment of the Soul.
• The Temple of Gnidus.
• The Preface.
• Canto I.
• Canto II.
• Canto III.
• Canto IV.
• Canto V.
• Canto VI.
• Canto VII.
• Cupid Distressed.
• Lysimachus.
• The Analysis of the Spirit of Laws. By M. D’alembert.
• A Defence of the Spirit of Laws. to Which Are Added, Some Explanations.
• Part I.
• Part II.
• The General Idea.
• Of the Counsels of Religion.
• Of Polygamy.
• On Climate.
• Of Toleration.
• Of Celibacy.
• A Particular Error Committed By the Critic.
• Of Marriage.
• Of Usury.
• “of Maritime Usury.
• Part III.: Some Explanations of the Spirit of Laws.

ON CLIMATE.

What the Author has said on the effects of different Climates is also another excellent topic of rhetoric. But all effects whatsoever have their causes: the climate and the other physical causes produce an infinite number of effects; and if the Author had said otherwise, he would have been considered as extremely stupid. The question is reduced to this: Whether, in countries placed at a great distance from each other, or whether in different climates, there are the marks of a national spirit. Now that there are such differences, is established by almost the universal consent of writers. As the impressions of this national spirit have a considerable influence on the dispositions of the heart, it cannot be at all questioned that certain dispositions of heart are more frequent in one country than another; and in proof of this, we have also the testimony of an infinite number of writers in all times and places. As these things are merely human, the Author has treated them in that light. He might indeed have added to them many questions debated in the schools, with respect to the humane and christian virtues; but it is not usual to croud these questions into books of natural philosophy, politics, and civil law. In a word, the climate may be the physical cause of producing various dispositions of mind; these dispositions may have an influence on human actions: but how does this give a shock to the throne of him who has created, or to the merits of him who has bought us?

If the Author has inquired what the magistrates of various countries might do, in order to conduct their several nations in a manner most proper, and most suitable to their respective characters, what harm has he done in this?

One may also reason on the local customs of religion. The Author had no business to consider them as either good or bad: he has only said, that there are climates where certain religious customs were more easily received, that is, the people in those climates were more easily accustomed to them, than the people in others. Of this it would be unnecessary to give examples; there are an hundred thousand.

I am very sensible, that religion is, in its own nature, independent of any physical effects whatsoever: that what is good in one country is good in another: and that it cannot be bad in one country, without being bad in all. But, as it is practised by men, and for men, there are places where a particular religion is more easily practised, either in part, or in the whole, in one certain country than in others, and in certain circumstances than in others. And whoever asserts the contrary must divest himself of common sense.

The Author has remarked, that the climate of the Indies has produced there a certain sweetness of manners. But, says the Critic, The women there burn themselves at the death of their husbands. There is but little philosophy in this objection. Is the Critic ignorant of the contradictions of the human mind, and how readily it can separate things the most closely united, and unite those that are the most widely separated. See the Author’s reflexions on this subject in book xiv. chap. 3.