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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.

OF TOLERATION.

All the Author has said on toleration relates to this proposition in book xxv. chap. 9. “We are here politicians, and not divines: but the divines themselves must allow, that there is a great difference between tolerating, and approving a religion.

When legislators have believed it their duty to permit the exercise of many religions, they are also under the obligation of inforcing a toleration amongst these religions themselves.” The reader is desired to peruse the whole chapter.

A great outcry has been raised against the Author for having added in the next chapter: “This is then a fundamental principle of the political Laws of religion, That when a state is at liberty to receive or reject a new religion, it ought to be rejected; when it is received, it ought to be tolerated.”

It is here objected to the Author, that he is going to inform idolatrous Princes, that they ought to shut Christianity out of their states. Really it is a secret that it was ever whispered to the King of Cochin-China. As this argument has furnished matter for much declamation, I shall give two answers. The first is, That the Author has excepted it by name in his book on religion. He has said in book xxiv. chap. 1. “The Christian religion, which ordains that men should love each other, would doubtless have every nation blest with the best civil, the best political Laws; because these, next to this religion, are the greatest good that men can give and receive.” If then the Christian religion is the first and principal good, and political and civil Laws the second, there are no political or civil Laws in a state that can or ought to hinder the entrance of the Christian religion.

My second answer is, That the religion sent from heaven is not established by the same methods as the religions of the earth. Read the history of the church, and you will see the wonders of the Christian religion. Has she resolved to enter a country?—she knows how to open its gates, and all instruments are proper for that purpose: sometimes God makes use of a few fishermen; at others, he places an Emperor on the throne, and makes him bend his neck under the yoke of the gospel. Is Christianity concealed in caverns, and subterraneous abodes? stay a moment, and you will see the Imperial Majesty speak in her behalf. She, whenever she pleases, crosses the seas, rivers, and mountains; and no obstacles here below can stop her progress. Place repugnance in the mind; she will make it fly before her: establish customs, form habits, publish edicts, make Laws; she will triumph over the climate, the laws that result from it, and the legislators who made them. God, according to decrees concealed from us, extends or contracts the limits of his religion as he pleases.

We are told: That this is as if you went to the Kings of the East, and told them they ought not to receive the Christian religion among them. How carnal is it to talk in this manner! Is the Messiah a man like Herod? It seems as if Jesus Christ was considered as a King who conceals his stratagems and intelligences. Let us do ourselves justice: Is the manner in which we conduct ourselves in human affairs so pure, as to allow us to think of employing it in the conversion of nations?