"One would expect, given the fairly clear evidence of Montesquieu's influence on the Constitution of the United States, and consequently on the American way of life, that L'Esprit des Lois would have been the subject of intense investigation by commentators on the Constitution and by students of American social history. But this has not been the case. Why?
Most likely it is because of what Franz Neumann has described as "the initial bewilderment which is the inevitable fate of every reader of The Spirit of the Laws."1 Most would be explicators of the work, from Montesquieu's contemporary, Voltaire, to Lawrence Levin in the twentieth century, have been pretty much stuck with their "initial bewilderment" and have assumed that there is no order to the book and that Montesquieu's ideas are somewhat confused. Professor Thomas Pangle is the first interpreter to go, at book length, beyond the initial impression of bewilderment. He is unwilling to second-guess the author, but scrupulously searches into the details of the text for clues to the design and for the command of the subject matter, which Montesquieu in his preface claims to be there.
Professor Pangle argues persuasively that the apparent obscurity and confusion of Montesquieu's writing were intentional and for the following reasons: Because he feared that clarity might provoke civil and ecclesiastical persecution, because he hoped to veil the disturbing implications of some of his concrete political proposals, and because he sought to educate rather than indoctrinate a certain select group of his readers who were capable of study and reflection; his apparent contradictions and obscurities, he felt, would stimulate such readers to make their own searches for the truth…"
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Armand
paints brigs for the British fleet.
