vailed among men, the same fundamental, comprehensive truths, the
sacred master-principles which are the guardians of human society,
recognised and revered (with few and slight exceptions) by every nation
upon earth, and uniformly taught (with still fewer exceptions) by a
succession of wise men from the first dawn of speculation to the present
moment. The exceptions, few as they are, will, on more reflection, be
found rather apparent than real. If we could raise ourselves to that
height from which we ought to survey so vast a subject, these exceptions
would altogether vanish; the brutality of a handful of savages would
disappear in the immense prospect of human nature, and the murmurs of a
few licentious sophists would not ascend to break the general harmony.
This consent of mankind in first principles, and this endless variety in
their application, which is one among many valuable truths which we may
collect from our present extensive acquaintance with the history of man,
is itself of vast importance. Much of the majesty and authority of
virtue is derived from their consent, and almost the whole of practical
wisdom is founded on their variety.

What former age could have supplied facts for such a work as that of
Montesquieu? He indeed has been, perhaps justly, charged with abusing
this advantage, by the undistinguishing adoption of the narratives of
travellers of very different degrees of accuracy and veracity. But if we
reluctantly confess the justness of this objection; if we are compelled
to own that he exaggerates the influence of climate, that he ascribes
too much to the foresight and forming skill of legislators, and far too
little to time and circumstances, in the growth of political
constitutions; that the substantial character and essential differences
of governments are often lost and confounded in his technical language
and arrangement; that he often bends the free and irregular outline of
nature to the imposing but fallacious geometrical regularity of system;
that he has chosen a style of affected abruptness, sententiousness, and
vivacity, ill suited to the gravity of his subject: after all these
concessions (for his fame is large enough to spare many concessions),
the Spirit of Laws will still remain not only one of the most solid and
durable monuments of the powers of the human mind, but a striking
evidence of the inestimable advantages which political philosophy may
receive from a wide survey of all the v