conceptions cannot be rightly appreciated by subsequent
ages. That is the consequence of their very originality and
importance. They have sunk so deep, and spread so far among mankind,
that they have become common and almost trite. Like the expressions of
Shakspeare, Gray, or Milton, they have become household words; on
reading his works, we are astonished to find how vast a proportion of
our habitual thoughts and expressions have sprung from that source.
This, however, far from being a reproach to an author, is his highest
commendation; it demonstrates at once the impression his thoughts have
made on mankind. If we would discover the step a great man has made,
we must recur to the authors in the same line who have preceded him,
and then the change appears great indeed. The highest praise which can
be bestowed on an author of original thought, is to say, that his
ideas were unknown to the authors who preceded, trite with those who
followed him.

The great characteristic of Montesquieu's thoughts, is the tracing the
operation of general and lasting causes on human affairs. Before his
time, the march of political or social events was ascribed by divines
to the immediate and direct agency of the Deity guiding human actions,
as a general moves an army; by men of the world, to chance, or the
mastering influence of individual energy and talent. Bossuet may be
considered as the most eminent of the former class. Voltaire brought
the doctrines of the latter to their highest perfection. In opposition
to both, Montesquieu strenuously asserted the operation of general
laws, emanating doubtless originally from the institutions of the
Deity, and the adaptation of the human mind to the circumstances in
which man is placed in society, but acting at subsequent periods
through the instrumentality of free agents, and of permanent and
lasting operation in all ages of the world. Machiavel had frequently
got sight of this sublime theory in his political writings; and in his
_Discorsi_ on Roman History, many of the most profound observations
ever made by man on the working of the human mind under free
institutions, and of the corresponding effects of similar principles
of action in the republics of antiquity, and of those of Italy in
modern times, are to be found. But it was Montesquieu who first
carried out the doctrine to its full extent, and traced its operation
through an infinity of historical events and political institutions.
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