Its analysis as a connected whole invigorated thought as nothing had done since the Civil Wars had elaborated the theory of parliamentary sovereignty.

What was more significant was the realization of Montesquieu's import simultaneously with the effort of George III to revive crown influence.
Montesquieu thus became the prophet of a new race of thinkers.
Rousseau's time was not yet; though within a score of years it was possible to see him as the rival to Burke's conservatism.
It is worth while to linger for a moment upon the thesis which underlies the _Esprit des Lois_ (1748).

It is a commonplace now that Montesquieu is to be regarded as the founder of the historical method.

The present is to be explained by its ancestry.

Laws, governments, customs are not truths absolute and universal, but relative to the time of their origin and the country from which they derive.