Abstract

Montesquieu's short work entitled Essai sur les causes qui peuvent affecter les esprits et les caracteres, unpublished during his lifetime, has been called both a work "of cardinal importance in his thought" and merely a fragmentary notebook. No substantive study of it exists in English or in French. This dissertation attempts such a study, the argument of which is that the Essay is a complete, independent work that is introductory to Montesquieu's whole thought and his presentation of it. The study consists of a critique of the history of scholarship regarding the Essay, and the first literal English translation of it, and a close interpretative commentary . ;Traditionally divided into two parts, the Essay treats natural causes and effects and moral causes and effects. In my commentary on the first part of the Essay, I explore Montesquieu's material and spiritual causes as interpretations of visible and invisible nature, including human nature. The commentary on the second part culminates in a presentation of the "man of spirit," who represents the paradigmatic Montesquieuan human being. I interpret these themes as fundamental to Montesquieu's understanding of education and thus as introductory to all his writing