Charles-Louis de Sec on dat, better known as Baron de Montesquieu, was one of the great political thinkers of the 18th century. He was strongly opposed to the absolute monarchy of his native France and an admirer of the more democratic British system of government. By far his most influential work is Des l'Esprit des Lois, or The Spirit of the Laws, published in 1748.
The book has two separate theses. Its main argument is that a balance and separation of powers is necessary for fair and successful government, and de Montesquieu sets out the need for a juxtaposition of the legislature for the making of laws, an independent judiciary for their interpretation and an executive branch of government for implementing the law.
This concept of the separation of powers became the cornerstone of the Constitution of the United States, and indeed of most modern democracies. De Montesquieu's second assertion is that forms of government will invariably differ according to the political and social circumstances of the place and according to the local climate. It is here that we find some interesting thoughts on what we nowadays would call "climatic determinism", the influence of climate on the character of the local people.
"People," says the Baron, "are more vigorous in cold climates. Here the action of the heart and the reaction of the extremities of the fibres are better performed. This produces a greater boldness and more courage, more frankness, and less suspicion and less cunning. The inhabitants of warm countries are, like old men, timorous; the people in cold countries are, like young men, brave."
He goes on to give medical justification for his beliefs: "In cold countries the nervous glands are less expanded: they sink deeper into their sheaths and consequently they have not such lively sensations.
"In cold countries," continues de Montesquieu, "they have very little sensibility for pleasure; in warm countries, their sensibility is exquisite.
"I have been at the opera in England and in Italy, where I have seen the same pieces and the same performers: and yet the same music produces such different effects on the two nations: one is so cold and phlegmatic, and the other so lively and enraptured, that it seems almost inconceivable.
"It is the same with regard to pain, which is excited by the laceration of some fibre of the body. It is evident that the large bodies and coarse fibres of the people of the north are less capable of laceration than the delicate fibres of the inhabitants of warm countries; consequently the soul is there less sensible of pain.
"You must flay a Muscovite alive to make him feel."