•he laid out a comparative study of types of governments, then put forward his own theory
of government.
The
Baron de Montesquieu was a French nobleman whose primary contributions to the
Enlightenment’s political thought came in his 1748 treatise The Spirit of
the Laws. Years before writing the treatise, Montesquieu had visited
several European countries, carefully observing the workings of each nation’s
government. In The Spirit of the Laws, he laid out a comparative study
of types of governments, then put forward his own theory of government.
