1. It is used not to describe great moral or political acts on behalf of a prince that knows how to enter into evil, but rather, the petty, grasping, and ultimately self-defeating, confiscation of monies and property by princes who do not know what is truly in their own interest. See Peter Gay. 1996. The Enlightenment: The Science of Freedom. New York: W. W. Norton., who correctly identifies Montesquieu’s separation. For Hume, see “Of Civil Liberty”; “Of the Study of History.” From David Hume. 1742. Essays, Moral, Political and Literary. Rousseau, Social Contract III.6. See also, Diderot’s article in the Encyclopedie. How to refute Machiavellianism? He quotes a philosopher, “Sire, I should think the first lesson Machiavelli taught his disciple was to refute his work.”
2. See J. A. Schumpeter. 1954. History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press, 60.
3. For a balanced attempt at sorting out Montesquieu’s religious views, see Roger B. Oake. 1953. “Montesquieu’s Religious Ideas.” Journal of the History of Ideas 14 (4): 548. Oake does not agree (as do the scholars below) with Faguet’s judgment that “Montesquieu’s mind was as little religious as possible.” For a review of the French literature, see Rebecca Kingston. 2001. “Montesquieu on Religion and on the Question of Toleration.” In Carrithers et al., Montesquieu’s Science of Politics, 399 fn.4. Lacordaire is one of the very few who see Montesquieu as a religious thinker (he notes, in 1861, that the Spirit of Laws was “ la plus belle apologie du christianisme au XVIIIe siècle ”).
4. Robert Shackleton 1961. Montesquieu: A Critical Biography. London: Oxford University Press, also views Montesquieu as a practicing Catholic but “with deist convictions.” Andrew Lynch highlights the subversive side of Montesquieu’s writing on religion, which, he concludes, is good only for social utility.
5. See Andrew Lynch. 1977. “Montesquieu and the Ecclesiastical Critics of l’Esprit des lois.” Journal of the History of Ideas 38 (3): 487–500. Sanford Kessler examines Montesquieu’s Persian Letters and finds an interesting depth to his analysis and critique of biblical religion. Kessler concludes that Montesquieu was attempting to provide a “new theology” based in the principles of natural religion.