Montesquieu Quotes
Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat. The Spirit of the Laws. Translated and edited by Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller, and Harold S. Stone, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 5.
This is a very good quotation showing the point of view of religious fundamentalists that if there is no fixed statement of ethics and morality as with the word of God as revealed in the Bible, what then makes anything right or wrong and the world exists in a moral behavioral vacuum. Other religionists hold that the morality is in the metaphors and philosophy of religion and not in the literal words of scripture. Still others argue that morality and religion itself is dynamic and is constantly changing. Then there are those who build their view of morality on philosophy but which is not based on a deity—Ethical Culturalists for example {592791}. Also, there are the pragmatic evolutionists who argue that cooperative behavior has evolved in man and cultural rules—morality—is also transmitted by culture and systems of law.
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, and political philosopher.
