The Spirit of the Laws

(noun)

A treatise on political theory first published anonymously by Montesquieu in 1748. In it, Montesquieu pleaded in favor of a constitutional system of government and the separation of powers, the ending of slavery, the preservation of civil liberties and the law, and the idea that political institutions ought to reflect the social and geographical aspects of each community.

Related Terms

Examples of The Spirit of the Laws in the following topics:

  • Baron de Montesquieu

    • Montesquieu withdrew from the practice of law to devote himself to study and writing.
    • The Spirit of the Laws is a treatise on political theory first published anonymously by Montesquieu in 1748.
    • Montesquieu spent around twenty one years researching and writing The Spirit of the Laws, covering many things like the law, social life, and the study of anthropology and providing more than 3,000 commendations.
    • A second major theme in The Spirit of Laws concerns political liberty and the best means of preserving it.
    • In the British constitutional system, Montesquieu discerned a separation of powers among the monarch, Parliament, and the courts of law.

  • The Constitution

    • Adopted on September 17, 1787, the Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America.
    • The Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America .
    • The Constitution has been amended 17 additional times – for a total of 27 amendments – and its principles are applied in courts of law by judicial review.
    • In his Institutes of the Laws of England, Edward Coke interpreted Magna Carta protections and rights to apply not just to nobles, but to all British subjects.
    • In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu argues that the separation of state powers should be by its service to the people's liberty: legislative, executive, and judicial.

  • Animism

    • In Shinto, spirits of nature, or kami, are believed to exist everywhere.
    • Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, either intrinsically or because spirits inhabit them for a period of time.
    • Often, these spirits are thought to be the souls of deceased relatives, and they are not worshiped as deities.
    • In animist societies, ritual is considered essential to win the favor of the spirits that ward off other malevolent spirits and provide food, shelter, and fertility.
    • Shamans, also sometimes called medicine men or women, serve as mediums between the physical world and the world of spirits.

  • African Art and the Spirit World

    • In many traditional mask ceremonies, the dancer goes into deep trance, and during this state of mind he or she is believed to communicate with ancestors in the spirit world.
    • The masks themselves often represent an ancestral spirit, which is believed to possess the wearer of the mask.
    • In the Kingdom of Kongo, nkisi were objects believed to be inhabited by spirits.
    • Often carved in the shape of animals or humans, these "power objects" were believed to help aid in the communication with the spirit world.
    • Discuss the role of African masks, statues, and sculptures in relation to the spirit world.

  • Masks in the Kalabari Kingdom

    • Culture and artistic festivities of the Kalabari Kingdom involve the wearing of elaborate outfits and carved masks to celebrate the spirits.
    • Veneration of ancestors plays a central role in Ijaw traditional religion, while water spirits, known as Owuamapu, figure prominently in the Ijaw pantheon.
    • Each year, the Ijaw hold celebrations lasting for several days in honor of the spirits.
    • Central to the festivities is the role of masquerades, in which men wearing elaborate outfits and carved masks dance to the beat of drums and manifest the influence of the water spirits through the quality and intensity of their dancing.
    • Discuss the role of the spiritual in the masks of the Kalabari Kingdom

  • Mendé Masks

    • The bells on the necklaces are of the type believed capable of being heard by spirits, ringing in both worlds, that of the ancestors and the living.
    • Masks represent the collective mind of the Mendé community; viewed as one body, they are seen as the Spirit of the Mendé people.
    • The standard set of Mendé maskers includes about a dozen personalities embodying spirits of varying degrees of power and importance.
    • The maskers of the Sande and Poro societies are responsible for enforcing laws and are important symbolic presences in the rituals of initiation and in public ceremonies that mark the coronations and funerals of chiefs and society officials.
    • The neck rolls are an indication of the health of ideal women; they have also been called symbols of the pattern of concentric, circular ripples the Mendé spirit makes when emerging from the water.

  • Economic Sociology

    • Economic sociology is the study of the social causes and social effects of various economic phenomena.
    • Economic sociology is the study of the social causes and social effects of various economic phenomena.
    • Max Weber's book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is the archetypical representation of the works of economic sociology's classical period .
    • The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is representative of classical economic sociology in that it uses sociological data on religion to explain the economic phenomenon of northern Europe's embrace of capitalism.
    • This picture shows the cover to the 1934 edition of Max Weber's The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

  • What About The BSD License?

    • The original BSD license was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution, in which the University of California released important portions of a Unix implementation.
    • This license (the exact text may be seen in section 2.2.2 of xfree86.org/3.3.6/COPYRIGHT2.html#6) was similar in spirit to the MIT/X license, except for one clause:
    • Fortunately, many of the projects that used this license became aware of the problem, and simply dropped the advertising clause.
    • In 1999, even the University of California did so.
    • In general, however, a liberal copyright license does not imply that recipients have any right to use or dilute your trademarks — copyright law and trademark law are two different beasts.

  • The Nature of Religion

    • For example, the Sanskrit word "dharma," sometimes translated as "religion," also means law.
    • Throughout classical South Asia, the study of law consisted of concepts such as penance through piety and ceremonial and practical traditions.
    • Medieval Japan at first had a similar union between "imperial law" and universal or "Buddha law," but these later became independent sources of power.
    • The sociologist Emile Durkheim, in his seminal book The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, defined religion as a "unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things. " By sacred things he meant things "set apart and forbidden — beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them. " Sacred things are not, however, limited to gods or spirits.
    • Some religions focus on the subjective experience of the religious individual while others consider the activities of the religious community to be most important.

  • Government in the English Colonies

    • Under the Kingdom of Great Britain, the American colonies experienced a number of situations which would guide them in creating a constitution.
    • These two branches of government would often clash, with the legislatures imposing "power of the purse" to control the British governor.
    • For example, taxes on the importation of products including lead, paint, tea and spirits were imposed.
    • The variety of taxes imposed led to American disdain for the British system of government.
    • Americans especially feared British actions in Canada, where civil law was once suspended in favor of British military rule.