Charles Montesquieu was one of the most influential thinkers of the French Enlightenment. In addition to his persistent critique of despotism, he was searching for the origins of social order and human institutions. In his famous, at first anonymous work, entitled  The Spirit of Laws (De l’esprit des lois), he was striving for the abolition of slavery and fighting for wider distribution of political power. He insisted that justice demands the assurance of civil rights and the rule of law. Due to the radicalism of his work,  "Laws" was included in the  Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of forbidden works. The second Montesquieu’s famous work entitled Persian letters shows his admiration of different cultures and their background, the exposition of which he used for undermining the dogmatic basis of his era .

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