Comment And Analysis On Montespieu's Social Conception Of History

[Content] :The social conception of history is an important component of Montesquieu's ideological system, but has not received the enough attention of researcher for a long time. From the contemporary culture visual angle and on basis of the materialismconception of history of Marxism, I review again Montesquieu's social conception of history, I wish and pray for doing some beneficial exploration for China socialist modernization.The first part of this text think Montesquieu study human at first, the discussion in such human rights theories as freedom rights, equal rights and property rights etc, has promoted the development of bourgeois revolutionary moves, As an bourgeois Enlightenment ideologist, Montesquieu carries out a kind of humanistic spirit all the time among his theoretical system and regards human as the starting point of its social conception of history. The second part of this text think Montesquieu explain the theoretical foundation of his social conception of history, namely social principle theory, he thinks that the historical development of human society is a regular course. In probe into the material and spirit general reason of social principle, Montesquieu offers the famous geographical environment theory and the rational theory. Though when he describes the geographical environment theory ,he, who called the typical representative of " geographical environment determinism " by later age, often exaggerates the role of geographical environment in social development, When he describes the rational theory, he Often regards reason as the decision strength of the social development , which fall into the idealism conception of history finally, the author thinks he attempts to explain the principle of the social development from the relation between human and environment, which undoubtedly gives later age deep enlightenment. The third part of this text thinks when Montesquieu has studied all kinds of government forms in history and reality and analyzed French social political lives of various fields at that time , he imitated Britain's political system and proposed the social ideal theory , namely the French monarch's constitutionalism, not British monarch's constitutionalism many scholars talk about, Montesquieu regards the social ideal theory as the theory goal of its social conception of history, which bring far-reaching influence to bourgeois constitutional government theory of later age. The fourth part of this text thinks Montesquieu structures French monarch's constitutionalism, just because the government form can realize the political freedom. In order to guarantee freedom, we must limit power. For this reason, Montesquieu has proposed the key theory of his social conception of history --The social control theory namely the separation and balance of three powers, which give political structure reform of our country important enlightenment. The last part of this text think Montesquieu's social conception of history has undoubtedly exerted a positive influence on later age as a great initiatory thinker in 18th century .but because of the limitation in era and class, his social conception of history still is an idealism.