ABSTRACT
It is fashionable nowadays to regard Charles de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu, as a precursor of sociology, which is justified if the founder is the man (in this case, Auguste Comte) who invented the term. On the other hand, if the sociologist is to be defined by the peculiar aims which I have suggested, then Montesquieu was much more of a sociologist than Auguste Comte. The philosophical interpretation of sociology present in The Spirit of the Laws is much more “modern” than the same interpretation in the writings of Auguste Comte. This does not necessarily mean that Montesquieu was superior to Auguste Comte; but it does mean that I do not consider Montesquieu a precursor of sociology, but rather one of its great theorists.
