ABSTRACT
Like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose political philosophy has engendered varying schools of, Montesquieu has provided much ground for dispute among commentators. In espousing methodological holism, Montesquieu parted company with most representatives of the natural law school. Several considerations would lead one to conclude that Montesquieu was a methodological holist. Perhaps the most striking expression of the methodological individualism of many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century political writers was their use of an original contract to explain the foundations of social or political obligation or both. Though Montesquieu's social science was based upon methodological holism, he believed that there is a fundamental human nature manifested in every person. As a methodological holist, Montesquieu may justly be called a pioneer of the science of society. As a moralist who recognized the importance of a universal human nature manifested in every individual, he remained true to the school of natural law.
