Charles de Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu was born in 1689 to a French noble family. "His family tree could be traced 350 years, which in his view made its name neither good nor bad." (The Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, p. 68) Montesquieu's views started to be shaped at a very early age. A beggar was chosen to be his godfather to remind him of his obligations to the poor.
In the Considerations Montesquieu used Roman history to prove some of his ideas about reasons for the rise and the fall of civilizations. His most important point was that history is made by causes and effects, by events influenced by man, and not by luck. His ideas are summarized in this passage:
I is not fortune that rules the world . . .The Romans had a series of consecutive successes when their government followed one policy, and an unbroken set of reverses when it adopted another. There are general causes, whether moral or physical, which act upon every monarchy, which create, maintain, or......
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