Montesquieu’s Idea of Justice

Part One of Montesquieu's Idea of Justice comprises a survey of the currency in philosophical, ethical and aesthetic debate during the second half of the 17th century of the terms rapport and convenance, which are central to the enigmatic definition given to justice by Mon­ tesquieu in Lettres Persanes LXXXllI. In this survey, attention is concen­ trated on the way in which the connotations of these terms fluctuate with the divergent development of the methodological and speculative outgrowths o