Western Culture Global Presents The Top 100 Heroes of Western Culture These individuals have most contributed to replacing ignorance with knowledge, savagery with civilization, disease with health, tyranny with liberty, poverty with abundance, and despair with happiness. #28: Montesquieu (1689-1755) Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755) was an Enlightenment-era French political philosopher. He articulated the theory of separation of powers. He held that the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government should be separate from and dependent upon each other to, in effect, check and balance one another. This arrangement ensures that the influence of any one power would not be able to exceed that of the other two, either singly or in combination. In other words, the separation of powers helps to prevent the government from achieving a concentration of power which would ultimately lead to tyranny. Montesquieu's ideas influenced the American Founders. As a result, the separation of powers was incorporated into the U.S. Constitution, helping it to become the greatest political document in world history. The separation of powers is a brilliant innovation that shows how the reasoning mind can apply its power to the political realm and create a governmental structure that internally combats tyranny and its destructiveness. Go to #29: William of Occam Top 100 Western Culture Heroes — Home Top 100 Western Culture Heroes — by Numerical Order Top 100 Western Culture Heroes — by Century Top 100 Western Culture Heroes — by Category
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