Question

+from whom did modern democracies learn how to safeguard against tyranny by dividing the government's power among different parts

Answer 1

Division of powers consists on breaking down the power of the state in three independent pillars: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary.

This system was claimed by the Enlightenment philosophers, like Montesquieu, as the alternative that should replace absolut monarchies that were operating in Europe at that time. The whole power was concentrated in one single man, the King. Moreover, it was believed that his power came directly from God.

It is important to remember that Enlightenment fought for reason over superstititions, the orthodoxy of religion or dogmatic beliefs. Therefore, this movement also claimed for political innovations, discarding the belief of power coming from God, and willing to make effective the fact that actually power comes the people in the country.