think seriously of thofe evils from which they both fuffer, and in an equal degree. Let not good men, however, indulge fuch uncomfortable reflections; let them attend to the calamities of their country,-not to heighten them by public confufion and diforder, but to investigate their caufes, and point out the proper remedies; fuch remedies as are compatible with the good of fociety. Reafon, cool, deliberate reflection, knowledge, and a length of time, are neceflary to reform a ftate; paffion, ever impetuous and indifcreet, pulls down and deftroys, but never corrects or improves, Nations ought patiently to bear thofe evils which they cannot remove without additional mifery. The progrefs of political fyftems, to perfection, muft, in the very nature of things, be flow, and their improvement can only arife from the experience of ages, which will gradually ripen all human inftitutions, and render them more wife and happy. Let the good citizen, therefore, communicate his ideas to his Gotry, let him comfort it, under prefent calamities, with the hopes of better times; let him direct its view to fome happy period in futurity, when princes fhall be weary of their abfurd and oppreffive fchemes, and their people of the yoke of bondage; in a word, let him hope that the time will come, when both fovereigns and furjects will no longer fuffer themfelves to be guided by accident and chance, but will at length have recourfe to reflection, to realon, and to equity, which are fufficient to put an end to all thofe calamities which fall fo heavy upon both.

No nation can be happy, unless it is governed according to the laws of nature; and the laws of nature always lead to virtue. No fovereign can be great, powerful, or happy, unless he reigns with juftice over a wife and confiderate people. These are the true principles of that focia! harmony which government is intended to establish. Woe to that people, whose leaders fhould look upon fuch maxims as feditious, or as a malignant fatire upon their political conduct.

Our Author's difcourfe is divided into nine parts, and each part is fubdivided into a great number of fhort fections. In the fift volume, he treats of fociety, government, fovereignty, and fubjection; in the fecond, of defpotifm and tyranny, liberty, politics in general, and the diffolution of ftates. We fhall infert two or three fections as a fpecimen of the work.

After fhewing that fociability is a natural fentiment in man, ftrengthened by habit and cultivated by reafon ;-that man was born in fociety-that the laws of nature are plain, clear, and intelligible to all the inhabitants of the earth, &c. he goes on to obferve, that ignorance is the fource of all the evils of fociety; let us attend to what he fays on this fubject.

It will probably be asked, fays our Author, why thofe laws which nature renders neceffary, which reafon points out, which

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every man finds within his own breaft, are fo badly obferved? why they are conftantly violated by beings, whose interests, defires, and wants are the fame, and whofe happiness is infeparably connected with the obfervation of them? I answer, that ignorance and error are the true fources of all the evils which arife in human focieties. Men are wicked merely becaufe they are ignorant of their true intereft, of the great end of uniting in fociety, of the fubftantial advantages that may be derived from fuch an union, of the charms of virtue, and even frequently of the very nature of virtue. They continue in their ignorance, and in their perverfity, because they are de'ceived both in regard to their real happiness, and the means of attaining it. Men are deceived in regard to their nature, which enthufiafm and impofture confpire to oppofe, and the voice of which tyranny endeavours to filence. They are deceived, by being forbid to confult reafon or experience, in the place of which, no other guides are fubftituted but phantoms, fables, re-t veries, and myfteries. They are deceived, by having their attention diverted from themselves, and from fociety, to mere chimeras, which they are told are to conftitute their fupreme felicity. They are deceived, becaufe every thing confpires to fill their minds with errors, falfe opinions, prejudices, and paffions, which engage them in conftant quarrels with each other, and make them imagine that doing mifchief is the way to be happy.

It is not nature that renders men vain, wicked, and corrupt; it is for want of knowing and attentively confidering the nature of a being endued with reafon and fenfibility, and formed for fociety, that happiness and virtue are fo feldom found upon. earth. By a fatal and neceffary confequence of that ignorance of their real interefts wherein men are held, they conftantly mistake both the objects of their various paflions, and the paths which lead to true happinefs.

Of facial Virtues.

Nothing but virtue can conftitute the happiness of fociety. To abstain from injuries; to deprive no man of the advantages he enjoys; to give to every one what is due to him; to do good; to contribute to the happiness of others; to affift each other-this is being virtuous. Virtue can only be what contributes to the utility, welfare, and fecurity of fociety.

The first of all focial virtues is humanity. It is the abridgment of all the reft. Taken in its most extenfive fignification, it is that fentiment which gives every individual of our fpecies a right to our heart and affections. Founded upon a cultivated fenfibility, it difpofes us to do all the good in our power to our fellow-creatures. Its effects are love, beneficence, generofity, indulgence, and compaffion. When this virtue is confined

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within the limits of the fociety to which we belong, its effects are love of country, paternal love, filial piety, conjugal tenderness, friendship, affection for our relations and fellowcitizens.

Strength and activity ought to be ranked among the focial virtues, because they defend fociety or establish its fecurity, and their effects are magnanimity, courage, patience, moderation, and temperance. Thote virtues which have the good of society for their object must not be lazy and indolent, like the chimerical virtues introduced by impolture, which often makes a merit of being useless to others. Idlene is a real vice in every affociation.

Juftice is the true bafis of all the focial virtues. It is justice which holds the ballance between the feveral members of fociety, and keeps it in an equilibrium; which remedies those evils that might arife from the inequality that nature has eftablished among men, and even makes it contribute to the general good; which fecures to individuals their rights, their property, their perfons, their liberty, and protects them from the attacks of force, and the fnares of treachery; which obliges them to be faithful to their engagements, and banishes fraud and falfehood from among men in a word, it is justice, which by means of equitable laws and a wife diftribution of rewards and punishments, excites to virtue, reftrains from vice, and leads those to reafon and reflection who might be tempted to purchase a momentary good by doing a lafting injury to their fellow-creatures.

Of the origin of Government.

To pretend to afcertain the origin of the different forms of government among men, would be abfurd and ridiculous. It would be very unphilofophical to fuppofe that they were all formed in the fame manner, or to reduce them to one model. Different circumstances, different views, different paffions, in a word, wants varioufly combined and infinitely diverfified, must have given birth to them; and a variety of events must have contributed to their fupport and establishment.

Let us try, however, to trace the progrefs of the human mind, and that of focieties in their inftitutions of government; we shall be in little danger of being mistaken, if we keep in view the general fentiments of humanity, thofe ideas that are most natural to our fpecies..

Men, ftrictly speaking, have always been governed. This truth will not appear ftrange to thofe who pay even but a moderate degree of attention to it. If man be the fruit of a fociety, in which a tender care was taken of him in his infancy, and which his wants rendered neceffary to him in his advanced years, he was at least under the government of a father. What

ever fyftem we adopt in regard to the antiquity of the world; whether we fuppofe it eternal, or only affign it a limited number of years; whether all men have defcended from one, or whether the human fpecies has always fubfifted in a condition nearly fimilar to the prefent, there have always been focieties. There was at least one family that acknowledged a chief, and this family muft in time have become so numerous, that it could no longer be governed by one man. The power, the respect, the fubmiffion that was granted to the first father of a family, who was likewife the firft King, must have been divided among those who fucceeded him; nay, must have been weakened, and reduced to nothing. New interefts, new wants, and different circumstances, muft have produced difputes, wars, emigrations, revolutions, and have given birth to new focieties. On the other hand, general calamities, plagues, famine, earthquakes, and inundations, must have fubdivided fome focieties, and driven from their antient habitations those who escaped from them. Whatever was the fate of these wandering bands, torn from their original abode, they could never entirely have forgot that they were once under fome form of government.

These scattered tribes being, after fome time, in a ftate of greater tranquillity, muft have thought of re-establishing fome form of government, and they muft naturally have turned their eyes to thofe from whom they had received most real advantages, and who, they had reafon to think, would be ftill ferviceable to them. Goodness and utility are the natural titles for ruling over men, and fuch, undoubtedly, were the titles of the first fovereigns. The farther we penetrate into the dark night of antiquity, the more we are convinced, by the faint glimmerings of light which we have to guide our researches, that the first kings, like the first gods, were the benefactors of the human race. Ofiris, Hermes, Triptolemus, &c. were chiefs and leaders of fierce and barbarous nations, which, after hav ing granted them fupreme authority during their lives, extended their gratitude beyond the grave, and reverenced thofe as divinities whom they had formerly obeyed as mortals.

Men who had been expofed to violent enterprizes, and fudden invasions from neighbouring focieties, united for mutual defence, and, in the choice of their leaders, they must have caft their eyes upon thofe whom they thought moft capable of defending them. Bodily ftrength is the firft and the most neceffary of all virtues to a fociety formed by weaknefs and fear. Accordingly, Hercules, Thefeus, and almoft all the first heroes, are represented to us as poffeffed of extraordinary ftrength, of invincible courage, and fable acquaints us with their aftonishing exploits.

The

The free choice of men must likewife have frequently fallen upon prudence, wifdom, and virtue, but especially on that fpirit of magnanimity, that fuperiority of reafon, of abilities, and of knowledge, which bring the vulgar under fubjection; aftonished to find in their leaders refources which they looked upon as divine, becaufe they themfelves were incapable of them. Perfons poffeffed of fuch fuperior accomplishments became the legiflators of focieties; introduced order into them; accounted for those terrible phænomena which had affrighted and difperfed them, taught them to worship the gods; proclaimed to them the decrees of heaven, and often mixed fraud and impofture with real benefits, in order to render their authority the more refpectable: Orpheus, Numa, Minos, the Incas, &c. were legi flators of this kind.

Still farther, feveral difperfed families may have united for their common intereft and mutual defence, without making any change in paternal government. The leaders of different families may have preferved an equal authority, and by their unanimity regulated a fociety formed by the combination of such detached tribes. On this model aristocratical republics must have been formed.

Many ftates, too, must have been formed by violence and public diforder. Successful and daring robbers, affifted by other robbers, may have, with unprovoked hoftility, attacked peaceful focieties, invaded their poffeffions, overturned their government and laws, defeated or maffacred their leaders, and fubftituted themfelves in their ftead, while the aftonifhed multitude was obliged, with fear and trembling, to receive the yoke, and to bear it patiently. It was thus that Nimrod, Sefoftris, Alexander, and Clovis, founded new empires.

Smaller focieties may have been joined to larger ones; and this union may have been formed either voluntarily, or by force. In the former cafe, nations incapable of defending themfelves must have courted the protection of a more powerful state; and fometimes too, the confideration of fuperior advantages enjoyed by their neighbours, muft have tempted fome focieties to renounce their independence, in order to obtain the fame advantages. In the fecond cafe, the torrent of conqueft must have fwept along with it reluctant nations, too feeble to refift. To conclude, focietics of equal power may have sometimes formed confederacies upon certain conditions, and united with a view to repulfe a power greater than either of them when taken feparately. Such was formerly the Achaean league; and fuch, at prefent, are the Swifs, and the United Provinces.

In one or other of thefe ways muft we account for all the forms of government upon earth. Hiftory furnishes no exam

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