lead into difficulties which the reader is little aware of. In general, the science of politics, considered as an exact science (that is to say, as a science capable of actual demonstration), is infinitely deeper than the reader suspects. The knowledge of man, on which such a science, with its preliminary axioms and definitions, is to be grounded, has hitherto remained surprisingly imperfect. As one instance how little man is known to himself, it might be mentioned, that no tolerable explanation of that continual human phenomenon, laughter, has been yet given; and the powerful complicate sensation which each sex produces in the other, still remains an equally inexplicable mystery.

To conclude the above digression (which may do very well for a preface) I shall only add, that those speculators who will amuse themselves in seeking for the demonstration of the political theorem above expressed, will thereby be led through a field of observations which they will at first little expect; and, in their way towards attaining such demonstration, will find the science, commonly called Me taphysics, to be at best but a very superficial one, and that the Mathematics, or at least the mathematical reasonings hitherto used by men, are not so completely free from error as has been thought.*

Out of the four chapters added to the present edition, two (the 10th and 11th, B. I.) contain, among other things, a few strictures on the Courts of Equity; in which I wish it may be found I have not been mistaken: of the two others, one (19th, B. II.) contains a few observations on the attempts that may, in different circumstances, be made, to set new limits to the authority of the crown; and, in the 20th, a few general thoughts are introduced on the right of taxation, and on the claim of the American colonists in that respect. Any farther observations I may make on the English government, such as comparing it with the other governments of Europe, and examining what difference in the manners of the inhabitants of this

Certain errors that are not discovered, are, in several cases, compensated by others which are equally unperceived.

Continuing to avail myself of the indulgence an author has a right to claim in a preface, I shall mention, as a farther explanation of the peculiarity in the English government above alluded to, and which is again touched upon in the postscript to this advertisement, that a government may be considered as a great ballet, or dance, in which, as in other ballets, every thing depends on the disposition of the figures.

country may have resulted from it, must come in a new work, if I ever undertake to treat these subjects. In regard to the American disputes, what I may hereafter write on that account will be introduced in a work, which I may at some future time publish, under the title of Histoire de George Trois, Roi d'Angleterre; or, perhaps, of Histoire d'Angleterre, depuis l'Année 1765 (that in which the American stamp-duty was laid) jusques à l'Année 178meaning that in which an end shall be put to the present contest.*

Νου. 1781.

POSTSCRIPT.

Notwithstanding the intention above expressed, of making no additions to the present work, I have found it necessary, in this new edition, to render somewhat more complete the 17th chapter, Book II. On the peculiar foundations of the English monarchy, as a monarchy: as I found its tendency not to be very well understood; and, in fact, that chapter contained little more than hints on the subject mentioned in it; the task, in the course of writing, has increased beyond my expectation, and has swelled the chapter to about sixty pages above what it was in the former edition, so as almost to make it a kind of separate book by itself. The reader will now find, that, in several remarkable new instances, it proves the fact of the peculiar stability of the executive power of the British crown, and exhibits a much more complete delineation of the advantages that result from that stability in favour of public liberty.

These advantages may be enumerated in the following order: I. The numerous restraints the governing authority is able to bear, and the extensive freedom it can afford to allow the subject, at its own expense: II. The liberty of speaking and writing, carried to the great extent it is in England: III. The unbounded freedom of the debates in the legislature: IV. The power to bear the constant union of all orders of subjects against its prerogatives: V. The

A certain book, written in French, on the subject of the American disputes, was, I have been told, lately attributed to me, in which I had no share.

freedom allowed to all individuals to take an active part sin government concerns: VI. The strict impartiality with which justice is dealt to all subjects, without any respect whatever of persons: VII. The lenity of the criminal law, both in regard to the mildness of punishments and the frequentremission of them: VIII. The strict compliance of the governing authority with the letter of the law: IX. The. -needlessness of an armed force to support itself by, and, as a consequence, the singular subjection of the military to the civil power.

The above-mentioned advantages are peculiar to the English government. To attempt to imitate them, or transfer them to other countries, with that degree of extent to which they are carried in England, without at the same time transferring the whole order and conjunction of circumstances in the English government, would prove unsuccessful attempts. Several articles of English liberty already appear impracticable to be preserved in the new American commonwealths. The Irish nation have of late succeeded in imitating several very important regulations in the English government, and are very desirous to render the assimilation complete; yet, it is possible they will find many inconveniences arise from their endeavours, which do not take place in England, notwithstanding the very great general similarity of circumstances in the two kingdoms in many respects; and even also, we might add, notwithstanding the respectable power and weight the crown derives from its British dominions, both for defending its prerogative in Ireland, and preventing anarchy: I say, the similarity in many respects between the two kingdoms; for this resemblance may perhaps fail in regard to some important points: however, this is a subject about which I shall not attempt to say any thing, not having the necessary information.

The last chapter in the work, concerning the nature of the divisions that take place in this country, I have left in every English edition as I wrote it at first in French. With respect to the exact manner of the debates in parliament, mentioned in that chapter, I cannot well say more at present than I did at that time, as I never had an opportunity to hear the debates in either house. In regard to the divisions in general to which the spirit of party gives

rise, I did, perhaps, the bulk of the people somewhat more honour than they really deserve, when I represented them as being free from any violent dispositions in that respect: I have since found, that, like the bulk of mankind in all countries, they suffer themselves to be influenced by vehement prepossessions for this or that side of public questions, commonly in proportion as their knowledge of the subject is imperfect. It is, however, a fact, that political prepos sessions and party-spirit are not productive, in this country, of those dangerous consequences which might be feared from the warmth with which they are sometimes manifested. But this subject, or, in general, the subject of the political quarrels and divisions in this country, is not an article one may venture to meddle with in a single chapter; I have therefore let this subsist without touching it.

I shall however observe, before I conclude, that an ac cidental circumstance in the English government prevents the party-spirit, by which the public are usually influenced, from producing those lasting and rancorous divisions in the community which have pestered so many other free states, making of the same nation, as it were, two distinct people, in a kind of constant warfare with each other. The circumstance I mean, is the frequent reconciliations (commonly to quarrel again afterward) that take place be tween the leaders of parties, by which the most violent and ignorant class of their partisans are bewildered, and made to lose the scent. By the frequent coalitions between whig and tory leaders, even that party-distinction, the most famous in the English history, has now become use. less: the meaning of the words has thereby been rendered so perplexed, that nobody can any longer give a tolerable definition of them; and those persons who, now and then, aim at gaining popularity by claiming the merit of belong. ing to either party, are scarcely understood. The late coalition between two certain leaders has done away, and prevented from settling, that violent party-spirit to which the administration of Lord Bute had given rise, and which the American disputes had carried still farther. Though this coalition has met with much obloquy, I take the liberty to rank myself in the number of its advocates, so far as the circumstance here mentioned.

May, 1784.

THE

CONSTITUTION OF ENGLAND.

INTRODUCTION.

THE spirit of philosophy, which peculiarly distinguishes the present age, after having corrected a number of errors fatal to society, seems now to be directed towards the principles of society itself; and we see prejudices vanish which are difficult to overcome, in proportion as it is dangerous to attack them.* This rising freedom of sentiment, the necessary forerunner of political freedom, led me to imagine that it would not be unacceptable to the public to be made acquainted with the principles of a constitution on which the eye of curiosity seems now to be universally turned, and which, though celebrated as a model of perfection, is yet but little known to its admirers.

I am aware that it will be deemed presumptuous in a man who has passed the greatest part of his life out of England, to attempt a delineation of the English government-a system which is supposed to be so complicated, as not to be understood or developed but by those who have been initiated in the mysteries of it from their infancy.

But, though a foreigner in England, yet, as a native of a free country, I am no stranger to those circumstances which constitute or characterise liberty. Even the great disproportion between the republic of which I am a member (and in which I formed my principles), and the British empire, has perhaps only contributed to facilitate my political inquiries.

As the mathematician, the better to discover the proportions he investigates, begins with freeing his equation

As every popular notion which may contribute to the support of an arbitrary government is at all times vigilantly protected by the whole strength of it, political prejudices are last of all, if ever, shaken off by a nation subjected to such a government. A great change in this respect, however, has of late taken place in France, where this book was first published; and opinions are now discussed there, and tenets avowed, which, in the time of Louis the Fourteenth, would have appeared downright blasphemy; it is to this an allusion is made above.