be purely political the very clements of which they are composed preclude the possibility of establishing any certain standard of reference, by which the dispute can be settled so as to lead to a safe result in practice; so, by tracing the propositions up to their legitimate standard in morals, we at once obtain the proper test by which their permanent value may tried, and (unless we mean to deny the continued superintendence of Providence,) by which the system when reduced to certainty may be also fixed for ever as an unerring rule of conduct. Politicians, when thus confirmed in the truth of their principles will naturally display augmented courage in opposing temporary obstacles, knowing that, although the course of this world is more or less of a struggle against the principle of evil, yet success will always be proportionate to the constancy of perse verance. I am well aware that the introduction of morals (especially if founded upon religion) into political discussions is apt to excite feelings of disgust in some classes of readers. They delight to contemplate the superstructure of society in its various modifications and arrangements, but decline the less amusing task of inspecting the foundations, which they consider to be the exclusive concern of the professional builder. But all workmen are more or less prone to neglect that part of their work which they know will not be surveyed, till at length occasional omissions degenerate into a faulty habit. The statesman, who is the workman in the ease before us, will necessarily follow the custom and way of thinking of the age in which he lives. If the fundamental doctrines of morality have been habitually overlocked in the practical application of politics, he cannot well restore their influence till the fatal effects of the omis sion have recalled the public mind to a general sense of their necessity. The press is the great medium through which the public mind is influenced in a free country; and he who writes with that object has this advantage over the statesman, that he may, and indeed is frequently bound in conscience to, run counter to the spirit of his age, if it oppose the enunciation of what he conceives to be a profitable truth; and he may sometimes hope to reap the delightful reward of giving a new and improved impulse to the public opinion. I firmly believe that Christian morality is the very root and principle of the questions discussed in the following chapters. I have therefore referred to it equally, as I hope, without disguise and without af fectation, and must trust to the candour and propriety with which the several references are made, as my best apology to those who are disposed to deprecate the practical association of morals and politics in such discussions. I do not wish to disguise the fact, that throughout the whole treatise I have never lost sight of the application of the argument to our own country in its present advanced state of society, and in the progress through which it has arrived at it. This is to be ascribed to two causes. In the first place it is impos b sible for an Englishman, discoursing on the elements of social happiness and prosperity, to avoid a continual reference to the land where his affections are centred, from whose system of society he has derived his own happiness, the sources of which he desires to transmit uncontaminated to posterity. And in the second place it appeared to me that, throughout the wide circle of political history, I could find no other country where the foundations are so fairly laid upon au enlightened view of moral and political expediency; and where society has advanced so far with so little necessary retrenchment of the comfort and happiness of the people. Such a constitution of things, therefore, presents points of illustration and comparison on the advanced stages of society which would elsewhere be sought in vain. I am well persuaded that none of my countrymen will think the time mispent which is employed in tracing such a system up to its original elements,-in investigating the principles upon which it may be preserved in vigour, and transmitted, perhaps with some improvements, to remote ages. The Reader is entreated to recollect, that this Treatise proceeds little further than to the elements of civil society in the several stages of its progress; or to the principles which enable the community to subsist in comfort and happiness as it advances in wealth and population. Such an exposition is a necessary preliminary to all discussions on the higher arrangements of polity; for the people must be at ease in their circumstances before they can 5 become the instruments of forwarding the views of the statesman for the wealth and glory of their country, as a member of the commonwealth of nations. I wish to add in conclusion, that I should be sorry if any expressions used in enforcing the arguments connected with morals and religion should be thought to undervalue the labours of the metaphysical school of philosophy. As matter for intellectual exercise and improvement, as exciting and fos tering a spirit of inquiry and reflection upon the operations of the human mind, the lucubrations of that school must be admitted to be of great importance. But the ambition of its professors takes a higher flight, and aims at establishing practical rules of political and moral conduct upon general and incontrovertible principles; and here I must be permitted to think that they outstep the bounds of the legitimate influence of their science, and, by leading their pupils to rely upon a vague and deficient standard of opinion, are peculiarly in danger of misleading their minds upon many important subjects of moral and political practice. The fact seems to be that as scarcely any two philosophers ever exactly agreed in the practical inferences justly deducible from a metaphysical inquiry, the science is in itself insufficient for the establishment of general principles in morals and politics; and, when propounded for such a purpose as a department of education, is liable to contract the youthful mind instead of enlarging it, and to confine it within the trammels of its own particular school. It educates the politician to bend the circumstances of general society to a conformity with those peculiar views which his own school has been pleased to sanction with the name of general principles, although those principles are in direct opposition to the tenets of other schools equally worthy of credit and regard; and the contest is between the ipse dixit of one set of philosophers and the ipse dixit of another, rather than between the natural infirmity and selfishness of mankind, and that enlarged view of moral and religious philanthropy which can be drawn only from one source and sanctioned only by one reference. But it is upon the result of this last-mentioned contest that many important elementary principles in politics depend.. Fully admitting, therefore, the usefulness of metaphysical inquiry as a means of intellectual exertion, and as an instrument for promoting what its advocates are pleased to term "the progress of mind," I do not think that a writer can be fairly said to undervalue it, although he may wish to qualify the insinuation of one of its ablest and most eloquent professors, that the "diffusion of the philosophical spirit," and its ""application to 'the natural or theoretical history of society, to the history of the languages, the arts, the sciences, the laws, the government, the manners, and the religion of mankind, form the peculiar glory of the latter half of the eighteenth century."* * See 1st Dissert. prefixed to Suppl. Encycl. Brit, by Dugald Stewart, Esq. F.R.S. &c.-P. 54. |