A

FRAGMENT

ON

GOVERNMENT;

BEING

An EXAMINATION of whit is delivered,

On the Subject of GOVERNMENT in General

In the INTRODUCTION to

Sir William Blackstone's COMMENTARIES:

by Jeremy Bentham

WITH A

PREFACE,

IN WHICH IS GIVEN

A CRITIQUE on THE WORK AT LARGE.

Rien ne recule plus le progrès des connoissances, qu'un

mauvais ouvrage d'un Auteur célèbre: parce qu'avant

d'instuire, il faut commencer par détromper.

MONTESQUIEU Espirit: des Lois, L. XXX. Ch. XV.

LONDON:

Printed for T. PAYNE, at the Mews-Gate; P. EMILY, opposite

Southampton-Street in the Strand; and E. Brooks, in Boll-Yard,

Temple-Bar.

M.DCC.LXXVI.

Preface

The age we live in is a busy age; in which knowledge is rapidly advancing towards perfection. In the natural world, in particular, every thing teems with discovery and with improvement. The most distant and recondite regions of the earth traversed and explored the all-vivifying and subtle element of the air so recently analyzed and made known to striking evidences, were all others wanting, of this pleasing truth.

Correspondent to discovery and improvement in the natural world, is reformation in the moral; if that which seems a common notion be, indeed, a true one, that in the moral world there no longer remains any matter for discovery. Perhaps, however, this may not be the case: perhaps among such observations as would be best calculated to serve as grounds for reformation, are some which, being observations of matters of fact hitherto either incompletely noticed, or not at all would, when produced, appear capable of bearing the name of discoveries: with so little method and precision have the consequences of this fundamental axiom, it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong, been as yet developped.

Be this as it may, if there be room for making, and if there be use in publishing, discoveries in the natural world, surely there is not much less room for making, nor much less use in proposing, reformation in the moral. If it be a matter of importance and of use to us to be made acquainted with distant countries, surely it is not a matter of much less importance, nor of much less use to us, to be made better and better acquainted with the chief means of living happily in our own: If it be of importance and of use to us to know the principles of the element we breathe, surely it is not of much less importance nor of much less use to comprehend the principles, and endeavour at the improvement of those laws, by which alone we breathe it in security. If to this endeavour we should fancy any Author, especially any Author of great name, to be, and as far as could in such case be expected, to avow himself a determined and persevering enemy, what should we say of him? We should say that the interests of reformation, and through them the welfare of mankind, were inseparably connected with the downfall of his works: of a great part, at least, of the esteem and, influence, which these works might under whatever title have acquired.

Such an enemy it has been my misfortune (and not mine only) to see, or fancy at least I saw, in the Author of the celebrated COMMENTARIES on the LAWS of ENGLAND; an Author whose works have had beyond comparison a more extensive circulation, have obtained a greater share of esteem, of applause, and consequently of influence (and that by a title on many grounds so indisputable) than any other writer who on that subject has ever yet appeared.

It is on this account that I conceived, some time since, the design of pointing out some of what appeared to me the capital blemishes of that work, particularly this grand and fundamental one, the antipathy to reformation; or rather, indeed, of laying open and exposing the universal inaccuracy and confusion which seemed to my apprehension to pervade the whole. For, indeed, such an ungenerous antipathy seemed of itself enough to promise a general vein of obscure and crooked reasoning, from whence no clear and sterling knowledge could be derived; so intimate is the connexion between some of the gifts of the understanding, and some of the affections of the heart.

It is in this view then that I took in hand that part of the first volume to which the Author has given the name of INTRODUCTION. It is in this part of the work that is contained whatever comes under the denomination of general principles. It is in this part of the work that are contained such preliminary views as it seemed proper to him to give of certain objects real or imaginary, which he found connected with his subject LAW by identity of name: two or three sorts of LAWS of Nature, the revealed LAW, and a certain LAW of Nations. It is in this part of the work that he has touched upon several topics which relate to all laws or institutions⁽¹⁾ in general, or at least to whole classes of institutions without relating to any one more than to another.

To speak more particularly, it is in this part of his work that he has given a definition, such as it is, of that whole branch of law which he had taken for his subject; that branch, which some, considering it as a main stock, would term LAW without addition; and which he, to distinguish it from those others its condivident branches,⁽²⁾ terms law municipal:an account, such as it is, of the nature and origin of Natural Society the mother, and of Political Society the daughter, of Law municipal, duly begotten in the bed of Metaphor:a division, such as it is, of a law, individually considered, into what he fancies to be its parts:an account, such as it is, of the method to be taken for interpreting any law that may occur.

In regard to the Law of England in particular, it is here that he gives an account of the division of it into its two branches (branches, however, that are no ways distinct in the purport of them, when once established, but only in respect of the source from whence their establishment took its rise) the Statute or Written law, as it is called, and the Common or Unwritten:an account of what are called General Customs, or institutions in force throughout the whole empire, or at least the whole nation;of what are called Particular Customs, institutions of local extent established in particular districts; and of such adopted institutions of a general extent, as are parcel of what are called the Civil and the Canon laws; all three in the character of so many branches of what is called the Common Law:in fine, a general account of Equity, that capricious and incomprehensible mistress of our fortunes, whose features neither our Author, nor perhaps any one is well able to delineate;of Equity, who having in the beginning been a rib of Law, but since in some dark age plucked from her side, when sleeping, by the hands not so much of God as of enterprizing Judges, now lords it over her parent sister:

All this, I say, together with an account of the different districts of the empire over which different portions of the Law prevail, or over which the Law has different degrees of force, composes that part of our Author's work which he has styled the INTRODUCTION. His eloquent `Discourse on the study of the Law', with which, as being a discourse of the rhetorical kind rather than of the didactic, I proposed not to intermeddle, prefaces the whole.

It would have been in vain to have thought of travelling over the whole of so vast a work. My design, therefore, was to take such a portion of it, as might afford a fair and adequate specimen of the character and complexion ofthe whole. For this purpose the part here marked out would, I thought, abundantly suffice. This, however narrow in extent, was the most conspicuous, the most characteristic part of our Author's work, and that which was most his own. The rest was little more than compilation. Pursuing my examination thus far, I should pursue it, I thought, as far as was necessary for my purpose: and I had little stomach to pursue a task at once so laborious and so invidious any farther. If Hercules, according to the old proverb, is to be known ex pede: much more thought I, is he to be known ex capite.

In these views it was that I proceeded as far as the middle of the definition of the Law municipal. It was there I found, not without surprize, the digression which makes the subject of the present Essay. This threw me at first into no small perplexity. To give no account of it at all;to pass wholly sub silentio, so large, and in itself so material a part of the work I was examining, would seem strange: at the same time I saw no possibility of entering into an examination of a passage so anomalous, without cutting in pieces the thread of the discourse. Under this doubt I determined at any rate, for the present, to pass it by; the rather as I could not perceive any connexion that it had with any thing that came before or after. I did so; and continuing my examination of the definition from which it digressed, I travelled on to the end of the Introduction. It then became necessary to come to some definitive resolution concerning this excentric part of it: and the result was, that being loth to leave the enterprize I had begun in this respect, imperfect, I sat down to give what I intended should be a very slight and general survey of it. The farther, however, I proceeded in examining it, the more confused and unsatisfactory it appeared to me: and the greater difficulty I found in knowing what to make of it, the more words it cost me, I found, to say so. In this way, and by these means it was that the present Essay grew to the bulk in which the Reader sees it. When it was nearly completed, it occurred to me, that as the digression itself which I was examining was perfectly distinct from, and unconnected with the text from which it starts, so was, or so at least might be, the critique on that digression, from the critique on the text. The former was by much too large to be engrafted into the latter: and since if it accompanied it at all, it could only be in the shape of an Appendix, there seemed no reason why the same publication should include them both. To the former, therefore, as being the least, I determined to give that finish which I was able, and which I thought was necessary: and to publish it in this detached manner, as the first, if not the only part of a work, the principal and remaining part of which may possibly see the light some time or other, under some such title as that of `A COMMENT on the COMMENTARIES'

In the mean time that I may stand more fully justified, or excused at least, in an enterprize to most perhaps so extraordinary, and to many doubtless so unacceptable, it may be of use to endeavour to state with some degree of precision, the grounds of that war which, for the interests of true science, and of liberal improvement, I think myself bound to wage against this work. I shall therefore proceed to mark out and distinguish those points of view in which it seems principally reprehensible, not forgetting those in which it seems still entitled to our approbation and applause.

There are two characters, one or other of which every man who finds any thing to say on the subject of Law, may be said to take upon him;that of the Expositor, and that of the Censor. To the province of the Expositor it belongs to explain to us what, as he supposes, the Law is: to that of the Censor, to observe to us what he thinks it ought to be. The former, therefore, is principally occupied in stating, or in enquiring after facts:⁽³⁾ the latter, in discussing reasons. The Expositor, keeping within his sphere, has no concern with any other faculties of the mind than the apprehension, the memory, and the judgment: the latter, in virtue of those sentiments of pleasure or displeasure which he finds occasion to annex to the objects under his review, holds some intercourse with the affections. That which is Law, is, in different countries, widely different: while that which ought to be, is in all countries to a great degree the same. The Expositor, therefore, is always the citizen of this or that particular country: the Censor is, or ought to be the citizen of the world. To the Expositor it belongs to shew what the Legislator and his underworkman the Judge have done already: to the Censor it belongs to suggest what the Legislator ought to do in future. To the Censor, in short, it belongs to teach that science, which when by change of hands converted into an art, the LEGISLATOR practises.

Let us now return to our Author. Of these two perfectly distinguishable functions, the latter alone is that which it fell necessarily within his province to discharge. His professed object was to explain to us what the Laws of England were. `Ita lex scripta est', was the only motto which he stood engaged to keep in view. The work of censure (for to this word, in default of any other, I find it necessary to give a neutral sense) the work of censure, as it may be styled, or, in a certain sense, of criticism, was to him but a parergona work of supererogation: a work, indeed, which, if aptly executed, could not but be of great ornament to the principal one, and of great instruction as well as entertainment to the Reader, but from which our Author, as well as those that had gone before him on the same line, might, without being chargeable with any deficiency, have stood excused: a work which, when superadded to the principal, would lay the Author under additional obligations, and impose on him new duties: which, notwithstanding whatever else it might differ in from the principal one, agrees with it in this, that it ought to be executed with impartiality, or not at all.

If, on the one hand, a hasty and undiscriminating condemner of what is established may expose himself to contempt; on the other hand, a bigotted or corrupt defender of the works of power, becomes guilty, in a manner, of the abuses which he supports: the more so if, by oblique glances and sophistical glosses, he studies to guard from reproach, or recommend to favour, what he knows not how, and dares not attempt, to justify. To a man who contents himself with simply stating an institution as he thinks it is, no share, it is plain, can justly be attributed (nor would any one think of attributing to him any share) of whatever reproach, any more than of whatever applause the institu tion may be thought to merit. But if not content with this humbler function, he takes upon him to give reasons in behalf of it, reasons whether made or found by him, it is far otherwise. Every false and sophistical reason that he contributes to circulate, he himself is chargeable with: nor ought he to be holden guiltless even of such as, in a work where fact not reason is the question, he delivers as from other writers without censure. By officiously adopting them he makes them his own, though delivered under the names of the respective Authors: not much less than if delivered under his own. For the very idea of a reason betokens approbation: so that to deliver a remark under that character, and that without censure, is to adopt it. A man will scarcely, therefore, without some note of disapprobation, be the instrument of introducing, in the guise of a reason, an argument which he does not really wish to see approved. Some method or other he will take to wash his hands of it: some method or other he will take to let men see that what he means to be understood to do, is merely to report the judgment of another, not to pass one of his own. Upon that other then he will lay the blame; at least he will take care to repel it from himself. If he omits to do this, the most favourable cause that can be assigned to the omission is indifference: indifference to the public welfarethat indifference which is itself a crime.

It is wonderful how forward some have been to look upon it as a kind of presumption and ingratitude, and rebellion, and cruelty, and I know not what besides, not to allege only, nor to own, but to suffer any one so much as to imagine, that an old-established law could in any respect be a fit object of condemnation. Whether it has been a kind of personification, that has been the cause of this, as if the law were a living creature, or whether it has been the mechanical veneration for antiquity, or what other delusion of the fancy, I shall not here enquire. For my part, I know not for what good reason it is that the merit of justifying a law when right should have been thought greater, than that of censuring it when wrong. Under a government of Laws, what is the motto of a good citizen? To obey punctually; to censure freely.

Thus much is certain; that a system that is never to be censured, will never be improved: that if nothing is ever to be found fault with, nothing will ever be mended: and that a resolution to justify every thing at any rate, and to disapprove of nothing, is a resolution which, pursued in future, must stand as an effectual bar to all the additional happiness we can ever hope for; pursued hitherto would have robbed us of that share of happiness which we enjoy already.

Nor is a disposition to find `every thing as it should be,' less at variance with itself, than with reason and utility. The commonplace arguments in which it vents itself justify not what is established, in effect, any more than they condemn it: since whatever now is established, once was innovation.

Precipitate censure, cast on a political institution, does but recoil on the head of him who casts it. From such an attack it is not the institution itself, if well grounded, that can suffer. What a man says against it either makes impression or makes none. If none, it is just as if nothing had been said about the matter: if it does make an impression, it naturally calls up some one or other in defence. For if the institution is in truth a beneficial one to the community in general, it cannot but have given an interest in its preservation to a number of individuals. By their industry, then, the reasons on which it is grounded are brought to light: from the observation of which those who acquiesced in it before upon trust, now embrace it upon conviction. Censure, therefore, though ill-founded, has no other effect upon an institution than to bring it to that test, by which the value of those, indeed, on which prejudice alone has stamped a currency, is cried down, but by which the credit of those of sterling utility is confirmed.

Nor is it by any means from passion and ill-humour, that censure, passed upon legal institutions, is apt to take its birth. When it is from passion and ill-humour that men speak, it is with men that they are in ill-humour, not with laws: it is men, not laws, that are the butt of arrogance.⁽⁴⁾ Spleen and turbulence may indeed prompt men to quarrel with living individuals: but when they make complaint of the dead letter of the Law, the work of departed lawgivers, against whom no personal antipathy can have subsisted, it is always from the observation, or from the belief at least, of some real grievance. The Law is no man's enemy: the Law is no man's rival. Ask the clamorous and unruly multitudeit is never the Law itself that is in the wrong: it is always some wicked interpreter of the Law that has corrupted and abused it.⁽⁵⁾

Thus destitute of foundations are the terrors, or pretended terrors, of those who shudder at the idea of a free censure of established institutions. So little does the peace of society require the aid of those lessons which teach men to accept of any thing as reason, and to yield the same abject and indiscriminating homage to the Laws here, which is paid to the despot elsewhere. The fruits of such tuition are visible enough in the character of that race of men who have always occupied too large a space in the circle of the profession: A passive and enervate race, ready to swallow any thing, and to acquiesce in any thing: with intellects incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and with affections alike indifferent to either: insensible, short-sighted, obsti nate: lethargic, yet liable to be driven into convulsions by false terrors: deaf to the voice of reason and public utility: obsequious only to the whisper of interest, and to the beck of power.

This head of mischief, perhaps, is no more than what may seem included under the former. For why is it an evil to a country that the minds of those who have the Law under their management should be thus enfeebled? It is because it finds them impotent to every enter prize of improvement.

Not that a race of lawyers and politicians of this enervate breed is much less dangerous to the duration of that share of felicity which the State possesses at any given period, than it is mortal to its chance of attaining to a greater. If the designs of a Minister are inimical to his country, what is the man of all others for him to make an instrument of or a dupe? Of all men, surely none so fit as that sort of man who is ever on his knees before the footstool of Authority, and who, when those above him, or before him, have pronounced, thinks it a crime to have an opinion of his own.

Those who duly consider upon what slight and trivial circum stances, even in the happiest times, the adoption or rejection of a Law so often turns; circumstances with which the utility of it has no imaginable connectionthose who consider the desolate and abject state of the human intellect, during the periods in which so great a part of the still subsisting mass of institutions had their birththose who consider the backwardness there is in most men, unless when spurred by personal interests or resentments, to run a-tilt against the Colossus of authoritythose, I say, who give these considerations their due weight, will not be quite so zealous, perhaps, as our Author has been to terrify men from setting up what is now `private judgment,' against what once was `public': nor to thunder down the harsh epithet of `arrogance' on those, who, with whatever success, are occupied in bringing rude establishments to the test of polished reason. They will rather do what they can to cherish a disposition at once so useful and so rare:<sup>(6)</sup> which is so little connected with the causes that make popular discontentments dangerous, and which finds so little aliment in those propensities that govern the multitude of men. They will not be for giving such a turn to their discourses as to bespeak the whole of a man's favour for the defenders of what is established: nor all his resentment for the assailants. They will acknowledge that if there be some institutions which it is `arrogance' to attack, there may be others which it is effrontery to defend. TOURREIL⁽⁷⁾ has defended torture: torture established by the `public judgment' of so many enlightened nations. BECCARIA (`indecent' and 'arrogant' Beccaria!) has condemned it. Of these two whose lot among men would one choose rather,the Apologist's or the Censor's?

Of a piece with the discernment which enables a man to perceive, and with the courage which enables him to avow, the defects of a system of institutions, is that accuracy of conception which enables him to give a clear account of it. No wonder then, in a treatise partly of the expository class, and partly of the censorial, that if the latter department is filled with imbecillity, symptoms of kindred weakness should characterize the former.

The former department, however, of our Author's work, is what, on its own account merely, I should scarce have found myself disposed to intermeddle with. The business of simple exposition is a harvest in which there seemed no likelihood of there being any want of labourers: and into which therefore I had little ambition to thrust my sickle.

At any rate, had I sat down to make a report of it in this character alone, it would have been with feelings very different from those of which I now am conscious, and in a tone very different from that which I perceive myself to have assumed. In determining what conduct to observe respecting it, I should have considered whether the taint of error seemed to confine itself to parts, or to diffuse itself through the whole. In the latter case, the least invidious, and considering the bulk of the work, the most beneficial course would have been to have taken no notice of it at all, but to have sat down and tried to give a better. If not the whole in general, but scattered positions only had appeared exceptionable, I should have sat down to rectify those positions with the same apathy with which they were advanced. To fall in an adverse way upon a work simply expository, if that were all there were of it, would have been alike ungenerous and unnecessary. In the involuntary errors of the understanding there can be little to excite, or at least to justify, resentment. That which alone, in a manner, calls for rigid censure, is the sinister bias of the affections. If then I may still continue to mention as separate, parts which in the work itself are so intimately, and, indeed, undistinguishably blended, it is the censorial part alone that has drawn from me that sort of animadversion I have been led to bestow indiscriminately on the whole. To lay open, and if possible supply, the imperfections of the other, is an operation that might indeed of itself do service; but that which I thought would do still more service, was the weakening the authority of this.

Under the sanction of a great name every string of words however unmeaning, every opinion however erroneous, will have a certain currency. Reputation adds weight to sentiments from whence no part of it arose, and which had they stood alone might have drawn nothing, perhaps, but contempt. Popular fame enters not into nice distinctions. Merit in one department of letters affords a natural, and in a manner irrecusable presumption of merit in another, especially if the two departments be such between which there is apparently a close affiance.

Wonderful, in particular, is that influence which is gained over young minds, by the man who on account of whatever class of merit is esteemed in the character of a preceptor. Those who have derived, or fancy themselves to have derived knowledge from what he knows, or appears to know, will naturally be for judging as he judges: for reasoning as he reasons; for approving as he approves; for condemning as he condemns. On these accounts it is, that when the general complexion of a work is unsound, it may be of use to point an attack against the whole of it without distinction, although such parts of it as are noxious as well as unsound be only scattered here and there.

On these considerations then it may be of use to shew, that the work before us, in spite of the merits which recommend it so powerfully to the imagination and to the ear, has no better title on one account than on another, to that influence which, were it to pass unnoticed, it might continue to exercise over the judgment.

The Introduction is the part to which, for reasons that have been already stated, it was always my intention to confine myself. It is but a part even of this Introduction that is the subject of the present Essay. What determined me to begin with this small part of it is, the facility I found in separating it from every thing that precedes or follows it. This is what will be more particularly spoken to in another place.

It is not that this part is among those which seemed most open to animadversion. It is not that stronger traces are exhibited in this part than in another of that spirit in our Author which seems so hostile to Reformation, and to that Liberty which is Reformation's harbinger.

It is not here that he tramples on the right of private judgment, that basis of every thing that an Englishman holds dear. It is not here, in particular, that he insults our understandings with nugatory reasons; stands forth the professed champion of religious intolerance; or openly sets his face against civil reformation.

It is not here, for example, he would persuade us, that a trader who occupies a booth at a fair is a fool for his pains; and on that account no fit object of the Law's protection.⁽⁸⁾

It is not here that he gives the presence of one man at the making of a Law, as a reason why ten thousand others that are to obey it, need know nothing of the matter.⁽⁹⁾

It is not here, that after telling us, in express terms, there must be an `actual breaking' to make burglary, he tells us, in the same breath, and in terms equally express, where burglary may be without actual breaking; and this because `the Law will not suffer itself to be trifled with.'⁽¹⁰⁾

It is not here, that after relating the Laws by which peaceable Christians are made punishable for worshipping God according to their consciences, he pronounces with equal peremptoriness and complacency, that every thing, yes, `every thing is as it should be.'⁽¹¹⁾

It is not here, that he commands us to believe, and that on pain of forfeiting all pretensions to either `sense or probity,' that the system of our jurisprudence is, in the whole and every part of it, the very quintessence of perfection.⁽¹²⁾

It is not here that he assures us in point of fact, that there never has been an alteration made in the Law that men have not afterwards found reason to regret.⁽¹³⁾

It is not here that he turns the Law into a Castle, for the purpose of opposing every idea of `fundamental' reparation.⁽¹⁴⁾

It is not here that he turns with scorn upon those beneficent Legislators, whose care it has been to pluck the mask of Mystery from the face of Jurisprudence.⁽¹⁵⁾

If here,⁽¹⁶⁾ as every where, he is eager to hold the cup of flattery to high station, he has stopt short, however, in this place, of idolatry.⁽¹⁷⁾

It is not then, I say, this part, it is not even any part of that Introduction, to which alone I have any thoughts of extending my examination, that is the principal seat of that poison, against which it was the purpose of this attempt to give an antidote. The subject handled in this part of the work is such, as admits not of much to be said in the person of the Censor. Employed, as we have seen, in settling matters of a preliminary naturein drawing outlines, it is not in this part that there was occasion to enter into the details of any particular institution. If I chose the Introduction then in preference to any other part, it was on account of its affording the fairest specimen of the whole, and not on account of its affording the greatest scope for censure.

Let us reverse the tablet. While with this freedom I expose our Author's ill deserts, let me not be backward in acknowledging and paying homage to his various merits: a justice due, not to him alone, but to that Public, which now for so many years has been dealing out to him (it cannot be supposed altogether without title) so large a measure of its applause.

Correct, elegant, unembarrassed, ornamented, the style is such, as could scarce fail to recommend a work still more vicious in point of matter to the multitude of readers.

He it is, in short, who first of all institutional writers, has taught Jurisprudence to speak the language of the Scholar and the Gentle man: put a polish upon that rugged science: cleansed her from the dust and cobwebs of the office: and if he has not enriched her with that precision that is drawn only from the sterling treasury of the sciences, has decked her out, however, to advantage, from the toilette of classic erudition: enlivened her with metaphors and allusions: and sent her abroad in some measure to instruct, and in still greater measure to entertain, the most miscellaneous and even the most fastidious societies.

The merit to which, as much perhaps as to any, the work stands indebted for its reputation, is the enchanting harmony of its numbers: a kind of merit that of itself is sufficient to give a certain degree of celebrity to a work devoid of every other. So much is man governed by the ear.

The function of the Expositor may be conceived to divide itself into two branches: that of history, and that of simple demonstration. The business of history is to represent the Law in the state it has been in, in past periods of its existence: the business of simple demonstration in the sense in which I will take leave to use the word, is to represent the Law in the state it is in for the time being.⁽¹⁸⁾

Again, to the head of demonstration belong the several businesses of arrangement, narration and conjecture. Matter of narration it may be called, where the Law is supposed to be explicit, clear, and settled: matter of conjecture or interpretation, where it is obscure, silent, or unsteady. It is matter of arrangement to distribute the several real or supposed institutions into different masses, for the purpose of a general survey; to determine the order in which those masses shall be brought to view; and to find for each of them a name.

The business of narration and interpretation are conversant chiefly about particular institutions. Into the details of particular institutions it has not been my purpose to descend. On these topics, then, I may say, in the language of procedure, non sum informatus. Viewing the work in this light, I have nothing to add to or to except against the public voice.

History is a branch of instruction which our Author, though not rigidly necessary to his design, called in, not without judgment, to cast light and ornament on the dull work of simple demonstration: this part he has executed with an elegance which strikes every one: with what fidelity, having not very particularly examined, I will not take upon me to pronounce.

Among the most difficult and the most important of the functions of the demonstrator is the business of arrangement. In this our Author has been thought, and not, I conceive, without justice, to excel; at least in comparison of any thing in that way that has hitherto appeared. `Tis to him we owe such an arrangement of the elements of Jurisprudence, as wants little, perhaps, of being the best that a technical nomenclature will admit of. A technical nomenclature, so long as it is admitted to mark out and denominate the principal heads, stands an invincible obstacle to every other than a technical arrange ment. For to denominate in general terms, what is it but to arrange? and to arrange under heads, what is it but to denominate upon a large scale? A technical arrangement, governed then in this manner, by a technical nomenclature, can never be otherwise than confused and unsatisfactory. The reason will be sufficiently apparent, when we understand what sort of an arrangement that must be which can be properly termed a natural one.

That arrangement of the materials of any science may, I take it, be termed a natural one, which takes such properties to characterize them by, as men in general are, by the common constitution of man's nature, disposed to attend to: such, in other words, as naturally, that is readily, engage, and firmly fix the attention of any one to whom they are pointed out. The materials, or elements here in question, are such actions as are the objects of what we call Laws or Institutions.

Now then, with respect to actions in general, there is no property in them that is calculated so readily to engage, and so firmly to fix the attention of an observer, as the tendency they may have to, or divergency (if one may so say) from, that which maybe styled the common end of all of them. The end I mean is Happiness:⁽¹⁹⁾ and this tendency in any act is what we style its utility: as this divergency is that to which we give the name of mischievousness. With respect then to such actions in particular as are among the objects of the Law, to point out to a man the utility of them or the mischievousness, is the only way to make him see clearly that property of them which every man is in search of; the only way, in short, to give him satisfaction.

From utility then we may denominate a principle, that may serve to preside over and govern, as it were, such arrangement as shall be made of the several institutions or combinations of institutions that compose the matter of this science: and it is this principle, that by putting its stamp upon the several names given to those combinations, can alone render satisfactory and dear any arrangement that can be made of them.

Governed in this manner by a principle that is recognized by all men, the same arrangement that would serve for the jurisprudence of any one country, would serve with little variation for that of any other.

Yet more. The mischievousness of a bad Law would be detected, at least the utility of it would be rendered suspicious, by the difficulty of finding a place for it in such an arrangement: while, on the other hand, a technical arrangement is a sink that with equal facility will swallow any garbage that is thrown into it.

That this advantage may be possessed by a natural arrangement, is not difficult to conceive. Institutions would be characterized by it in the only universal way in which they can be characterized; by the nature of the several modes of conduct which, by prohibiting, they constitute offences.⁽²⁰⁾

These offences would be collected into classes denominated by the various modes of their divergency from the common end; that is, as we have said, by their various forms and degrees of mischievousness: in a word, by those properties which are reasons for their being made offences: and whether any such mode of conduct possesses any such property is a question of experience. Now, a bad Law is that which prohibits a mode of conduct that is not mischievous. Thus would it be found impracticable to place the mode of conduct prohibited by a bad law under any denomination of offence, without asserting such a matter of fact as is contradicted by experience. Thus cultivated, in short, the soil of Jurisprudence would be found to repel in a manner every evil institution; like that country which refuses, we are told, to harbour any thing venomous in its bosom.

The synopsis of such an arrangement would at once be a compendium of expository and of censorial Jurisprudence: nor would it serve more effectually to instruct the subject, than it would to justify or reprove the Legislator.

Such a synopsis, in short, would be at once a map, and that an universal one, of Jurisprudence as it is, and a slight but comprehensive sketch of what it ought to be. For, the reasons of the several institutions comprised under it would stand expressed, we see, and that uniformly (as in our Author's synopsis they do in scattered instances) by the names given to the several classes under which those institutions are comprised. And what reasons? Not technical reasons, such as none but a Lawyer gives, nor any but a Lawyer would put up with;⁽²¹⁾ but reasons, such as were they in themselves what they might and ought to be, and expressed too in the manner they might and ought to be, any man might see the force of as well as he.

Nor in this is there any thing that need surprize us. The consequences of any Law, or of any act which is made the object of a Law, the only consequences that men are at all interested in, what are they but pain and pleasure? By some such words then as pain and pleasure, they may be expressed: and pain and pleasure at least, are words which a man has no need, we may hope, to go to a Lawyer to know the meaning of.⁽²²⁾ In the synopsis then of that sort of arrangement which alone deserves the name of a natural one, terms such as these, terms which if they can be said to belong to any science, belong rather to Ethics than to Jurisprudence, even than to universal Jurisprudence, will engross the most commanding stations.

What then is to be done with those names of classes that are purely technical?With offences, for example, against prerogative, with misprisions, contempts, felonies, praemunires?⁽²³⁾ What relation is it that these mark out between the Laws that concern the sorts of acts they are respectively put to signify, and that common end we have been speaking of? Not any. In a natural arrangement what then would become of them? They would either be banished at once to the region of quiddities and substantial forms; or if, and in deference to attach ments too inveterate to be all at once dissolved, they were still to be indulged a place, they would be stationed in the corners and bye places of the Synopsis: stationed, not as now togive light, but to receive it. But more of this, perhaps, at some future time.

To return to our Author. Embarrassed, as a man must needs be, by this blind and intractable nomenclature, he will be found, I conceive, to have done as much as could reasonably be expected of a writer so circumstanced; and more and better than was ever done before by any one.

In one part, particularly, of his Synopsis,⁽²⁴⁾ several fragments of a sort of method which is, or at least comes near to, what may be termed a natural one,⁽²⁵⁾ are actually to be found. We there read of `corporal injuries'; of `offences against peace'; against `health'; against `personal security';⁽²⁶⁾ `liberty':`property':light is let in, though irregularly, at various places.

In an unequal imitation of this Synopsis that has lately been performed upon what is called the Civil Law,4 all is technical. All, in short, is darkness. Scarce a syllable by which a man would be led to suspect, that the affair in hand were an affair that happiness or unhappiness was at all concerned in.⁽²⁷⁾

To return, once more, to our Author's Commentaries. Not even in a censorial view would I be understood to deem them altogether without merit. For the institutions commented on, where they are capable of good reasons, good reasons are every now and then given: in which way, so far as it goes, one-half of the Censor's task is well accomplished. Nor is the dark side of the picture left absolutely untouched. Under the head of `Trial by jury', are some very just and interesting remarks on the yet-remaining imperfections of that mode of trial:<sup>(28)</sup> and under that of `Assurances by matter of Record', on the lying and extortious jargon of Recoveries.⁽²⁹⁾ So little, however, are these particular remarks of a piece with the general disposition, that shews itself so strongly throughout the work, indeed so plainly adverse to the general maxims that we have seen, that I can scarce bring myself to attribute them to our Author. Not only disorder is announced by them, but remedies, well-imagined remedies, are pointed out. One would think some Angel had been sowing wheat among our Author's tares.⁽³⁰⁾

With regard to this Essay itself, I have not much to say. The insufficiencies of our Author. The business of it is therefore rather to overthrow than to set up; which latter task can seldom be performed to any great advantage where the former is the principal one.

To guard against the danger of misrepresentation, and to make sure of doing our Author no injustice, his own words are given all along: and, as scarce any sentence is left unnoticed, the whole comment wears the form of what is called a perpetual one. With regard to a discourse that is simply institutional, and in which the writer builds upon a plan of his own, a great part of the satisfaction it can be made to afford depends upon the order and connection that are established between the several parts of it. In a comment upon the work of another, no such connection, or at least no such order, can be established commodiously, if at all. The order of the comment is prescribed by the order, perhaps the disorder, of the text.

The chief employment of this Essay, as we have said, has necessarily been to overthrow. In the little, therefore, which has been done by it in the way of setting up, my view has been not so much to think for the Reader, as to put him upon thinking for himself. This I flatter myself with having done on several interesting topics; and this is all that at present I propose.

Among the few positions of my own which I have found occasion to advance, some I observe which promise to be far from popular. These it is likely may give rise to very warm objections: objections which in themselves I do not wonder at, and which in their motive I cannot but approve. The people are a set of masters whom it is not in a man's power in every instance fully to please, and at the same time faithfully to serve. He that is resolved to persevere without deviation in the line of truth and utility, must have learnt to prefer the still whisper of enduring approbation, to the short-lived bustle of tumultuous applause.

Other passages too there may be, of which some farther explanation may perhaps not unreasonably be demanded. But to give these explanations, and to obviate those objections, is a task which, if executed at all, must be referred to some other opportunity. Consistency forbad our expatiating so far as to lose sight of our Author: since it was the line of his course that marked the boundaries of ours.

Introduction

1. The subject of this examination, is a passage contained in that part of SIR W. BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES on the LAWS of ENGLAND, which the Author has styled the INTRODUCTION. This Introduction of his stands divided into four Sections. The first contains his discourse `On the STUDY of the LAW'. The second, entitled `Of the NATURE of LAWS in general', contains his speculations concerning the various objects, real or imaginary, that are in use to be mentioned under the common name of LAW. The third, entitled `Of the LAWS OF ENG LAND', contains such general observations, relative to these last mentioned Laws, as seemed proper to be premised before he entered into the details of any parts of them in particular. In the fourth, entitled, `Of the COUNTRIES subject to the LAWS of ENGLAND', is given a statement of the different territorial extents of different branches of those Laws.

2. `Tis in the second of these sections, that we shall find the passage proposed for examination. It occupies in the edition I happen to have before me,' which is the first (and all the editions, I believe, are paged alike) the space of seven pages; from the 47th, to the 53d, inclusive.

3. After treating of `LAW in general', of the `LAW of Nature', LAW of Revelation', and `LAW of Nations', branches of that imaginary whole, our Author comes at length to what he calls `LAW municipal': that sort of Law, to which men in their ordinary discourse would give the name of Law without addition; the only sort perhaps of them all (unless it be that of Revelation) to which the name can, with strict propriety, be applied: in a word, that sort which we see made in each nation, to express the will of that body in it which governs. On this subject of LAW Municipal he sets out, as a man ought, with a definition of the phrase itself; an important and fundamental phrase, which stood highly in need of a definition, and never so much as since our Author has defined it.

4. This definition is ushered in with no small display of accuracy. First, it is given entire: it is then taken to pieces, clause by clause; and every clause by itself, justified and explained. In the very midst of these explanations, in the very midst of the definition, he makes a sudden stand. And now it bethinks him that it is a good time to give a dissertation, or rather a bundle of dissertations, upon various subjectsOn the manner in which Governments were establishedOn the different forms they assume when they are establishedOn the peculiar excellence of that form which is establlshed in this country On the right, which he thinks it necessary to tell us, the GOVERNMENT m every country has of making LAWSOn the duty of making LAWS; which, he says, is also incumbent on the Government.In stating these two last heads, I give, as near as possible, his own words; thinking it premature to engage in discussions, and not daring to decide without discussion on the sense.

5. The digression we are about to examine, is, as it happens, not at all involved with the body of the work from which it starts. No mutual references or allusions: no supports or illustrations communicated or received. It may be considered as one small work inserted into a large one; the containing and the contained, having scarce any other connection than what the operations of the press have given them. It is this disconnection that will enable us the better to bestow on the latter a separate examination, without breaking in upon any thread of reasoning, or any principle of Order.

6. A general statement of the topics touched upon in the digression we are about to examine has been given above. It will be found, I trust, a faithful one. It will not be thought, however, much of a piece, perhaps, with the following, which our Author himself has given us. `This', (says he,<sup>(31)</sup> meaning an explanation he had been giving of a part of the definition above spoken of) `will naturally lead us into a short enquiry into the nature of society and civil government;⁽³²⁾ and the natural inherent right that belongs to the sovereignty of a state, wherever that sovereignty be lodged, of making and enforcing Laws.'

7. No very explicit mention here, we may observe, of the manner in which governments have been established, or of the different forms they assume when established: no very explicit intimation that these were among the topics to be discussed. None at all of the duty of government to make laws; none at all of the British constitution; though, of the four other topics we have mentioned, there is no one on which he has been near so copious as on this last. The right of Government to make laws, that delicate and invidious topic, as we shall find it when explained, is that which for the moment, seems to have swallowed up almost the whole of his attention.

8. Be this as it may, the contents of the dissertation before us, taken as I have stated them, will furnish us with the matter of five chapters:one, which I shall entitle `FORMATION of GOVERNMENT'a second, `FORMS of GOVERNMENT'a third, `BRITISH Constitution'a fourth, `RIGHT of the SUPREME POWER to make LAWS'a fifth, `Duty of the Supreme POWER to make LAWS'.

CHAPTER I

Formation of Government

1. The first object which our Author seems to have proposed to himself in the dissertation we are about to examine, is to give us an idea of the manner in which Governments were formed. This occupies the first paragraph, together with part of the second: for the typographical division does not seem to quadrate very exactly with the intellectual. As the examination of this passage will unavoidably turn in great measure upon the words, it will be proper the reader should have it under his eye.

2. `The only true and natural foundations of society,' (says our Author)<sup>(33)</sup> `are the wants and the fears of individuals. Not that we can believe, with some theoretical writers, that there ever was a time when there was no such thing as society; and that, from the impulse of reason, and through a sense of their wants and weaknesses, individu als met together in a large plain, entered into an original contract, and chose the tallest man present to be their governor. This notion of an actually existing unconnected state of nature, is too wild to be seriously admitted; and besides, it is plainly contradictory to the revealed accounts of the primitive origin of mankind, and their preservation two thousand years afterwards; both which were effected by the means of single families. These formed the first society, among themselves; which every day extended its limits, and when it grew too large to subsist with convenience in that pastoral state, wherein the Patriarchs appear to have lived, it necessarily subdivided itself by various migrations into more. Afterwards, as agriculture increased, which employs and can maintain a much greater number of hands, migrations became less frequent; and various tribes which had formerly separated, re-united again; sometimes by compulsion and conquest, sometimes by accident, and sometimes perhaps by com pact. But though society had not its formal beginning from any convention of individuals, actuated by their wants and their fears; yet it is the sense of their weakness and imperfection that keeps mankind together; that demonstrates the necessity of this union; and that therefore is the solid and natural foundation, as well as the cement of society: And this is what we mean by the original contract of society; which, though perhaps in no instance it has ever been formally expressed at the first institution of a state, yet in nature and reason must always be understood and implied, in the very act of associating together: namely, that the whole should protect all its parts, and that every part should pay obedience to the will of the whole; or, in other words, that the community should guard the rights of each individual member, and that (in return for this protection) each individual should submit to the laws of the community; without which submis sion of all it was impossible that protection could be certainly extended to any.

`For when society is once formed, government results of course, as necessary to preserve and to keep that society in order. Unless some superior were constituted, whose commands and decisions all the members are bound to obey, they would still remain as in a state of nature, without any judge upon earth to define their several rights, and redress their several wrongs.'Thus far our Author.

3. When leading terms are made to chop and change their several significations; sometimes meaning one thing, sometimes another, at the upshot perhaps nothing; and this in the compass of a paragraph; one may judge what will be the complexion of the whole context. This, we shall see, is the case with the chief of those we have been reading: for instance, with the words `Society','State of nature', original contract',not to tire the reader with any more. `Society', in one place means the same thing as `a state of nature' does: in another place it means the same as `Government'. Here, we are required to believe there never was such a state as a state of nature: there we are given to understand there has been. In like manner with respect to an original contract we are given to understand that such a thing never existed; that the notion of it is ridiculous: at the same time that there is no speaking nor stirring without supposing there was one.

4. 1st, Society means a state of nature. For if by `a state of nature' a man means any thing, it is the state, I take it, men are in or supposed to be in, before they are under government: the state men quit when they enter into a state of government; and in which were it not for government they would remain. But by the word `society' it is plain at one time that he means that state. First, according to him, comes society; then afterwards comes government. `For when society', says our Author, `is once formed, government results of course; as necessary to preserve and keep that society in order.'⁽³⁴⁾And again, immediately afterwards,'A state in which a superior has been constituted, whose commands and decisions all the members are bound to obey', he puts as an explanation (nor is it an inapt one) of a state of `government': and `unless' men were in a state of that description, they would still remain', he says, `as in a state of nature'. By society, therefore, he means, once more, the same as by a `state of nature': he opposes it to government. And he speaks of it as a state which, in this sense, has actually existed.

5. 2dly, This is what he tells us in the beginning of the second of the two paragraphs: but all the time the first paragraph lasted, society meant the same as government. In shifting then from one paragraph to another, it has changed its nature. `Tis `the foundations of society',⁽³⁵⁾ that he first began to speak of, and immediately he goes on to explain to us, after his manner of explaining, the foundations of government. `Tis of a `formal beginning' of 'Society',⁽³⁶⁾ that he speaks soon after; and by this formal beginning, he tells us immediately, that he means, `the original contract of society',<sup>(37)</sup> which contract entered into, `a state',⁽³⁸⁾ he gives us to understand, is thereby `instituted', and men have undertaken to `submit to Laws'.⁽³⁹⁾ So long then as this first paragraph lasts, `society', I think, it is plain cannot but have been meaning the same as `government'.

6. 3dly, All this while too, this same `state of nature' to which we have seen `Society' (a state spoken of as existing) put synonymous, and in which were it not for government, men, he informs us, in the next page, would `remain',<sup>(40)</sup> is a state in which they never were. So he expressly tells us. This `notion', says he, `of an actually existing unconnected state of nature'; (that is, as he explains himself afterwards,<sup>(41)</sup> `a state in which men have no judge to define their rights, and redress their wrongs), is too wild to be seriously admitted'.⁽⁴²⁾ When he admits it then himself, as he does in his next page, we are to understand, it seems, that he is bantering us: and that the next paragraph is (what one should not otherwise have taken if for) a piece of pleasantry.

7. 4thly, The original contract is a thing, we are to understand, that never had existence; perhaps not in any state: certainly therefore not in all. `Perhaps, in no instance', says our Author, `has it ever been formally expressed at the first institution of a state.'⁽⁴³⁾

8. 5thly, Notwithstanding all this, we must suppose, it seems, that it had in every state: `yet in nature and reason', (says our Author) `it must always be understood and implied'.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Growing bolder in the compass of four or five pages, where he is speaking of our own Government, he asserts roundly,⁽⁴⁵⁾ that such a Contract was actually made at the first formation of it. `The legislature would be changed', he says, `from that which was originally set up by the general consent and fundamental act of the society.'

9. Let us try whether it be not possible for something to be done towards drawing the import of these terms out of the mist in which our Author has involved them. The word `Society', I think it appears, is used by him, and that without notice, in two senses that are opposite. In the one, SOCIETY, or a STATE of SOCIETY, is put synonymous to a STATE of NATURE; and stands opposed to GOVERNMENT, or a STATE OF GOVERNMENT: in this sense, it maybe styled, as it commonly is, natural SOCIETY. In the other, it is put synonymous to GOVERNMENT, or a STATE OF GOVERNMENT; and stands opposed to a STATE OF NATURE. In this sense it may be styled, as it commonly is, political SOCIETY. Of the difference between these two states, a tolerably distinct idea,. I take it, may be given in a word or two.

10. The idea of a natural society is a negative one. The idea of a political society is a positive one. `Tis with the latter, therefore, we should begin.

When a number of persons (whom we may style subjects) are supposed to be in the habit of paying obedience to a person, or an assemblage of persons, of a known and certain description (whom we may call governor or governors) such persons altogether (subjects and governors) are said to be in a state of political SOCIETY.

11. The idea of a state of natural SOCIETY is, as we have said, a negative one. When a number of persons are supposed to be in the habit of conversing with each other, at the same time that they are not in any such habit as mentioned above, they are said to be in a state of natural SOCIETY.

12. If we reflect a little, we shall perceive, that, between these two states, there is not that explicit separation which these names, and these definitions might teach one, at first sight, to expect. It is with them as with light and darkness: however distinct the ideas may be, that are, at first mention, suggested by those names, the things themselves have no determinate bound to separate them. The circumstance that has been spoken of as constituting the difference between these two states, is the presence or absence of an habit of obedience. This habit, accordingly, has been spoken of simply as present (that is as being petfectly present) or, in other words, we have spoken as if there were a perfect habit of obedience, in the one case: it has been spoken of simply as absent (that is, as being perfectly absent) or, in other words, we have spoken as if there were no habit of obedience at all, in the other. But neither of these manners of speaking, perhaps, is strictly just. Few, in fact, if any, are the instances of this habit being perfectly absent; certainly none at all, of its being perfectly present. Governments accordingly, in proportion as the habit of obedience is more perfect, recede from, in proportion as it is less perfect, approach to, a state of nature: and instances may present themselves in which it shall be difficult to say whether a habit, perfect, in the degree in which, to constitute a government, it is deemed necessary it should be perfect, does subsist or not.⁽⁴⁶⁾

13. On these considerations, the supposition of a perfect state of nature, or, as it may be termed, a state of society perfectly natural, may, perhaps, be justly pronounced, what our Author for the moment seemed to think it, an extravagant supposition: but then that of a government in this sense perfect; or, as it may be termed, a state of society perfectly political, a state of perfect political union, a state of perfect submission in the subject, of perfect authority in the governor, is no less so.⁽⁴⁷⁾

14. A remark there is, which, for the more thoroughly clearing up of our notions on this subject, it may be proper here to make. To some ears, the phrases, `state of nature,' `state of political society,' may carry the appearance of being absolute in their signification: as if the condition of a man, or a company of men, in one of these states, or m the other, were a matter that depended altogether upon themselves. But this is not the case. To the expression `state of nature,' no more than to the expression `state of political society,' can any precise meaning be annexed, without reference to a party different from that one who is spoken of as being in the state in question. This will readily be perceived. The difference between the two states lies, as we have observed, in the habit of obedience. With respect then to a habit of obedience, it can neither be understood as subsisting in any person, nor as not subsisting in any person, but with reference to some other person. For one party to obey, there must be another party that is obeyed. But this party who is obeyed, may at different times be different. Hence may one and the same party be conceived to obey and not to obey at the same time, so as it be with respect to different persons, or as we may say, to different objects of obedience. Hence it is, then, that one and the same party may be said to be in a state of nature, and not to be in a state of nature, and that at one and the same time, according as it is this or that party that is taken for the other object of comparison. The case is, that in common speech, when no particular object of comparison is specified, all persons in general are intended: so that when a number of persons are said simply to be in a state of nature, what is understood is, that they are so as well with reference to one another, as to all the world.

15. In the same manner we may understand, how the same man, who is governor with respect to one man or set of men, may be subject with respect to another: how among governors some may be in a perfect state of nature, with respect to each other: as the KINGS of FRANCE and SPAIN: others, again, in a state ofperfect subjection, as the HOSPODARS OF WALACHIA and MOLDAVIA with respect to the GRAND SIGNIOR: others, again, in a state of manifest but imperfect subjection, as the GERMAN States with respect to the EMPEROR: others, again, in such a state in which it may be difficult to determine whether they are in a state of imperfect subjection or in aperfect state of nature: as the KING of NAPLES with respect to the POPE.⁽⁴⁸⁾

16. In the same manner, also, it may be conceived, without entering into details, how any single person, born, as all persons are, into a state of perfect subjection to his parents, that is into a state of perfect political society with respect to his parents, may from thence pass into a perfect state of nature; and from thence successively into any number of different states of political society more or less perfect, by passing into different societies.

17. In the same manner also it may be conceived how, in any political society, the same man may, with respect to the same individuals, be, at different periods, and on different occasions, alternately, in the state of governor and subject: to-day concurring, perhaps active, in the business of issuing a general command for the observance of the whole society, amongst the rest of another man in quality of Judge: to-morrow, punished, perhaps, by a particular command of that same Judge for not obeying the general command which he himself (I mean the person acting in character of governor) had issued. I need scarce remind the reader how happily this alternate state of authority and submission is exemplified among ourselves.

18. Here might be a place to state the different shares which different persons may have in the issuing of the same command: to explain the nature of corporate action: to enumerate and distinguish half a dozen or more different modes in which subordination between the same parties may subsist: to distinguish and explain the different senses of the words, `consent', `representation', and others of connected import: consent and representation, those interesting but perplexing words, sources of so much debate: and sources or pretexts of so much animosity. But the limits of the present design will by no means admit of such protracted and intricate discussions.

19. In the same manner, also, it may be conceived, how the same set of men considered among themselves, may at one time be in a state of nature, at another time in a state of government. For the habit of obedience, in whatever degree of perfection it be necessary it should subsist in order to constitute a government, may be conceived, it is plain, to suffer interruptions. At different junctures it may take place and cease.

20. Instances of this state of things appear not to be unfrequent. The sort of society that has been observed to subsist among the AMERICAN INDIANS may afford us one. According to the accounts we have of those people, in most of their tribes, if not in all, the habit we are speaking of appears to be taken up only in time of war. It ceases again in time of peace. The necessity of acting in concert against a common enemy, subjects a whole tribe to the orders of a common Chief. On the return of peace each warrior resumes his pristine independence.

21. One difficulty there is that still sticks by us. It has been started indeed, but not solved.This is to find a note of distinction,a characteristic mark, whereby to distinguish a society in which there is a habit of obedience, and that at the degree of perfection which is necessary to constitute a state of government, from a society in which there is not: a mark, I mean, which shall have a visible determinate commencement; insomuch that the instant of its first appearance shall be distinguishable from the last at which it had not as yet appeared. `Tis only by the help of such a mark that we can be in a condition to determine, at any given time, whether any given society is in a state of government, or in a state of nature. I can find no such mark, I must confess, any where, unless it be this; the establishment of names of office: the appearance of a certain man, or set of men, with a certain name, serving to mark them out as objects of obedience: such as King, Sachem, Cacique, Senator, Burgomaster, and the like.' This, I think, may serve tolerably well to distinguish a set of men in a state of political union among themselves from the same set of men not yet in such a state.

22. But suppose an incontestable political society, and that a large one, formed; and from that a smaller body to break off: by this breach the smaller body ceases to be in a state of political union with respect to the larger: and has thereby placed itself, with respect to that larger body, in a state of natureWhat means shall we find of ascertaining the precise juncture at which this change took place? What shall be taken for the characteristic mark in this case? The appointment, it may be said, of new governors with new names. But no such appointment, suppose, takes place. The subordinate governors, from whom alone the people at large were in use to receive their commands under the old government, are the same from whom they receive them under the new one. The habit of obedience which these subordinate governors were in with respect to that single person, we will say, who was the supreme governor of the whole, is broken off insensibly and by degrees. The old names by which these subordinate governors were characterized, while they were subordinate, are continued now they are supreme. In this case it seems rather difficult to answer.

23. If an example be required, we may take that of the DUTCH provinces with respect to SPAIN. These provinces were once branches of the Spanish monarchy. They have now, for a long time, been universally spoken of as independent states: independent as well of that of Spain as of every other. They are now in a state of nature with respect to Spain. They were once in a state of political union with respect to Spain: namely, in a state of subjection to a single governor, a King, who was King of Spain. At what precise juncture did the dissolution of this political union take place? At what precise time did these provinces cease to be subject to the King of Spain? This, I doubt, will be rather difficult to agree upon.⁽⁴⁹⁾

24. Suppose the defection to have begun, not by entire provinces, as in the instance just mentioned, but by a handful of fugitives, this augmented by the accession of other fugitives, and so, by degrees, to a body of men too strong to be reduced, the difficulty will be increased still farther. At what precise juncture was it that ancient ROME, or that modem VENICE, became an independent state?

25. In general then, at what precise juncture is it, that persons subject to a government, become, by disobedience, with respect to that government, in a state of nature? When is it, in short, that a revolt shall be deemed to have taken place; and when, again, is it, that that revolt shall be deemed to such a degree successful, as to have settled into independence?

26. As it is the obedience of individuals that constitutes a state of submission, so is it their disobedience that must constitute a state of revolt. Is it then every act of disobedience that will do as much? The affirmative, certainly, is what can never be maintained: for then would there be no such thing as government to be found any where. Here then a distinction or two obviously presents itself. Disobedience may be distinguished into conscious or unconscious: and that, with respect as well to the law as to the fact.⁽⁵⁰⁾ Disobedience that is unconscious with respect to either, will readily, I suppose, be acknowledged not to be a revolt. Disobedience again that is conscious with respect to both, may be distinguished into secret and open; or, in other words, into fraudulent and forcible.⁽⁵¹⁾ Disobedience that is only fraudulent, will likewise, I suppose, be readily acknowledged not to amount to a revolt.

27. The difficulty that will remain will concern such disobedience only as is both conscious, (and that as well with respect to law as fact,) and forcible. This disobedience, it should seem, is to be determined neither by numbers altogether (that is of the persons supposed to be disobedient) nor by acts, nor by intentions: all three may be fit to be taken into consideration. But having brought the difficulty to this point, at this point I must be content to leave it. To proceed any farther in the endeavour to solve it, would be to enter into a discussion of particular local jurisprudence. It would be entering upon the definition of Treason, as distinguished from Murder, Robbery, Riot, and other such crimes, as, in comparison with Treason, are spoken of as being of a more private nature. Suppose the definition of Treason settled, and the commission of an act of Treason is, as far as regards the person committing it, the characteristic mark we are in search of.

28. These remarks it were easy to extend to a much greater length. Indeed, it is what would be necessary, in order to give them a proper fulness, and method, and precision. But that could not be done without exceeding the limits of the present design. As they are, they may serve as hints to such as shall be disposed to give the subject a more exact and regular examination.

29. From what has been said, however, we may judge what truth there is in our Author's observation, that `when society' (understand natural society) `is once formed, government' (that is political society) (whatever quantity or degree of Obedience is necessary to constitute political society) `results ofcourse; as necessary to preserve and to keep that society in order.' By the words, `of course,' is meant, I suppose, constantly and immediately: at least constantly. According to this, political society, in any sense of it, ought long ago to have been established all the world over. Whether this be the case, let any one judge from the instances of the Hottentots, of the Patagonians, and of so many other barbarous tribes, of which we hear from travellers and navigators.

30. It may be, after all, we have misunderstood his meaning. We have been supposing him to have been meaning to assert a matter of fact, and to have written, or at least begun, this sentence in the character of an historical observer; whereas, all he meant by it, perhaps, was to speak in the character of a Censor, and on a case supposed, to express a sentiment of approbation. In short, what he meant, perhaps, to persuade us of, was not that `government' does actually `result' from natural `society'; but that it were better that it should, to wit, as being necessary to `preserve and keep' men `in that state of order', in which it is of advantage to them that they should be. Which of the above mentioned characters he meant to speak in, is a problem I must leave to be determined. The distinction, perhaps, is what never so much as occurred to him; and indeed the shifting insensibly, and without warning, from one of those characters to the other, is a failing that seems inveterate in our Author; and of which we shall probably have more instances than one to notice.

31. To consider the whole paragraph (with its appendage) together, something, it may be seen our Author struggles to over throw, and something to establish. But how it is he would overthrow, or what it is he would establish, are questions I must confess myself unable to resolve. `The preservation of mankind', he observes, `was effected by single families.' This is what upon the authority of the Holy Scriptures, he assumes; and from this it is that he would have us conclude the notion of an original contract (the same notion which he afterwards adopts) to be ridiculous. The force of this conclusion, I must own, I do not see. Mankind was preserved by single families Be it so. What is there in this to hinder `individuals' of those families, or of families descended from those families, from meeting together `afterwards, in a large plain', or any where else, `entering into an original contract', or any other contract, `and choosing the tallest man', or any other man, `present', or absent, to be their Governor? The `flat contradiction' our Author finds between this supposed transaction and the `preservation of mankind by single families', is what I must own myself unable to discover. As to the `actually existing unconnected state of nature' he speaks of, `the notion of which', he says, `is too wild to be seriously admitted', whether this be the case with it, is what, as he has given us no notion of it at all, I cannot judge of.

32. Something positive, however, in one place, we seem to have. These `single families,' by which the preservation of mankind was effected; these single families, he gives us to understand, `formed the first society.' This is something to proceed upon. A society then of the one kind or the other; a natural society, or else a political society, was formed. I would here then put a case, and then propose a question. In this society we will say no contract had as yet been entered into; no habit of obedience as yet formed. Was this then a natural society merely, or was itapolitical one? For my part, according to my notion of the two kinds of society as above explained, I can have no difficulty. It was a merely natural one. But, according to our Author's notion, which was it? If it was already a political one, what notion would he give us of such an one as shall have been a natural one; and by what change should such precedent natural one have turned into this political one? If this was not a political one, then what sort of a society are we to understand any one to be which is political? By what mark are we to distinguish it from a natural one? To this, it is plain, our Author has not given any answer. At the same time, that to give an answer to it, was, if any thing, the professed purpose of the long paragraph before us.

33. It is time this passage of our Author were dismissedAs among the expressions of it are some of the most striking of those which the vocabulary of the subject furnishes, and these ranged in the most harmonious order, on a distant glance nothing can look fairer: a prettier piece of tinsel-work one shall seldom see exhibited from the shew-glass of political erudition. Step close to it, and the delusion vanishes. It is then seen to consist partly of self-evident observations, and partly of contradictions; partly of what every one knows already and partly of what no one can understand at all.

34. Throughout the whole of it, what distresses me is, not the meeting with any positions, such as, thinking them false, I find a difficulty in proving so: but the not meeting with any positions, true, or false, (unless it be here and there a self-evident one,) that I can find a meaning for. If I can find nothing positive to accede to, no more can I to contradict. Of this latter kind of work, indeed, there is the less to do for any one else, our Author himself having executed it, as we have seen, so amply.

The whole of it is, I must confess, to me a riddle: more acute, by far, than I am, must be the Oedipus that can solve it. Happily it is not necessary, on account of any thing that follows, that it should be solved. Nothing is concluded from it. For aught I can find, it has in itself no use, and none is made of it. There it is, and as well might it be any where else, or no where.

35. Were it then possible, there would be no use in its being solved: but being, as I take it, really unsolvable, it were of use it should be seen to be so. Peace may by this means be restored to the breast of many a desponding student, who, now prepossessed with the hopes of a rich harvest of instruction, makes a crime to himself of his inability to reap what, in truth, his Author has not sown.

36. As to the Original Contract, by turns embraced and ridiculed by our Author, a few pages, perhaps, may not be ill bestowed in endeavouring to come to a precise notion about its reality and use. The stress laid on it formerly, and still, perhaps, by some, is such as renders it an object not undeserving of attention. I was in hopes, however, till I observed the notice taken of it by our author, that this chimera had been effectually demolished by Mr HUME.⁽⁵²⁾ I think we hear not so much of it now as formerly. The indestructible prerogatives of mankind have no need to be supported upon the sandy foundation of a fiction.

37. With respect to this, and other fictions, there was once a time, perhaps, when they had their use. With instruments of this temper, I will not deny but that some political work may have been done, and that useful work, which, under the then circumstances of things, could hardly have been done with any other. But the season of Fiction is now over: insomuch, that what formerly might have been tolerated and countenanced under that name, would, if now attempted to be set on foot, be censured and stigmatized under the harsher appellations of incroachment or imposture. To attempt to introduce any new one, would be now a crime: for which reason there is much danger, without any use, in vaunting and propagating such as have been introduced already. In point of political discernment, the universal spread of learning has raised mankind in a manner to a level with each other, in comparison of what they have been in any former time: nor is any man now so far elevated above his fellows, as that he should be indulged in the dangerous licence of cheating them for their good.

38. As to the fiction now before us, in the character of an argumentum ad hominem coming when it did, and managed as it was, it succeeded to admiration.

That compacts, by whomsoever entered into, ought to be kept; that men are bound by compacts, are propositions which men, without knowing or enquiring why, were disposed universally to accede to. The observance of promises they had been accustomed to see pretty constantly enforced. They had been accustomed to see Kings, as well as others, behave themselves as if bound by them. This proposition, then, `that men are bound by compacts;' and this other, `that, if one party performs not his part, the other is released from his,' being propositions which no man disputed, were propositions which no man had any call to prove. In theory they were assumed for axioms: and in practice they were observed as rules.⁽⁵³⁾ If, on any occasion, it was thought proper to make a shew of proving them, it was rather for form's sake than for any thing else: and that, rather in the way of memento or instruction to acquiescing auditors, than in the way of proof against opponents. On such an occasion the common place retinue of phrases was at hand; Justice, Right Reason required it, the Law of Nature commanded it, and so forth; all which are but so many ways of intimating that a man is firmly persuaded of the truth of this or that moral proposition, though he either thinks he need not, or finds he can't, tell why. Men were too obviously and too generally interested in the observance of these rules to entertain doubts concerning the force of any arguments they saw employed in their supportIt is an old observation how Interest smooths the road to Faith.

39. A compact, then, it was said, was made by the King and People: the terms of it were to this effect. The People, on their part, promised to the King a general obedience. The King, on his part, promised to govern the people in such a particular manner always, as should be subservient to their happiness. I insist not on the words: I undertake only for the sense; as far as an imaginary engagement, so loosely and so variously worded by those who have imagined it, is capable of any decided signification. Assuming then, as a general rule, that prom ises, when made, ought to be observed; and, as a point of fact, that a promise to this effect in particular had been made by the party in question, men were more ready to deem themselves qualified to judge when it was such a promise was broken, than to decide directly and avowedly on the delicate question, when it was that a King acted so far in opposition to the happiness of his people, that it were better no longer to obey him.

40. It is manifest, on a very little consideration, that nothing was gained by this manoouvre after all: no difficulty removed by it. It was still necessary, and that as much as ever, that the question men studied to avoid should be determined, in order to determine the question they thought to substitute in its room. It was still necessary to determine, whether the King in question had, or had not acted so far in opposition to the happiness of his people, that it were better no longer to obey him; in order to determine, whether the promise he was supposed to have made, had, or had not been broken. For what was the supposed purport of this promise? It was no other than what has just been mentioned.

41. Let it be said, that part at least of this promise was to govern m subservience to Law: that hereby a more precise rule was laid down for his conduct, by means of this supposal of a promise, than that other loose and general rule to govern in subservience to the happiness of his people: and that, by this means, it is the letter of the Law that forms the tenor of the rule.

Now true it is, that the governing in opposition to Law, is one way of governing in opposition to the happiness of the people: the natural effect of such a contempt of the Law being, if not actually to destroy, at least to threaten with destruction, all those rights and privileges that are founded on it: rights and privileges on the enjoyment of which that happiness depends. But still it is not this that can be safely taken for the entire purport of the promise here in question: and that for several reasons. First, Because the most mischievous, and under certain constitutions the most feasible, method of governing in opposition to the happiness of the people, is, by setting the Law itself in opposition to their happiness. Secondly, Because it is a case very conceivable, that a King may, to a great degree, impair the happiness of his people without violating the letter of any single Law. Thirdly, Because extraordinary occasions may now and then occur, in which the happiness of the people may be better promoted by acting, for the moment, in opposition to the Law, than in subservience to it. Fourthly, Because it is not any single violation of the Law, as such, that can properly be taken for a breach of his part of the contract, so as to be understood to have released the people from the obligation of performing theirs. For, to quit the fiction, and resume the language of plain truth, it is scarce ever any single violation of the Law that, by being submitted to, can produce so much mischief as shall surpass the probable mischief of resisting it. If every single instance whatever of such a violation were to be deemed an entire dissolution of the contract, a man who reflects at all would scarce find any-where, I believe, under the sun, that Government which he could allow to subsist for twenty years together. It is plain, therefore, that to pass any sound decision upon the question which the inventors of this fiction substituted instead of the true one, the latter was still necessary to be decided. All they gained by their contrivance was, the convenience of deciding it obliquely, as it were, and by a side windthat is, in a crude and hasty way, without any direct and steady examination.

42. But, after all, for what reason is it, that men ought to keep their promises? The moment any intelligible reason is given, it is this: that it is for the advantage of society they should keep them; and if they do not, that, as far as punishment will go, they should be made to keep them. It is for the advantage of the whole number that the promises of each individual should be kept: and, rather than they should not be kept, that such individuals as fail to keep them should be punished. If it be asked, how this appears? the answer is at hand:Such is the benefit to gain, and mischief to avoid, by keeping them, as much more than compensates the mischief of so much punishment as is requisite to oblige men to it. Whether the dependence of benefit and mischief (that is, of pleasure and pain) upon men's conduct in this behalf, be as here stated, is a question offact, to be decided, in the same manner that all other questions of fact are to be decided, by testimony, observation, and experience.⁽⁵⁴⁾

43. This then, and no other, being the reason why men should be made to keep their promises, viz, that it is for the advantage of society that they should, is a reason that may as well be given at once, why Kings, on the one hand, in governing, should in general keep within established Laws, and (to speak universally) abstain from all such measures as tend to the unhappiness of their subjects: and, on the other hand, why subjects should obey Kings as long as they so conduct themselves, and no longer; why they should obey in short so long as the probable mischiefs of obedience are less than the probable mischiefs of resistance: why, in a word, taking the whole body together, it is their duty to obey, just so long as it is their interest, and no longer. This being the case,what need of saying of the one, that he PROMISED so to govern; of the other, that they PROMISED so to obey, when the fact is otherwise?

44. True it is, that, in this country, according to ancient forms, some sort ofvague promise of good government is made by Kings at the ceremony of their coronation: and let the acclamations, perhaps given, perhaps not given, by chance persons out of the surrounding multitude, be construed into a promise of obedience on the part of the whole multitude: that whole multitude itself, a small drop collected together by chance out of the ocean of the state: and let the two promises thus made be deemed to have formed a perfect compact: not that either of them is declared to be the consideration of the other.

45. Make the most of this concession, one experiment there is, by which every reflecting man may satisfy himself, I think, beyond a doubt, that it is the consideration of utilily, and no other, that, secretly but unavoidably, has governed his judgment upon all these matters. The experiment is easy and decisive. It is but to reverse, in supposition, in the first place the import of the particular promise thus feigned; in the next place, the effect in point of utility of the observance of promises in general.Suppose the King to promise that he would govern his subjects not according to Law; not in the view to promote their happiness:would this be binding upon him? Suppose the people to promise they would obey him at all events, let him govern as he will; let him govern to their destruction. Would this be binding upon them? Suppose the constant and universal effect of an observance of promises were to produce mischief would it then be men's duty to observe them? Would it then be right to make Laws, and apply punishment to oblige men to observe them?

46. `No;' (it may perhaps be replied) `but for this reason; among promises, some there are that, as every one allows, are void: now these you have been supposing, are unquestionably of the number. A promise that is in itself void, cannot, it is true, create any obligation. But allow the promise to be valid, and it is the promise itself that creates the obligation, and nothing else.' The fallacy of this argument it is easy to perceive. For what is it then that the promise depends on for its validity? what is it that beingpresent makes it valid? what is it that being wanting makes it void? To acknowledge that any one promise may be void, is to acknowledge that if any other is binding, it is not merely because it is a promise. That circumstance then, whatever it be, on which the validity of a promise depends, that circumstance, I say, and not the promise itself must, it is plain, be the cause of the obligation which a promise is apt in general to carry with it.

47. But farther. Allow, for argument's sake, what we have dis proved: allow that the obligation of a promise is independent of every other: allow that a promise is binding propriâ viBinding then on whom? On him certainly who makes it. Admit this: For what reason is the same individual promise to be binding on those who never made it? The King, fifty years ago, promised my Great-Grandfather to govern him according to Law: my Great-Grandfather, fifty years ago, promised the King to obey him according to Law. The King, just now, promised my neighbour to govern him according to Law: my neigh bour, just now, promised the King to obey him according to LawBe it soWhat are these promises, all or any of them, to me? To make answer to this question, some other principle, it is manifest, must be resorted to, than that of the intrinsic obligation of promises upon those who make them.

48. Now this other principle that still recurs upon us, what other can it be than the principle of UTILITY?⁽⁵⁵⁾ The principle which furnishes us with that reason, which alone depends not upon any higher reason, but which is itself the sole and all-sufficient reason for every point of practice whatsoever.

CHAPTER II

Forms of Government

1. The contents of the whole digression we are examining, were distributed, we may remember, at the outset of this Essay, into five divisions. The first, relative to the manner in which Government in general was formed, has already been examined in the preceding chapter. The next, relative to the different species or forms it may assume, comes now to be considered.

2. The first object that strikes us in this division of our subject is the theological flourish it sets out with. In God may be said, though in a peculiar sense, to be our Author's strength. In theology he has found a not unfrequent source, of ornament to divert us, of authority to overawe us, from sounding into the shallowness of his doctrines.⁽⁵⁶⁾

3. That governors, of some sort or other, we must have, is what he has been shewing in the manner we have seen in the last chapter. Now for endowments to qualify them for the exercise of their function. These endowments then, as if it were to make them shew the brighter, and to keep them, as much as possible, from being soiled by the rough hands of impertinent speculators, he has chosen should be of aethereal texture, and has fetched them from the clouds.

`All mankind',<sup>(57)</sup> he says, `will agree that government should be reposed in such persons in whom those qualities are most likely to be found, the perfection of which are among the attributes of Him who is emphatically styled the Supreme Being: the three great requisites, I mean, of wisdom, of goodness, and of power.'

But let us see the whole passage as it stands

4. `But as all the members of Society', (meaning natural Society) `are naturally EQUAL,' (i.e., I suppose, with respect to political power, of which none of them as yet have any) `it may be asked,' (continues he) in whose hands are the reins of government to be intrusted? To this the general answer is easy; but the application of it to particular cases, has occasioned one half of those mischiefs which are apt to proceed from misguided political zeal. In general, all mankind will agree that government should be reposed in such persons in whom those qualities are most likely to be found, the perfection of which are among the attributes of Him who is emphatically styled the Supreme Being; the three grand requisites, I mean, of wisdom, goodness, and of power: wisdom, to discern the real interest of the community; goodness, to endeavour always to pursue that real interest; and strength or power, to carry this knowledge and intention into action. These are the natural foundations of sovereignty, and these are the requisites that ought to be found in every well-constituted frame of government.

5. Every thing in its place. Theology in a sermon, or a catechism. But in this place, the flourish we have seen, might, for every purpose of instruction, have much better, it should seem, been spared. What purpose the idea of that tremendous and incomprehensible Being thus unnecessarily introduced can answer, I cannot see, unless it were to bewilder and entrance the reader; as it seems to have bewildered and entranced the writer. Beginning thus, is beginning at the wrong end: it is explaining ignotum per ignotius. It is not from the attributes of the Deity, that an idea is to be had of any qualities in men: on the contrary, it is from what we see of the qualities of men, that we obtain the feeble idea we can frame to ourselves, of the attributes of the Deity.

6. We shall soon see whether it be light or darkness our Author has brought back from this excursion to the clouds. The qualifications he has pitched upon for those in whose hands Government is to be reposed we see are three: wisdom, goodness, and power. Now of these three, one there is which, I doubt, will give him some trouble to know what to do with. I mean that of Power which, looking upon it as a jewel, it should seem, that would give a lustre to the royal diadem, he was for importing from the celestial regions. In heaven, indeed, we shall not dispute its being to be found; and that at all junctures alike. But the parallel, I doubt, already fails. In the earthly governors in question, or, to speak more properly, candidates for government, by the very supposition there can not, at the juncture he supposes, be any such thing. Power is that very quality which, in consideration of these other qualities, which, it is supposed, are possessed by them already, they are now waiting to receive.

7. By Power in this place, I, for my part, mean political power: the only sort of power our Author could mean: the only sort of power that is here in question. A little farther on we shall find him speaking of this endowment as being possessed, and that in the highest degree, by a King, a single person. Natural power therefore, mere organical power, the faculty of giving the hardest blows, can never, it is plain, be that which he meant to number among the attributes of this godlike personage.

8. We see then the dilemma our Author's theology has brought him into, by putting him upon reckoning power among the qualifications of his candidates. Power is either natural or political. Political power is what they cannot have by the supposition: for that is the very thing that is to be created, and which by the establishment of Government, men are going to confer on them. If any, then, it must be natural power; the natural strength that a man possesses of himself without the help of Government. But of this, then, if this be it, there is more, if we may believe our Author, in a single member of a society, than in that member and all the rest of the society put together.⁽⁵⁸⁾

9. This difficulty, if possible, one should be glad to see cleared up. The truth is, I take it, that in what our Author has said of power, he has been speaking, as it were, by anticipation: and that what he means by it, is not any power of either kind actually possessed by any man, or body of men, at the juncture he supposes, but only a capacity, if one may call it so, of retaining and putting into action political power, whensoever it shall have been conferred. Now, of actual power, the quantity that is possessed is, in every case, one and the same: for it is neither more nor less than the supreme power. But as to the capacity above spoken of, there do seem, indeed, to be good grounds for supposing it to subsist in a higher degree in a single man than in a body.

10. These grounds it will not be expected that I should display at large: a slight sketch will be sufficient.The efficacy of power is, in part at least, in proportion to the promptitude of obedience: the promptitude of obedience is, in part, in proportion to the promptitude of command:command is an expression of will: a will is sooner formed by one than many. And this, or something like it, I take to be the plain English of our Author's metaphor, where he tells us,⁽⁵⁹⁾ as we shall see a little farther on,⁽⁶⁰⁾ that `a monarchy is the most powerful' (form of government) `of any, all the sinews of government being knit together, and united in the hands of the prince.'

11. The next paragraph, short as it is, contains variety of matter. The first two sentences of it are to let us know, that with regard to the manner in which each of the particular governments that we know of have been formed, he thinks proper to pass it by. A third is to intimate, for the second time, that all governments must be absolute in some hands or other. In the fourth and last, he favours us with a very comfortable piece of intelligence; the truth of which, but for his averment, few of us perhaps would have suspected. This is, that the qualifications mentioned by the last paragraph as requisite to be possessed by all Governors of states are, or at least once upon a time were, actually possessed by them: (i.e.) according to the opinion of somebody; but of what somebody is not altogether clear: whether in the opinion of these Governors themselves, or of the persons governed by them.

12. `How the several forms of government we now see in the world at first actually began,' says our Author, `is matter of great uncertainty, and has occasioned infinite disputes. It is not my business or intention to enter into any of them. However they began, or by what right soever they subsist, there is and must be in all of them a supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority, in which the jura summi imperii, or the rights of sovereignty, reside. And this authority is placed in those hands, wherein (according to the OPINION of the FOUNDERS of such respective states, either expressly given or collected from their tacit APPROBATION) the qualities requisite fot supremacy, wisdom, goodness, and power, are the most likely to be found.'⁽⁶¹⁾

13. Who those persons are whom our Author means here by the word founders; whether those who became the Governors of the states in question, or those who became the governed, or both together, is what I would not take upon me to determine. For aught I know he may have meant neither the one nor the other, but some third person. And, indeed, what I am vehemently inclined to suspect is, that, in our Author's large conception, the mighty and extensive domains of ATHENS and SPARTA, of which we read so much at school and at college, consisting each of several score of miles square, represented, at the time this paragraph was writing, the whole universe: and the respective aeras of Solon and Lycurgus, the whole period of the history of those states.

14. The words `founders',--'opinion'-'approbation',--in short the whole complection of the sentence is such as brings to one's view a system of government utterly different from the generality of those we have before our eyes; a system in which one would think neither caprice, nor violence, nor accident, nor prejudice, nor passion, had any share: a system uniform, comprehensive, and simultaneous; planned with phlegmatic deliberation; established by full and general assent: such, in short, as, according to common imagination, were the systems laid down by the two sages above-mentioned. If this be the case, the object he had in mind when he said Founders, might be neither Governors nor governed, but some neutral person: such as hose sages, chosen as they were in a manner as umpires, might be considered with regard to the persons who, under the prior constitution, whatever it was, had stood respectively in those two relations.

15. All this, however, is but conjecture: In the proposition itself neither this, nor any other restriction is expressed. It is delivered explicitly and emphatically in the character of an universal one. `In ALL OF THEM', he assures us, `this authority,' (the supreme authority) `is placed in those hands, wherein, according to the opinion of the founders of such respective states, these "qualities of wisdom, good ness, and power," are the most likely to be found.' In this character it cannot but throw a singular light on history. I can see no end, indeed, to the discoveries it leads to, all of them equally new and edifying. When the Spaniards, for example, became masters of the empire of Mexico, a vulgar politician might suppose it was because such of the Mexicans as remained unexterminated, could not help it. No such thingit was because the Spaniards were of `opinion' or the Mexicans themselves were of `opinion' (which of the two is not altogether clear) that in Charles Vth, and his successors, more goodness (of which they had such abundant proofs) as well as wisdom, was likely to be found, than in all the Mexicans put together. The same persuasion obtained between Charlemagne and the Ger man Saxons with respect to the goodness and wisdom of Charlemagne:between William the Norman and the English Sax ons:between Mahomet lid and the subjects of John Paleologus: between Odoacer and those of Augustulus:between the Tartar Gingiskan and the Chinese of his time:between the Tartars Chang-ti and Cam-ghi, and the Chinese of their times:between the Protector Cromwell and the Scotch:between William IIId and the Irish Papists:between Caesar and the Gauls:in short, between the Thirty Tyrants, so called, and the Athenians, whom our Author seems to have had in view:to mention these examples only, out of as many hundred as might be required. All this, if we may trust our Author, he has the `goodness' to believe: and by such lessons is the penetration of students to be sharpened for piercing into the depths of politics.

16. So much for the introductory paragraphThe main part of the subject is treated of in six others: the general contents of which are as follow.

17. In the first he tells us how many different forms of government there are according to the division of the antients: which division he adopts. These are three: Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy.

18. The next is to tell us, that by the sovereign POWER he means that of 'making laws'.

19. In a third he gives us the advantages and disadvantages of these three different forms of government.

20. In a fourth he tells us that these are all the antients would allow of.

21. A Fifth is to tell us that the British form of government is different from each of them; being a combination of all, and posses sing the advantages of all.

22. In the sixth, and last, he shews us that it could not possess these advantages, if, instead of being what it is, it were either of those others: and tells us what it is that may destroy it. These two last it will be sufficient here to mention: to examine them will be the task of our next chapter.

23. Monarchy is that form of Government in which the power of making Laws is lodged in the hands of a single member of the state in question. Aristocracy is that form of Government in which the power of making laws is lodged in the hands of several members. Democracy is that form of government in which the power of making laws is lodged in the hands of `all' of them put together. These, according to our Author, are the definitions of the Antients; and these, therefore, without difficulty, are the definitions of our Author.

24. `The political writers of antiquity,' says he, `will not allow more than three regular forms of government; the first, when the sovereign power is lodged in an aggregate assembly, consisting of all the members of a community, which is called a Democracy; the second, when it is lodged in a council composed of select members, and then it is styled an Aristocracy; the last, when it is entrusted in the hands of a single person, and then it takes the name of a Monarchy. All other species of government they say are either corruptions of, or reducible to these three.'

25. `By the sovereign power, as was before observed, is meant the making of laws; for wherever that power resides, all others must conform to, and be directed by it, whatever appearance the outward form and administration of the government may put on. For it is at any time in the option of the legislature to alter that form and administration by a new edict or rule, and to put the execution of the laws into whatever hands it pleases; and all the other powers of the state must obey the legislative power in the execution of their several functions, or else the constitution is at an end.'

26. Having thus got three regular simple forms of Government (this anomalous complex one of our own out of the question) and just as many qualifications to divide among them; of each of which, by what he told us a while ago, each form of Government must have some share, it is easy to see how their allotments will be made out. Each form of Government will possess one of these qualities in perfection, taking its chance, if one may say so, for its share in the two others.

27. Among these three different forms of Government then, it should seem according to our Author's account of them, there is not much to choose. Each of them has a qualification, an endowment, to itself. Each of them is completely characterized by this qualification. No intimation is given of any pre-eminence among these qualifications, one above another. Should there be any dispute concerning the preference to be given to any of these forms of government, as proper a method as any of settling it, to judge from this view of them, is that of cross and pile. Hence we may infer, that all the governments that ever were, or will be (except a very particular one that we shall come to presently, that is to say our own) are upon a par: that of ATHENS with that of PERSIA; that of GENEVA with that of Morocco: since they are all of them, he tells us, `corruptions of, or reducible to', one of these. This is happy. A legislator cannot do amiss. He may save himself the expence of thinking. The choice of a king was once determined, we are told, by the neighing of a horse.' The choice of a form of Government might be determined so as well.

28. As to our own form of government, however, this, it is plain, being that which it seemed good to take for the theme of his panegyric, and being made out of the other three, will possess the advantages of all of them put together; and that without any of the disadvantages; the disadvantages vanishing at the word of command, or even without it, as not being suitable to the purpose.

29. At the end of the paragraph which gives us the above definitions, one observation there is that is a little puzzling. `Other species of government', we are given to understand, there are besides these; but then those others, if not `reducible to', are but `corruptions of these'. Now, what there is in any of these to be corrupted, is not so easy to understand. The essence of these several forms of government, we must always remember, is placed by him, solely and entirely, in the article of number: in the ratio of the number of the Governors, (for so for shortness we will style those in whose hands is lodged this `power of making laws') to that of the governed. If the number of the former be, to that of the latter, as one to all, then is the form of Government a Monarchy: if as all to all, then is it a Democracy: if as some number between one and all to all, then is it an Aristocracy. Now then, if we can conceive a fourth number, which not being more than all, is neither one nor all, nor any thing between one and all, we can conceive a form of Government, which, upon due proof, may appear to be a corruption of some one or other of these three.⁽⁶²⁾ If not, we must look for the corruption somewhere else: Suppose it were in our Author's reason.⁽⁶³⁾

30. Not but that we may meet, indeed, with several other hard worded names for forms of Government: but these names were only so many names for one or other of those three. We hear often of a Tyranny: but this is neither more nor less than the name a man gives to our Author's Monarchy, when out of humour with it. It is still the government of number one. We hear now and then, too, of a sort of Government called an Oligarchy: but this is neither more nor less than the name a man gives to our Author's Aristocracy, in the same case. It is still the Government of some number or other, between one and all. In fine, we hear now and then of a sort of government fit to break one's teeth, called an Ochlocracy: but this is neither more nor less than the name a man gives to a Democracy in the same case. It is still that sort of government, which, according to our Author, is the Government of all.

31. Let us now see how he has disposed of his three qualifications among his three sorts or forms of Government. Upon Monarchy, we shall find, he has bestowed the perfection of power; on Aristocracy, of wisdom; on Democracy, of goodness; each of these forms having just enough, we may suppose, of the two remaining qualifications besides its own peculiar one to make up the necessary complement of `qualities requisite for supremacy.' Kings are, (nay were before they were Kings, since it was this qualification determined their subjects to make them Kings⁽⁶⁴⁾), as strong as so many Hercules's; but then, as to their wisdom, or their goodness, there is not much to say. The members of an Aristocracy are so many Solomons: but then they are not such sturdy folks as your Kings; nor, if the truth is to be spoken, have they much more honesty than their neighbours. As to the members of a Democracy, they are the best sort of people in the world; but then they are but a puny sort of gentry, as to strength, put them all together; and are apt to be a little defective in point of understanding.

32. `In a democracy', says he, `where the right of making laws resides in the people at large, public virtue or goodness of intention, is more likely to be found, than either of the other qualities of government. Popular assemblies are frequently foolish in their con trivance, and weak in their execution; but generally mean to do the thing that is right and just, and have always a degree of patriotism or public spirit. In aristocracies there is more wisdom to be found than in the other frames of Government; being composed, or intended to be composed, of the most experienced citizens; but there is less honesty than in a republic, and less strength than in a monarchy. A monarchy is indeed the most powerful of any, all the sinews of government being knit together and united in the hand of the prince; but then there is imminent danger of his employing that strength to improvident or oppressive purposes.'

33. `Thus these three species of government have all of them their several perfections and imperfections. Democracies are usually the best calculated to direct the end of a law; aristocracies to invent the means by which that end shall be obtained; and monarchies to carry those means into execution. And the antients, as was observed, had in general no idea of any other permanent form of government but these three; for though Cicero declares himself of opinion, esse optimé constitutam rempublicam, quae ex tribus generibus illis, regali, optimo, et populari sit modicé confusa; yet Tacitus treats this notion of a mixed government, formed out of them all, and partaking of the advantages of each, as a visionary whim; and one, that if effected, could never be lasting or secure,

34. In the midst of this fine-spun ratiocination, an accident has happened, of which our Author seems not to be aware. One of his accidents, as a logician would say, has lost its subject: one of the qualifications he has been telling us of, is, somehow or other, become vacant: the form of Government he designed it for, having unluckily slipped through his fingers in the handling. I mean Democracy; which he, and, according to him, the Antients, make out to be the Government of all. Now `all' is a great many; so many that, I much doubt, it will be rather a difficult matter to find these high and mighty personages power enough, so much as to make a decent figure with. The members of this redoubtable Commonwealth will be still worse off, I doubt, in point of subjects, than Trinculo in the play, or than the potentates, whom some later navigators found lording it, with might and main, ` ' over a Spanish settlement: there were three members of the Government; and they had one subject among them all.⁽⁶⁵⁾ Let him examine it a little, and it will turn out, I take it, to be precisely that sort of Government, and no other, which one can conceive to obtain, where there is no Government at all. Our Author, we may remember, had shrewd doubts about the existence of a state of nature:⁽⁶⁶⁾ grant him his Democracy, and it exists in his Democracy.⁽⁶⁷⁾

35. The qualification of goodness, I think it was, that belonged to the Government of all, while there was such a Government. This having taken its flight, as we have seen, to the region of nonentities, the qualification that was designed for it remains upon his hands: he is at liberty, therefore, to make a compliment of it to Aristocracy or to Monarchy, which best suits him. Perhaps it were as well to give it to Monarchy; the title of that form of Government to its own peculiar qualification, power, being, as we have seen, rather an equivocal one: or else, which, perhaps, is as good a way of settling matters as any, he may set them to cast lots.

CHAPTER III

British Constitution

1. With a set of data, such as we have seen in the last chapter, we may judge whether our author can meet with any difficulty in proving the British Constitution to be the best of all possible governments, or indeed anything else that he has a mind. In his paragraph on this subject there are several things that lay claim to our attention. But it is necessary we should have it under our eye.

2. `But happily for us in1 this island the British Constitution has long remained, and I trust will long continue, a standing exception to the truth of this observation. For, as with us the executive power of the laws is lodged in a single person, they have all the advantages of strength and dispatch that are to be found in the most absolute monarchy: and, as the legislature of the kingdom is entrusted to three distinct powers entirely independent of each other; first, the King; secondly, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, which is an aristocrati cal assembly of persons selected for their piety, their birth, their wisdom, their valour, or their property; and thirdly, the House of Commons, freely chosen by the people from among themselves, which makes it a kind of democracy; as this aggregate body, actuated by different springs, and attentive to different interests, composes the British Parliament, and has the supreme disposal of every thing; there can no inconvenience be attempted by either of the three branches, but will be withstood by one of the other two; each branch being armed with a negative power sufficient to repel any innovation which it shall think inexpedient or dangerous.'

3. `Here then is lodged the sovereignty of the British Constitution; and lodged as beneficially as is possible for society. For in no other shape could we be so certain of finding the three great qualities of Government so well and so happily united. If the supreme power were lodged in any one of the three branches separately, we must be exposed to the inconveniencies of either absolute monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy; and so want two of the principal ingredients of good polity, either virtue, wisdom, or power. If it were lodged in any two of the branches; for instance, in the King and House of Lords, our laws might be providently made and well executed, but they might not always have the good of the people in view: if lodged in the King and Commons, we should want that circumspection and mediatory caution, which the wisdom of the Peers is to afford: if the supreme rights of legislature were lodged in the two Houses only, and the King had no negative upon their proceedings, they might be tempted to encroach upon the royal prerogative, or perhaps to abolish the kingly office, and thereby weaken (if not totally destroy) the strength of the executive power. But the constitutional government of this island is so admirably tempered and compounded, that nothing can endanger or hurt it, but destroy ing the equilibrium of power between one branch of the legislature and the rest. For if ever it should happen that the independence of any one of the three should be lost, or that it should become subservient to the views of either of the other two, there would1 soon be an end of our constitution. The legislature would be changed from that which was originally set up by the general consent and fundamental act of the society; and such a change, however effected, is, according to Mr Locke (who perhaps carries his theory too far) at once an entire dissolution of the bands of Government, and the people would be reduced to a state of anarchy, with liberty to constitute to themselves a new legislative power.'

4. In considering the first of these two paragraphs, in the first place, the phenomenon we should