arduous task, which I have undertaken. *« The duty incumbent upon all, who have leifure and abilities, to endeavour to underftand, in order to maintain it in perfection, are those high motives, by which Englishmen are called upon to examine the principles, to study the contrivance, and to contemplate the operations of that vaft political machine, which is fo much the envy of others, and which fhould be the fupreme admiration of ourselves, particularly at a time, when a party of discontented fpirits, under the affumed character of philofophers, are labouring to abuse what they do not understand, to point out imperfections, which have no existence, therefore offer no other apology for preferring what others, and even I myself, have on other occafions publifhed upon the fubject. My primary object in making this publication is to form and fix the minds of my countrymen upon the moft important of all civil and political fubjects, and to do away the effects of uncer tainty, confufion, and error, under which fome of them now labour. I moft cordially adopt the fentiments of Dr. Price, when he fays, in the difcourfe already alluded to, (p. 13) "Happier far muft he be, if at the fame time he has reafon to believe, he has been fuccefsful, and actually contributed by his inftructions, to diffeminate among his fellow creatures just notions of themfelves, of their rights, of religion, and the nature and end of civil government." Dr. Tatham's Letters to Mr. Burke, p. 7. The state of to find defects instead of excellencies, to tra→ This ftate of nature, in which all philofotheoretical and phers confider man, and the rights and prometaphyfical.perties inherent in this nature, is a mere theo retical and metaphyfical ftate, pre-existing only in the mind, before the phyfical existence of any human entity whatever. As this state of nature then never had any real existence, fo alfo the various qualities, properties, rights, powers, and adjuncts annexed unto it, are Montefq. Spirit of Laws, b. i. p. 2. mere mere creatures of the imagination, attributable only to man in this ideal state of speculation: they bear the fame fort of analogy to the physical state of man in fociety, as principles and properties of mathematical points and lines bear to the practical rules of mechanics. As well might we attempt to handle and manufacture a mathematical point, as to move only upon the principles of this state of nature, being placed by the beneficence of our Creator in the phyfical ftate of fociety. Some of our greatest philosophers, as is often the cafe, to avoid pleonafm, and in the full glare of their own conviction, have omitted to fay, in exprefs words, that this state of nature, in which they confidered man in the abstract, never had an actual, physical, or real existence in this world; and this omiffion has, perhaps, occafioned the error of many modern illuminators, who, from ignorance, have confounded the two ftates together, or, from defigned malice, have tranfplanted the attributes and properties of the one into the other. To state the opinions of thefe philofophers upon the Rights of Man, in this ftate of nature, is to demonftrate, that they confidered it as pre-exifting and antecedent to the physical state of man's real existence. C "To From the phyfical formation of Adam and Eve the ftate of pure nature was phyfically impoffible. "To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must confider what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a ftate of perfect freedom to order their actions, and difpofe of their poffeffions and perfons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man; a state alfo of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promifcuoufly born to all the fame advantages of nature, and the use of the fame faculties, should be equal one amongst another, without fubordination or fubjection." "Prior to all those laws are those of nature, fo called, because they derive their force entirely from our frame and being. In order to have a perfect knowledge of these laws, we must consider man before, the establishment of fociety: the laws received in such a state would be thofe of nature." It requires no argument to prove, when the phyfical civilized state of fociety commenced; for, from the commencement of • Locke upon Civil Government, p. 168. this "God having this must be dated the impoffible existence • Locke of Civil Government, c. vii. p. 188. C 2 speak Man phyfically framed by God for fociety. |