A LIST OF THE BOOKS

Used in Compiling the following Work.

ABBOTT'S History of the Roman and English Hierarchies.

ADDRESS to the Members of Trade Societies, by a LABOURER.

BACON'S (Lord) Works.

BENTHAM'S Plan of Parliamentary Reform.

BALLANTYNE'S Comparison of the Established and Dissenting Churches.

BLACKSTONE'S Commentaries on the Laws of England. BOLINGBROKE's Works.

BURKE'S Works.

BURTON'S Anatomy of Melancholy.

CARPENTER'S Political Magazine.

Political and Historical Essays.

Political Letters.

CATO's Letters, translated by Trenchard.

COBBETT'S Paper against Gold.

COMMERCE. Library of Useful Knowledge.

COOPER'S Bravo.

CO-OPERATOR, The.

DOUGLAS'S Advancement of Society in Knowledge and Religion.

ECONOMIST (the), by J. M.

EXTRAORDINARY BLACK Book.

ENSOR On National Government.

EDMONDS'S Practical, Moral, and Political Economy.

FRANKLIN'S Essays.

GODWIN'S Political Justice.

GRAY'S Lecture on Happiness.

Social System.

HALL'S (Rev. R.) Works; edited by Gregory.

HELVETIUS on Man.

HODGKIN'S Popular Political Economy.

HUME'S Essays.

JOYCE's Abridgment of Smith's Wealth of Nations.
JUNIUS'S Letters.

LETTER to Lord Brougham, on Union of Church and State.

LABOUR DEFended.

LOCKE on Civil Government.

MANDEVILLE's Fable of the Bees.

MILTON'S Prose Works.

MONTESQUIEU's Spirit of Laws.

OWEN'S Report to the County of Lanark.

Lectures on a New State of Society.

PAINE'S Miscellaneous Works.

PALEY'S Moral and Political Philosophy.

PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES.

PRICE'S Political Tracts.

Hansard.

PUTT'S Essay on Civil Policy.

ROUSSEAU'S Social Contract.

SMITH'S Wealth of Nations.

SWIFT'S Works.

THOMPSON'S Labour Rewarded.

UTILITARIAN CATECHISM.

VOLTAIRE'S Philosophical Dictionary.

WESTMINSTER REVIEW.

THE

POLITICAL TEXT BOOK.

PART I.

OF SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT.

CHAPTER I.

THE ORIGIN AND OBJECTS OF SOCIETY.

THE principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature; but which could not be preserved in peace without that mutual assistance and intercourse which is gained by the institution of friendly and social communities. Hence it follows, that the first and primary end of human laws is to maintain and regulate these absolute rights of individuals. Such rights as are social and relative, result from, and are posterior to, the formation of states and societies: so that to maintain and regulate these is clearly a subsequent consideration. And therefore the principal view of human laws is, or ought always to be, to explain, protect, and enforce such rights as are absolute, which in themselves are few and simple; and then such rights as are relative, which, arising from a variety of connexions, will be far more numerous and complicated.—Blackstone.

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them: whereas, they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively, by uniting our affections: the latter

negatively, by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron; the last a punisher. Society, in every state, is a blessing; but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.Paine.

Let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest; they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto; the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united, would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness: but one man might labour out the common period of his life without accomplishing any thing; when he felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from his work, and every different want call him a different way. Disease, nay, even misfortune, would be death; for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might be rather said to perish than to die. Thus, necessity, like a gravitation power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which would supersede and render the obligations of Law and Government unnecessary, while they remained perfectly just to each other.Idem.

Political arrangement is more or less perfect, in proportion as it enables us to exert our natural liberty to the greatest advantage; if it is directed to any other purpose, it is made the instrument of gratifying the passions of a few; if it imposes greater restraint than its object prescribes, it degenerates into tyranny and oppression.-Robert Hall.

The interest of the community is merely the interest of the individuals who compose it. No law, nor act, nor government, can be for the advantage of the community, which has not a tendency to augment the happiness of the individual members of the community, in a greater degree than to diminish it.-Anon.

The rights of men, in a state of society, extend to the doing every thing which is not injurious to another.Anon.

Political society is founded in the principles of morality and justice. It is impossible for intellectual beings to be brought into coalition and intercourse without a certain mode of conduct, adapted to their nature and connection, immediately becoming a duty on the parties concerned. Men would never have associated, if they had not imagined that in consequence of that association they would mutually conduce to the advantage and happiness of each other. This is the real purpose, the genuine basis, of their intercourse; and as far as this purpose is answered, so far does society answer the end of its institution.-Godwin.

When, by virtue of the first laws, part of the society accumulated wealth and grew powerful, they enacted others more severe, and would protect their property at the expense of humanity. This was abusing their power, and commencing a tyranny. If a savage, before he entered into society, had been told, "Your neighbour by this means may become owner of a hundred deer; but if your brother, or your son, or yourself, having no deer of your own, and being hungry, should kill one, an infamous death must be the consequence," he would probably have preferred his liberty, and his common right of killing any deer, to all the advantages of society that might be proposed to him.— Franklin.

In a state of nature, it is an invariable law, that a man's acquisitions are in proportion to his labours. In a state of artificial society, it is a law as constant and invariable, that those who labour most, enjoy the fewest things; and that those who labour not at all, have the greatest number of enjoyments. A constitution of things this, strange and ridiculous beyond expression. We scarcely believe a thing when we are told it, which we actually see before our eyes every day without being the least surprised.— Burke.

The science of society consists of four divisions-1st. the production of all things necessary for the happiness of man; 2nd. the distribution of these things; 3rd. the formation of the character of every individual; and 4th. the government, foreign and domestic. To understand the science, these parts must be known separately and unitedly.