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PREFACE.

THE Volume here presented to the reader, is upon a construction totally different from that of a work upon the principles of political science, published by the same author four years ago.

The writer deems himself an ardent lover of truth; and, to increase his chance of forcing her from her hiding-place, he has been willing to vary his method of approach.

There are two principal methods according to which truth may be investigated.

The first is by laying down one or two simple principles, which seem scarcely to be exposed to the hazard of refutation; and then developing them, applying them to a number of points, and following them into a variety of inferences. From this method of investigation, the first thing we are led to hope is, that there will result a system consentaneous to itself; and, secondly, that, if all the parts shall thus be brought into agreement with a few principles, and if those principles be themselves true, the whole will be found conformable to truth. This is the method of investigation attempted in the Enquiry concerning Political Justice.

An enquiry thus pursued is undoubtedly in the highest style of man. But it is liable to many disadvantages; and, though there be nothing that it involves too high for our

pride, it is perhaps a method of investigation incommensurate to our powers. A mistake in the commencement is fatal. An error in almost any part of the process is attended with extensive injury; where every thing is connected, as it were, in an indissoluble chain, and an oversight in one step vitiates all that are to follow. The intellectual eye of man, perhaps, is formed rather for the inspection of minute and near, than of immense and distant objects. We proceed most safely, when we enter upon each portion of our process, as it were, de novo; and there is danger, if we are too exclusively anxious about consistency of system, that we may forget the perpetual attention we owe to experience, the pole-star of truth.

An incessant recurrence to experiment and actual observation, is the second me

thod of investigating truth, and the method adopted in the present volume. The author has attempted only a short excursion at a time; and then, dismissing that, has set out afresh upon a new pursuit. Each of the Essays he has written, is intended in a considerable degree to stand by itself. He has carried this principle so far, that he has not been severely anxious relative to inconsistencies that may be discovered between the speculations of one Essay and the speculations of another.

The Essays are principally the result of conversations, some of them held many years ago, though the Essays have all been composed for the present occasion. The author has always had a passion for colloquial discussion; and, in the various opportunities that have been afforded him in

different scenes of life, the result seemed frequently to be fruitful both of amusement and instruction. There is a vivacity, and, if he may be permitted to say it, a richness, in the hints struck out in conversation, that are with difficulty attained in any other method. In the subjects of several of the most considerable Essays, the novelty of idea they may possibly contain, was regarded with a kind of complacence by the author, even when it was treated with supercilious inattention in its first communication. It is very possible, in these instances, that the public may espouse the party of the ori ginal auditor, and not of the author. Wherever that shall be strikingly the case, the complacence he mentions will be ra dically affected. An opinion peculiar to a single individual, must be expected, to that

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