'>* PR4971.M6"T852"'"'"""""'"^ The miscellaneous works of the Right Hon 3 1924 013 520 709 The original of this bool< is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3520709 FAn^nsY sin mafL/mmNCE KNilJiA VED BY^^. WALTER . ^ ^'7^7- / x// A c n n? /r ; ( Yn THE MODERN BRITISH ESSAYISTS. VOL. VIII. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. PHILADELPHIA: A. HART, LATE CAREY & HART. 18 52. THE MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH THREE VOLUMES, COMPLETE IN ONE. PHILADELPHIA'. A. HART, LATE CAREY & HART, No. 126 CHESTNUT STREET. 1852. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE LONDON EDITION, BY THE EDITOR. These Volumes* contain whatever (with the exception of his History of England) is Delieved to be of the most vahie in the writings of Sir James Mackintosh. Something of method, it will be observed, has been attempted in . their arrangement by commencing with what is more purely Philosophical, and proceeding Arough Literature to Politics ; each of those heads being generally, though not quite precisely, referable to each volume respectively. Withs«6UGh selection would naturally have terminated his responsibility ; but in committing again to the press matter originally for the most part hastily printed, the Editor has assumed — as the lesser of two evils — a larger exercise of discretion in' the revision of the text than he could have wished to have felt had been imposed upon him. Instead, therefore, of continually arresting the eye of the reader by a notification of almost mechanical alterations, he has to premise here that where inaccuracies and redundancies of expression were obvious, these have been throughout corrected and retrenched. A few transpositions of the text have also been made ; — as where, by the detachment of the eleventh chapter of what the present Editor, on its original publication allowed to be called, perhaps too largely, the " History of the Revolution of 1688," a stricter chronological order has been observed, at the same time that the residue — losing thereby much of its frag- mentary character — may now, it is hoped, fairly claim to be all that is assumed in its new designation. Of the contributions to periodical publications, such portions only find place here as partake most largely of the character of completeness. Some extended quota- tions, appearing for the most part as notes on former occasions, have been omitted, with a view to brevity, on the present ; while, in addition to a general verification of the Author's references, a few explanatory notes have been appended, wherever apparently needful, by the Editor. R. J. MACKINTOSH. • The Miscellaneous Works of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh, 3 vols. Svo., Lon- don : Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1846. COITENTS. FACE Oa the Philosophical Genius of Lord Bacon and Mr. Locke 17 A Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations 27 Life of Sir Thomas More 43 Appendix '. 81 A Refutation, of the Claim on behalf of King Charles L to the Authorship of the EIKQN BASIAIKH 82 Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, chiefly during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuriea., , i*; #, , ,,.. 94 Litroduction '. . . ; ; ib. Section I. Preliiainary Observations .^ 96 IL Eetrospet^ of Ancient Ethics ^ . .^ 99 III. Retrospect of Scholastic Ethics ....,< t *'---y 104 IV. Modem Ethics r I 111 V. Controversies concerning the Moral Faculties and the Social Affections 117 VI. Foundations of a more just Theory of Ethics '. 131 VII. General Remarks .* 175 Notes and Illustrations 188 An account of the Partition of Poland 198 Sketch of the Administration and Fall of Struensee 217 Statement of the Case of Donna Maria da Gloria, as a Claimant to the Crown of Por- tugal 225 Character of Charles, First Marquis Comwallis 235 Character of the Right Honourable George Canning. . .r 238 Preface to a Reprint of the Edinburgh Revie* of 1755 242 On the Writings of Machiavel 246 Review of Mr. Godwin's Lives of Edward and John Philips, &o. &c 249 Review of Rogers' Poems > 254 Review of Madame de Stael's " De L'Allemagne" 260 Review of the Causes of the Revolution of 1688 271 CHAPTER I. — General state of affairs at home. — Abroad. — Characters of the Ministry. — Sunderland. — ^Rochester. — ^Halifax. — Godolphin. — Jeffreys. — Fever- sham. — His conduct after the victory of Sedgemoor. — Kirke. — Judicial pro- ceedings in the West. — Trials of Mrs. Lisle. — Behaviour of the King. — Trial of Mrs. Gaunt and others. — Case of Hampden. — ^Prideaux. — Lord Brandon. — Delamere ib CHAPTER II. — Dismissal of Halifax. — Meeting of Parliament. — Debates on the Address. — Prorogation of Parliament. — ^Habeas Corpus Act. — State of the Ca- tholic Party. — Character of the Queen. — Of Catherine Sedley. — Attempt to support the Dispensing Power by a Judgment of a Court of Law. — Godden V. Hales. — Consideration of the Arguments. — Attack on the Church. — Establish- ment of the Court of Commissioners for ecclesiastical causes. — ^Advancenaient, of CathoUcs to offices. — Intercourse with Rome ». 284 XI xu CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER III.— State of the Army.— Atteanpts of the King to convert it.— The , Princess Anne.— Dryden.— Lord Middleton |nd others.- Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.— Attempt to convert Rochester.— Conduct of the Queen. — ' Religious conference.— Failure, of the attempl.^r^His dismissal 299 CHAPTER IV. — Scotland. — Administration of Queensberry.— Conversion of Penh. —Measures contemplated by the I^g.— Debates in^arlfament on the King's letter. — Proposed bill of toleration — unsatisfactory to James. — Adjournment of Parliament.^— Exercise of prerogative. ^Ireland. — Character of Tyrcomiel. — Review of the state of Ireland. — Arrival of Tyrconnel. — ^His appointment as Lord Deputy.— Advancemtet of Catholics to offices. — Tyrconnel aims at the sovereign power in Irelaijd. — Intrigues witli France 307 CHAPTER V. — Rupture ^ith the- Protestant Tories.— Increased decision of the King's designs. — Encroachments on theChuxoh establishment. — Charter-House. —Oxford, University College.— Christ Churcl^HExeter College, Cambridge.— Oxford, Magdalen College. — Declaratiou of, liberty of jponsoience.— Similar at-v tempts of Charles.— Proclamation at Edinburgh.-^Resistaiice of the Church.— Attempt to conciliate the Nonconformists. — Review oiLtheir sufferings.-^Bax- ter.— Bunyan. — Presbyterians. —Independents. — Baptists. — Quakers.- Ad- dresses of thanks for the declarationln . . j. . ^ . . .rf. 319 CHAPTER VI. — D'Adda publicly received as the Nundfo. — Dissolution of Parlia- ment. — Final breach. — Preparations for a new Parliament. — New charters. — Removal of Lord'Lieuteiiants. — Patronage of the Crowt%— Moderate views of Sunderland^— House of Lords. — ^Royal progress. — Pregnancy of the Queen. — London has the appearance of a Cathg^c'city * 337 CHAPTER VII. — Remarkable quiet. — Its pepuliar causes .-Coalition of Notting- ham and Halifax. — Fhjctuating counsels of the Court. — "Parliamentum Pacifi- cum." — Bill for liberty of conscience. — Conduct of Sunderland. — Jesuits 350 CHAPTER VIII. — Declaration of Indulgence renewed.^Jrder that it should be read in Churcjies. — Deliberations of the clergy. — Petition of the Bishops to the King. — Their examination before the Privy Council, committal, ti-ial, and ac- quittal . — Reflections.— Conversion of Sunderland . — Birth of the Prince of Wales. , — State of Affairs 7 359 CHAPTER IX. — Doctrine of obedience. — Right of resistance. — Comparison of ' foreign and civil war. — Right of calling auxiliaries. — Relations of tjie people of England and of Holland 380 Memoir of the Affairs of Holland, 166.7— 1686 384 Discourse read at the opening of the Literary Society of Bombay 398 VindicBB Gallicas : — A Defence of the French Revolution and its English Admirers, against the accusations of the Right" Hon^ Edmund Burke, including some Strictures on the late Production of Mons. de Calonne 404 Introduction .' ib. Section I. The General 'Expediency and Necessity of a Revolution in France. . . . 406 II. Of the composition and character of the National Assembly 424 III. Popular excesses which attended the Revolution 430 IV. New Constitution of France 436 V. English admirers vindicated ; 448 VI. Speculations on the probable consequences of the French Revolution in Europe 457 Reasons against the French War of 1793 461 On the State of France in 18 15 466 On the Right of Parliamentary Suffrage 472 A Speech in Defence of John Peltier, accused of a Libel on the First Consul of France 484 A Charge, delivered to the Grand Jury of the Island of Bombay, on the 20th July, 1811 504 Speech on the Annexation of Genoa to the Kingdotp.f'of Sardinia, delivered in the House of Commons, April 27, 1815 508 CONTENTS. xiii PAGE Speech on moving for a Committee to inquire into the State of the Crimjnal Law ; delivered in the House of Commons, March 2, 1819 524 Speech on Mr. Brougham's Motion for an Address to the Crown, with Beference to the Tria' and Condemnation of the Rev. John Smith, of Demerara ; deUvefed in the House of Commons, June 1, 1824 534 Speech on presenting a Petition from the Merchants of London for the Eecognition of the Independent States, established in the Countries of America, formerly sub- ject to Spain; delivered in the House of Commons, June 15, 1824 549 Speech on the Civil Government of Canada ; delivered in the House of Commons, May 2, 1828 564 Speech on moving for Papers relative to the Affairs of Portugal; dehvered in the House of Commons, June 1, 1829 . . .' 569 Speech on the second Reading of the Bill to amend the Representation of the People of England and Wales ; dehvered in the House of Commons, July 4, 183 1 ... . 580 Appendix , 591 ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS LORD BACOF AID ME. LOCKE; "History," says Lord Bacon, "is Natural, Civil or Ecclesiastical, or Literary; whereof of the three first I allow as extant, the fourth I note as deficient. For no man hath pro- pounded to himself the general state of learn- ing, to be described and represented from age to age, as many have done the works of Nature, and the State civil and ecclesias- tical ; without which the history of the world seemeth to me to be as the statue of Poly- phemus with his eye out/ that part being wanting which doth" most show the spirit and life of the person. And yet I am not ignorant; that in divers particular sciences, as of the jurisconsults, the mathematicians, the rhetoricians, the philosophers, there are set down some small memorials of the schools, — of authors of books ; so likewise some barr ren relations touching the invention of arts or usages. But a just story of learning, con- taining the antiquities and originals of know- ledges, and their sects, their inventions, their traditions, their divers administrations and raanagings, their oppositions, decays, depres- 'sions, oblivions, removes, \\'ith the causes and occasions of them, and all other events concerning learning throughout the ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be wanting. The use and end of which work I do not so much de'sign for curiosity, or satisfaction of those who are lovers of learning, but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which is this, in few words, ' that it will make learned men wise in the use and administration of learning.' "t Though there are passages in the writings of Lord Bacon more splendid than the above, few, probably, better display (he union of all the qualities which characterized his philo- sophical genius. He has in general inspired a fervour of admiration which vents itself in indiscriminate praise, and is very adverse to a calm examination of the character of his understanding, which was very peculiar, and on that account described with more than ordinary imperfection, by that unfortunately * These remarks are extracted from the Edin- burgh Review, vol. xxvii. p. 180 ; vol. zxxvL p. 229.— Ed. t Advancement of Learning, book ii. 3 vague and weak part of language which at- tempts to distinguish the varieties of mental superiority. To this cause it may be as- cribed, that perhaps no great man has been either rnore ignorantly censured, or more un- instructiyely commended. It is easy to de- scribe his transcendent merit in general terms of commendation; for some of his great qualities lie on the surface of his writings. But that in which he most excelled all other men, was the range and compass of his in- tellectual view and the power of contemplat- ing many and distant objects together without indistinctness or confusion, which hehimself has called the "discursive" or "comprehen- sive" understanding. This wide ranging in- tellect was illuminated by the brightest Fancy that ever contented itself with the office of only ministering to Reason : and from this singular relation of the two grand faculties of man, it has resulted, that his phi- losophy, though illustrated still more than adorned by the utmost splendour of imagery, continues still subject to the undivided su- premacy of Intellect. In the midst of all the prodigality of un imagination which, had it been independent, would have been poeticalj his opinions remained severely ra- tional. It is not so easy to conceive, or at least to describe, other equally essential elements of his greatness, and conditions of his success. His is probably a single instance of a mind which, in philosophizing^ always reaches thfi point of elevation whence the whole prospect is commanded, without ever rising (o such a distance as to lose a -distinct perception of every part of it.* It is perhaps not less singu- * He himself who alone was qualified, hag de- scribed the genius of his philosophy both in respect to the degree and manner in which he rose from particulars lo generals: " Axiomata infima non multum ab experientia nuda discrepant. Suprema vero ilia et generalissima (quae habentur) notionalia sunt et abstracta, et nil habent solidi. At media sunt axiomata ilia vera, et solida, etviva, in quibus humanae res et fortunse sitse sunt, et supra hsec quoque, tandem ipsa ilia generalissima, talia scili- cet quse nbn abstracta sint, sed per hsec media vere limitantur." — Novum Organum, lib. i. apho- ris. 104. b2 17 IS MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. lar, that his philosophy should be founded at once on disregard for the authority of men, and on reverence for the boundaries pre- scribed by Nature to human inquiry ; that he who thought so little of what man had done, hoped so highly of what he could do ; that so daring an innovator in science should be so wholly exempt from the love of singularity or paradox ; and that the same man who re- nounced imaginary provinces in the empire of science, and withdrew its landmarks with- in the limits of experience, should also exhort posterity to push their conquests to its utmost verge, with a boldness which will be fuily justified only by the discoveries of ages from which we are yet far distant. No mail ever united a more poetical style to a less poetical philosophy. One great end of his discipline is to prevent mysticism and fanaticism from obstructing the pursuit of truth. With a less brilliant fancy, he would have had a mind less qualified for philoso- phical inquiry. His fanfjy gave him that power of illustreitive metaphor, by which he seemed to have invented again the part of language which respects philbsophy ; and it rendered new truths more distinctly visible even to his own eye, in their bright clothing of imagery. Without it, h6 must, Jike others, have been driven to the fabrication of uncouth technical terms, which repel the mind, either by vulgarity or pedantry, instead of gently leading it' to novelties in spience, through agreeable analogies withobjects already fa- miliar. A considerable portion doubtless of the courage with which he undertook the re- formation of philosophy, was caught from the general spirit of his extraordinary age, when the mind of Europe was yet agitated by the joy and pride of emancipation from long bondage. The beautiful mythology, and the poetical history of the ancient world, — not yet become trivial or pedantic, — appeared before his eyes in all theirireshness and lus- tre. To the gfeneral reader they were then a discovery as recent as the world disclosed by Columbus. The ancient literature, on which his imagination looked back for illustration, had then as much fhe charm of novelty as that rising philosophy through which his rea- son dared to look onward to some of the last periods in its unceasing and resistless course. In ordei; to form a just estini-ate of this wonderful person, it is essential to fix stead- ily in our minds, what h^ was not,— wiat he did not do, — and, what he professed neither to be, nor to do. He was not what is called a metaphysician : his plans for the improve- ment of science were not inferred by ab- stract reasoning from any of those primary principles to which the philosophers of Greece struggled to fastein their systems. Hence he has been treated as empirical and superficial by those who take to themselves the exclusive name of profound speculators. He was not, on the other hand, a mathema- tician, an a8tronome.r, a physiologist, a chem- ist. He was not eminently conversant with ihe particular truths of any of those sciences which existed in his time. For this reason, he Was underrated even by men themselves of the highest merit, and by some who had acquired the most just reputation, by adding new facts to the stocji of certain knowledge. It is npt therefore very surprising to find, that Ifervey, " though the friend, as well as physician of Bacon, though he esteemed him much for his wit and style, would not allow him to be a great philosopher;'.' but said to Aubrey, "He writes philosophy like a Lord Chancellor," — "in derision,'-' — as the honest biographer thiiiks fit expressly to add. On the same ground, though in a manner not so agreeable to the natiire of his own claims on reputation, Mr. Hume has decided, that Ba- con was not so great a man as Galileo, be- cause he was not so great an astronomer. The same sort of injustice to his memory has been more often committed than avowed, by professors of the exact and the experimental sciences, who are accustotnee} to regard, as the sole test of service to Knowledge, a pal- pable addition to her store. It is very true that he made no discoveries: but his life was employed in teaching the method by which discoveries are made. - This distinc- tion was early observed by that ingenious poet and amiable man, on whoin we. by our unmerited neglect, have taken too severe a revenge, for the exaggerated praises be- stowed on him by our ancestors : — " Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last, The barren wilderness he past, Did on the very border. stand Of (he blest promised land '; And from the mountain top of his exalted wit, Saw it himself, and showed us it."* The writings of Bacon do not even abound with remarks so capable of being separated from the, mass of previous knowledge and reflection, thatthey can be called new. This at least is very far from their greatest dis- tinction : and where such remarks occur, they are presented more often as examples of his general method, than as important on their own separate account. In physics, which presented the principal field for dis- covery, and which owe all that they are, or can be, tQ his method and srarit, the experi- ments and observations which he either made or registered, form the least valuable part of his writings, and have furnished some cul- tivators of that science with an opportunity for an ungratefvii triumph over his mistakes. The scattered remarks, on the other hand, of a moral nature, where absolute novelty is precluded by the nature of the subject, mani- fest most strongly both the superior force and the original bent of his understanding. We more properly contrast than compare the experiments in the Natural History, with the moral and political obseiTations which enrich the Advancement of Learning, the speeches, the letters, the History of Flenry VII., and, above all, the Essays, a book which, though it has been praised with equal Cowley, Ode to the Royal Society. ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS OF BACON AND LOCKE. 19 fervour by Voltaire, Johnson and Burke, has never been characterized with such exact justice and such exquisite felicity of expres- sion, as in the discourse of Mr. Stewart.* It will serve still more distinctly to mark the natural tendency of his mind, to observe that his moral and political reflections relate to these practical subjects, considered in their most practical point of view; and that he has seldom or never attem{)ted to reduce to theory the infinite particulars of that "civil knowledge," which, as he himself tells us, is, " of all others, most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom." His mind, indeed, was formed and exer- cised in the affairs of the world : his genius was eminently civil. His understanding was peculiarly fitted for questions of legislation and of policy ; though his character was not an instrument well qualified to execute the dictates of his reason. The same civil wis- dom which distiriguishes his judgments on human affairs, may also be traced through his reformation of philosophy. It is a prac- tical judgment applied to science. What he effected was reform' in the maxims of state, — a reform which had always before been unsuccessfully pursued in the republic of letters. It is not derived from metaphysical reasoning, nor from scientific detail, but from a species pf intellectual prudence, which, on the practical ground of failure and dis- appointment in the prevalent modes of pur- suing knowledge, builds the necessity of alteration, and inculcates the - advantage of administering the sciences on other princi- ples. It is an error to represent him either as imputing fallacy to the syllogistic method, or as professing his principle of induction to be a discovery. The rules and forms of ar- gument will always form an important part of the art of logic ; and the method of induc- tion, which is the art of discovery, was so far from being unknown to Aristotle, that it was often faithfully pursued by that great observer. What Bacon aimed at, he accom- plished ; which was, not to discover new principles, but to excite a new spirit, and to render observation and e.xperiment the pre- dominant characteristics of philosophy. It is for this reason that Bacon could not have been the author of a system or the founder of a sect. He did not deliver opinions; he taught modes of philosophizing. His early * "Under the same head of Eihics, may be mentioned the small volume to which he has given the tide of 'Essays,' — the best known and most popular of all his works. It is also one of those where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage ; the novelty and depth of his rejections often receiving a strong relief from the triteness of the subject. It may be read from be- ginning to end in a few hours ; and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something unobserved before. . This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon's writings, and is only to - be accounted for &y the inexhaustible aliment theif furnish to our own thoughts^ and the sympa- thetic activity they_ impart to our torpid faculties,^' Encyclopaedia B"'annica, vol. i. p. 36. immersion in civil affairs fitted him for this species of scientific reformation. His politi- cal course, though in itself unhappy, proba- bly conduced to the success, and certainly influenced the character, of the contiSnplative part of his life. Had it not been for his ac- tive habits, it is likely that the pedantry and quaintness of his age would have still more deeply corrupted his significant and majestic style. The force of the illustrations which he takes frgm his experience of ordinary life, is often as remarkable as the beauty of these which he so happily borrows from his study of j(ntiquity. But if we have caught the leading principle of his intellectual character,- we must attribute effects still deeper and more extensive, to his familiarity with the active world. It guarded him against vain subtlety, and against ajl speculation that was either visionary or fruitless. It preserved him from the reigning prejudices of contem- plative men, and from undue preference to particular parts of knowledge^ If he had been exclusively bred in the cloister or the schools, he might not have had courage enough to reform their abuses. It seems necessary that he should have been so placed as to look on science in the free spirit of an intelligent spectator. Without the pride of professors, or the bigotry of their followers, he surveyed from the world the studies which reigned in the schools ; and, trying them by their fruits, he saw that they were barren, and therefore pronounced that they were unsound. He himself seems, indeed, to have indicated as clearly as modesty would allow, in a case that concemed himself, and where he de- parted from an universal and almost na- tural sentiment, that he regarded scholastic seclusion, then more unsocial and rigorous than it now can be, as a hindrance in the pursuit of knowledge. In one of the noblest passages of his writings, the conclusion " of the Interpretation of Nature," he tells us, "That there is no composition of estate or society, nor order or quality of persons, which have not some point of contrariety towards true knowledge; that monarchies incline wits to profit and pleasure; commonwealths to glory and vanity ; universities to sophistry and aifectation ; cloisters to fables and unpro- fitable subtlety; study at large to varietj'j and thatJt is hard to say whether mixture of Contemplations with an active life, or retiring wholly to contemplations, do disable or hin- der the mind more." But, thoilgh he was thus free from the prejudices of a science, a, school- or a sect, other prejudices of a lower nature, and be- longing only to the inferior class of those who conduct civil affairs, have been ascribed to him by encomiasts as well as by opponents. He has been said to couBider the great end of science to be the increase of the outward accommodations and enjoyments of human life : vve ,cannot see any foundation for this charge. In labouring, indeed, to correct the direction of study, and to withdraw it from these unprofitable subtleties, it was neces- 20 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. sary to attract it powerfully towards outward acta and works. He no doubt duly valued " the dignity of this end, the endowment of man's hfe with new commodities ;" and he strikingly observes, that the most poetical people of the world had admitted the inven- tors of the useful and manual arts among the highest beings in their beautiful mytho- logy. Had he lived to the age of Watt and Davy, he would not have been of the vulgar and contracted mind of those who cease to admire grand exertions o^ intellect, because they are useful to. mankind: but he vvould certainly have considered their great works rather as tests of the progress of knowledge thjin as parts of its highest end. His im- portant questions to the doctors of his time were : — " Is truth ever barren 'i Are we the richer by one poor invention, by reason of all the learning that hath been these many hundred years?" His judgment, we may aiso hear from himself :-r-" Francis Bacon thought in this . manner. The knowledge whereof the world is now possessed, espe- cially that of nature, extendeth not to rtiagfd- tude and certainty of works." He 'found knowledge barren ; he left it-fertile. He did not underrate the utility of particular inven- tions; but it is evident that he valued them ijlost, as being themselves among the high-, est exertions of superior intellect, — as being monuments of the progress of knowledge, — as being the bands of that alliance between action and speculation, wherefrom spring an appeal to experience and utility, checking the proneness of' the jihilosopher to extreme refinements ; while teaching men to revere, and exciting them to pursue science by these splendid proofs of its beneficial power. Had he seen the. change in this respect, which, produced chiefly in his own country by the spirit of his philosophy, has made some de- gree of science almost necessary to the sub- sistence and fortune of large bodies of men, he would "assuredly have regarded it aS an additional security for the future growth of the human understanding. . He taught, as he tells us, the means, not of the "amplification of the power of one man over his country, nor of the amplification of the power of that coun- try over other nation? ; but the amplification of the power and kingdom of mankind over the world,"^-"W restitution of man to the sovereignty of nature,"* — "and the enlarg- ing the bounds of human empire to thd ef- fecting all things possible. "t — From the enlargement of reason, he did not separate the growth of virtue, for he thought that " truth and goodness were one, differing but as the seal and the print ; for truth prints goodneas."t As civil history teaches statesmen to profit by the faults of their predeoessQrs, he pro- poses that the history of philosophy should teach, by example, "learned men to become * Of the Interpretation of Nature. t New Atlantis. t Advancement of Learning, book i. wise in the administration of learning." Early immersed in civil affairs, and deeply imbued wil^h their spirit, his mind in this place con- templates science only through the analogy of government, and considers principles of philosophizing as the easiest maxims of po- licy for the guidance! of reason. It seems also, that in describing the objects of a his- tory of philosophy, and the utility, to be de- rived from it, he. discloses the principle of his own exertions in behalf of knowledge ; — whereby a reform in its method and ma:^ms, justified by the experience of fheir injurious effects, i? conducted with a judgment analo- gous to that civil prudence which guides a wise lawgiver. If (as. may not improperly be concluded from this passage) the reforma- tion of science was suggested to Lord Bacon, by a review of the history of philosophy, it must be owned, that his outline of that history has a very important relation to the general character of his philosophical genius. The smallest circumstances attendant on that out- line serve to illustrate the powers and habits of thought which distinguished its author. It is an exaniple of his faculty of anticipating, — not insulated facts or single discoveries,^ — but (what from its complexity and refinement seem much more to d«fy the power of pro- phecy) the tendencies of study, and the modes of thinking, which were tq,prevail in distant generations, that the parts which he had chosen to unfold or enforce in the Latin versions, are those which a thinker of the pre- sent age vTOuld deem both most excellent and most arduous in: a history of philo.sophy; — "the causes 'of literary revolutions; the study of contemporary writers, not merely as the most authentic sources of information, but as enabling the historian to preserve in his own description the peculiar colour of every age, and to recall' its literary genius from the dead." This outline has the un- common distinction of being at once original and complete. In this province. Bacon had no forerunner ; and the most successful fol- lower will be he, who most faithfully ob- serves his precepts. Here, as in every province of knowledge, he concludes his review of the performances and prospects of the human understanding, by considering their subservience to the grand purpose of improving the condition, the faculties, and the nature of man, without which indeed science would be no more than a beautiful ornament, and literature would rank no higher than a liberal amusement. Yet it must be acknowledged, that he rather perceived than felt the connexion of Truth and Good. Whether he lived too early to have sufficient experience of the moral benefit of civilization, Or his mind had early acquired too exclusive an interest in science, to look fre- quently beyond its advancertjent; or whether the infirmities and calamities of his life had blighted his feelings, and turned away his eyes from the active world; — to what- ever cause we may ascribe the defect, cer- tain it is, that his works want one excellence ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS OF BACON AND LOCKE. 21 of the highest kind, which they would have possesseoTif he had habitually represented the advancement of knowledge as the moat effectual means of realizing the hopes of Benevolence for the human race. The character of Mr. Locke's writings can- not be well understood,- without considering the circumstances of the writer. Educated among the English Dissenters, during the short period of their political ascendency, he early imbibed -the deep piety and ardent spirit of liberty which actuated that body of men ; and he probably imbibed also, in their schools, the disposition to metaphysical inquiries which has every where accompanied the Calvinistic theology. Sects, founded on the right of private judgment, naturally tend to purify themselves from intolerance, and in time learn to respect, in others, the freedom of thought, to the exercise of which they owe their own existence. By the Independent divinei^who were his instructors, our philoso- pher was taught those principles of religious liberty which they were the first to disclose to the world.* When free inquiry led him to milder dogmas, he retained the severe mo- rality which was their honourable singulari- ty, and which continues to distinguish their successors in those communities which have abandoned iheir rigorous opinions. His pro- fessional pursuits afterwards engaged him in the study of the physical sciences, at the mo- ment when the spirit of experiment and ob- servation was in its youthful fervour, and when a repugnance to scholastic subtleties was the, ruling passion of the scientific world. At a more mature age, he was admitted into the society of great wits and ambitious poli- ticians. During the remainder of his life, he was often a man of business, and always a man of the world, without much undisturbed leisure, and probably with that abated relish for merely abstract" speculation, which is the inevitable result of converse with society and experience in affairs. But his political connexions agreeing with his early bias, made him a zealous advocate of liberty, in opinion and in government ; and he gradually limited his zeal and activity to the illustration of such general principles as are the guardians of these great interests of human society. ' Almost all his writings (even his Essay it- self) were occasibnal, and intended directly to counteract the enemies of reason and free- dom in his own age. The first Letter on Toleration, the most original perhaps of his * Orme's Memoirs of Dr. Owen, pp. 99^110. In this very uble volume, it is clearly proved that ihe Independents were the first teachers of reli- gious liberty. The industrious, ingenious, and tolerant wriier, is unjust to Jeremy Taylor, who had no share (as Mr. Orme supposes) in the per- secuting councils of Charles TI. It js an import- ant fact in the history of Toleration, that Dr. .Owen, the Independent, was Dean of Christ- church in 16,51. when Locke was admitted a mem- ber of that College, "kndera/analical tutor," as Anlony Wood says. works, was composed in Holland, in a retire- ment where he was forced to conceal him- self from the tyranny which pursued him into a foreign land ; and it was published in England, in the year of the Revolution, to vinaicate the Toleration Act, of which he lamented the imperfection.* . His Treatise on Government is composed of three parts, of different character, and very unequal merit. The confutation of Sir Robert Filmer, with which it opens, has long lost all interest, and is now to be considered as an instance of the hard fete of a philoso- pher vyho is compelled to engage in a conflict with those ignoble antagonists who acquire a momentary importance by the defence of pernicious falsehoods. The same slavish ab- surdities have indeed been at various times revived : but they never have assumed, and probably never will again assume, the form in which they were exhibited by Filmer. Mr. Locke's general principles of government were adopted by him, probably without much examination, as the doctrine which had for ages prevailed in the schools of Europe, and vvhioh afforded an obvious and adequate jus- tification of a resistance to oppression. He delivers them as he found them, without even appearing to haye made them his own by new modifications. The opinion, that the right of the ihagistrate to obedience is founded in the original delegation of power by the people to the government, is at least as old as the writings of Tho'mas Aquinas :t and in the beginning of the seventeenth centui-y, it was regarded as the commoti doctrine of all the divines, jurists and philo- sophers, who had at that time examined the moral foundation of political authority.! It then prevailed indeed so universally, * '* We have need," says he, " of more gene-' rous - remedies than have yet been used in our disteinpers. It is neither declarations of indul- gence, nor acts of comprehension such as have yet been practised ox projected amongst us, that can do the work among us. Absolute hberty, just and trite liberty, equal and impartial liberty, is the thins that we stand in need of. Now, though this has indeed been much talked of, I doubt il has not been much understood, — I am sure not at all practised, either by our governors towards the people in general, or by any dissenting parlies of the people towards one another." How far are we, at this moment [1821] , from adopting these admir- able principles I and with what absurd confidence do the enemies of religious liberty appeal to the authority of Mr. Locke for continuing those re- strictions on consilience which he 'so deeply lamented ! t " Non cujuslibet ratio facit legem, sed multi- tudinis,^ aut pWwcrpfs, vicem multitudinis gerentis." — Suihma Theolo^ae, pars i. quasst 90. t " Opinionem jam factam communem omnium Scholaslicorum." Antonio de Dominis, De Re- publica Ecclesiasiica, lib. vi. cap. 2. Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato in Dalmatia, having imbibed the free spirit of Father Paul, inclined towards Protestantism, or at least towards such reciprocal concessions as might reunite the churches of the West. During Sir Henry Wot- ton's remarkable embassy al Venice, he was pur- suaded to go to England, where he was made Dean of Windsor. Finding, perhaps, the Protest- 22 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. that it wa8 assumed by Hobbes as the basis of his system of universal servitude.- The di- vine right of kingly government was a princi- ple very little known, till it was inculcated in the writings of English court divines after the apoession of the Stuarts. The purpose of' Mr. Locke's work did not lead him to inquire more anxiously into the solidity of these uni- versally received principles'; ,nor were there at the time any circumstances, in the cpndi- tion of the country, which could suggest- to hjs mind the necessity of qualifying their application. His object, as he says himself^ was " to establish the throne hi, our great Restorer, our present King William ; tomalse good his title in the consent of the people, which, b^ing.the only one of, all lawful go- vernments, he has more fully and clearly than any prince in Christendom ; and to jus-, tify to the- world the people of England, whose loVe of their just and natural rights, with theirresolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the very brink of slavery and ruin." It was essential to his purpose to be exact in his more particular observations : that part of his work is, ac- cordingly, remarkable for general caution, and I every where bears marks of his own considerate mind. By calling William "a Restorer/' he clearly .points out the charac- teristic principle of the Revolution ; and suf- ficiently shows that he did not consider it as intended to introduce novelties, but to defend or recover the -ancient laws 'and lib- erties of the kingdom. In enumerating cases which justify resistance, h^ confines himself, almost as cautiously as the Bill of Rights, to the grievances actually suffered under the late reign : and where he' cjistinguishes be- tween a dissolution of government and a dis- solution of society, it is manifestly his object to guard against those inferences whicli would have rendered the Revolution a source of an- archy, instead of being' the parent of order and secupty. In one instance only^ that of taxation, wjfiere.he may be thought to have introduced subtle, and doubtful speculations into a matter altogether practical, his purpose was to discover an immovable foundation for that ancient principle of renderi'iig the ' government dependent on the representatives of the people for pecuniary supply, which first established the English Constitution ; which irnproved and strengthened it in a course of ages ; and which, at the Revolution, finally triumphed over the conspiracy of the Stuart princes. If he be ever mistaken in his premises, his conclusions at least are, in this part of his work, equally just, generous, and prudent. Whatever charge of haste or mac- ants moreinflexible than lie e,\pected, he returned to Rome, possibly with tjie hope of tnore success in that quarter. But, though he publicly abjured hia errors, he was soon, in consequence of some free language in conversation, thrown into a dun- geon, where he died. Hiu own writings are for- gotten; but mankind are indebted to him for the admirable history of the Council of Trent by Fa- ther Paul, of which he brought the MSS. with him 10 London. curacy may be brought against his abstract principles, he thoroughly weighs, and mature- ly considers the practical results. Those who consider his moderate plan of Parliamentary Reform as at variance with his theory of government, may perceive, even- in this re- pugnance, whether real or apparent, a new indication of those dispositions which ex- posed him rather to the reproach of being an inconsistent reasoner, than to that of .being a dangerous politician. In such works, how- ever, the nature of the subject has, in some degree, obliged most men of sense to treat it with considerable regard to consequences; though there are memorable and unfortuni^ib examples of an opposite tendency. The metaphysical object of the Essay on Human Understanding, .therefore, illustrates the natural bent of the' author's geiiius more forcibly than those' writings which are con-' nected with the business and interests of men. The reasonable admirers of Mr. Locke would hav6 pardoned Mr. Stewart, if he had pro- nounced more decisively, that the first book of that work is inferior to the others ; and we have satisfactory proof that it was so considered by -the author himself, who, in the abridgment of the Essay which he pub- lished in Leclerc's Review, omits it altoge- ther, as intended only to obviate the preju- dices of some philosophers againsf the more iiriportaint contents of his work.* It must be owned, that the very terms " innate ideas" and "innate principles," together with the division of the latter into " speculative and practical," are not "oilly vague, but equivo- cal ; that they are capable of different senses; and that they are not always employed in the same sense throughout this discussion. iSfay, it will be found very difficult, after the most careful perusal of Mr. Locke's first book, to state tne question in dispute clearly and shortly, in lahgiiage so strictly philoso- phical as to be free from any hypothesis. As the antagonists chieffy contemplated by Mr. Locke were the followers of Descartes, perhaps the, only proposition for which he must necessarily be neld to contend was, that the mind has no ideas which do not arise from impressions on the senses, or from -re- flections on our own thoughts and feelings. But it is certain, that he sometimes appears to contend for much more than this proposi- tion ; that he has generally been understood in a larger sense ; and that, thus interpreted, his doctrine is not irreconcilable to those philosophical systems with which it has been supposed to be most at variance. These general remarks may be illustrated by a Reference to some of those ideas which are more general and important, and seem * " J'ai tache d'abovd de prouver que notre es- prit est au commencement ce qu'on appelle un tabula rasa, c'esi-a-dire, sans idees et sans con- noissancea. . Mais conime ce n'a eie que pour de- truire les prejuges de quelcjues philosophes, j'ai cru q,ne dans ce petit abr^e de mes principes, je de-vois passer toutes les disputes preliminaires qui composent le livre premier." Bibliotheque Uni- l verselle, Janv. 1688 ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS OF BACON AND LOCKE. 23 more dark than any others ; — perhaps only because we seek in them for what is not to be found in any of the most simple elements of hilman knowledge. The nature of our notion of space, and more espeoially of that of time, seems to form one of the mysteries of our intellectual being. Neither of these notions can be conceived separately. Nothing outward can be conceived without space; for it is space which gives oufness.to objects, or renders them capable of being conceived as outward. Nothing can be conceived to existj without conceiving some time in which it exists. Thought and feeling may be con- ceived, without at the same time concjeiving space ; but no operation of mind can be re- called which does not suggest the conception of a portion of time, in which such mental operation is performed. Both these ideas are so clear that they cannot be illustrated, and so simple that they cannot be defined : nor indeed is it possible,, by the use of any words, to advance a single step towards ren- dering them more, or otherwise intelligible than the lessons of Nature have already made them. The metaphysician knows no more of either than the rustic. If we confine ourselves merely to a statement of- the facts which we discover by experience concerning these ideas, we shall find them reducible, as has just been intimated, to the following; — namely, that they are simple ; that neither space nor time can be conceived without some other conception ; that the idea of space always attends that of every outward object ; and that the idea of time enters into every idea which the mind of man is capable of forming. Time cannot be conceived sepa- rately from something else ; nor can any thing else be conceived separately from time. If we are asked whether the idea of time be inna:te, the only proper answer consists' in the statement of the fact, that it never arises in the human mind otherwise than as the concomitant of some other perception ; and that thus understood, it is not innate, since it is always directly or indirectly occasioned by some actiofi on the senses. Various modes of e.\pressing these facts haye been adopted by different philosophers, according to the variety of their technical language. By Kant, space is said to be the form of our per- ceptive faculty, as applied to outward ob- jects ; and time is called the form of the same faculty, as it regards our mental ope- rations : by Mr. Stewart, these ideas are con- sidered "as suggested to the understanding"* by sensation or reflection, though, according to hini, ■' the mind is not directly and imme- diately /urJit'sAcd " with such ideas, either by sensation or reflection : and, by a late emi- nent metaphysician,t they were regarded as perceptions, in the nature of those' arising from the senfees, of which the one is attend- ant on the idea of every outward object, and the other concomitant with the consciousness * Philosophical Essays, essay i. chap. 2. T Mr. Thomas Wedgwood ; see Life of Mack- intosh, vol. i. p. 289. of every mental operation. Each of these modes of expression has its own advantages. The first mode brings forward the univer- sality and necessity of these two notions ; the second most strongly marks thehe very gen- eral indisposition among metaphysicians to acquiesce in any mere fact as the result of their inquiries, and to make vain- exertions in pursuit of a.n explanation of it, without recollecting that the explanation must always consist of another fact, which must either equally require another ,-explanation, or be equally independent of it. There is a sort of sullen reluctance to be satisfied with ul- timalp facts, which has kept its ground in the theory of the human mind long after it has been banished from all other sciences.. Phi- losophers are, in this province, often led to waste their strength in attempts to find out what supports the foundation ; and, in these efforts to prove firstjprinciples, they inevita- bly find that their proof must contain an as- sumption of the thing to be proved, and that their argument must return to the point from which it set Out. Menial philosophy can consist ol nothing but facts; and it is at least as vain to. inquire into the cause of thought, as into the cause of attraction. What the number and nature of the ultimate facts respecting mind may be, is a question which can only be deter- mined by experience! and it is of the ut- most importance not to allow their arbitJ-ary multiplication,, which enables some indivi- duals to impose on us iheii- own erroneous or uncertain speculations as the fundamental principles of human knowledge. No gene- ral criterion haS hitherto been offered, by which these last principles may be distin- guished from all other propositions. Perhaps - a practical standard of some convenience would be, that all reasoncrs should be required to adnrit every principle of which the denial renders reasoning iinpossible. This is only to require that a man\ should admit, in general teitns, those principles which he must as- sume in every particular argument, and which he has assumed in every argument which he has employed against their existence. It is, in other words, to require that a disputant shall not contradict himself; for every argu- mentagainst the fundamental laws of thought absolutely assumes their existence in the premises, while it totally denies it in the conclusion. Whether it be. among the ultimate facts in human nature, that the mind is disposed or determined , to assent to some propositions, and to reject others, when they are first sub- mitted to its judgment, vrithout inferring their tiulh or fgilsehood from any process of reasoning, is manifestly as much a question of mere experience as any other which re- lates to our mental constitution. It is certain that such inherent inclinations may be con- ceived, without supposing the ideas of which the propositions are composed to be, in any sense) Annate'; if, indeed, that unfortunate word, be capable of being reduced by defini- tion to tiny fix^d meaning. ' " Innate," says Lord,^ Shaftesbury, "is the word Mr. Locke pooiJy plays with : the right wojd, though less used,.' is connate. The question is not about the time when the ideas enter the mind, but, whether the constitution of man he such, as at some time or other (nOr matter when), the ideas wiU not necessarily spring up in him." These are the words of Lord Shaftesbury in his Letters, which, not being printed in any edition of the Characteristics, are less known than they ought to be ; though, in them, the fine genius and generous prin- ciples of the write^ are less hid by occasional affectation of style, than iii any other of his writings.* The above observations apply with still greater force to what Mr. Locke calls "prac- tical principles." Here, indeed, he contra- dicts himself; for, having built one of his chief.arguments against other speculative or practical principles, on what he thinks the incapacity of the majority of mankind to en- tertain those very abstract ideas, of m hich these principles, if innate, would imply the presence in every mind, he very inConsistentr * Dr. Lee, an antago'niat of Mr. Locke, has staled ihe qucsliort of innate ideas more fully than Shaftesbury, or even Leibnitz : he has also antici- pated some of the reasonings of Buffier and Reid. — Lee's Notes on Locke, lolio, London, 1702., ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS OF BACON AND LOCKE. 25 ly admits the existence of one innate practi- cal principle, — " a desire of happiness, and an aversion to, misery,"* without considering that happiness and misery are also abstract terms, which excite very indistinct concep- tions in the minds of "a great part of man- kind." It would be easy also to show, if' this were a proper place, that the desire of happi- ness, so far from being an innate, is not even an original principle; that it presupposes the existence of all those particular appetites and desires of which the gratification is plea- sure, and also the exercise of that deliberate reason which habitually calamines how far each gratificatiofi, in all its consequences, in- creases or diminishes that sum of enjoyment which constitutes happiness. Jf that subject could be now fully treated, it would appear that this error of Mr. Locke, or another equally great, that we have only one practical principle, -pthe desire of pleasure, — is the root of most false theories of morals; and that it is also the source of many mistaken speculation's on the important subjects of govetnraent and education, which at this moment mislead the friends of human im- provement, and strengthen the arms of its enemies. But morals fell only incidentally under the consideration of Mr. Locke; and his errors on that greatest of all sciences were the prevalent opinions of his age, which can- not be justly called the p.rinciples of Hobbes, though that e.\lraordinary man had alone the boldness to exhibit, these principles in con- nexion with their odious but- strictly logical consequences. The e.xaggerations of this first book, ,how- ever, afibrd a new proof of the author's steady reg-ard to the higl;iest interests of man- kind. He justly considered' the free exercise of reason as the highest of these, and that on the security of which all the others de- pend. The circumstances of his life rendered it a long warfare against the enemies of freedom in philosophising, freedpm in wor- ship, and. freedom from every political re- straint which necessity did not justify! In his noble zeal for liberty of thought, he dreaded the tendency of a doctrine which might "gradually prepare mankind to swal- low that for an innate principle which may serve his purpose vvhoteacheth the'm."t He- may well be excused,' if, in the ardour of his generous conflict, he sometimes carried be- yond the bounds of calm and neutral reason his repugnance to doctrines which, as they were tlien generally explained, he justly re- garded as capable of being employed to shelter absurdity from detection, to stop the progress of free inquiry, and- to subject the general reason to the authority of a few in^ dividuals. Every error of Mr. Locke in speculation may be traced to the influence of some virtue ; — at least every error except some of the erroneous opinions generally re- ceived in his age, which, with a sort of pas- * Essay on Human Understanding, book i. chap. 3. § 3. t Chap. 4. 5 24. sive acquiescence, he suffered to retain their place in his mind. It is with the Second book that the Essay on the Human Understanding properly be- gins; and this book is the first ooifciderable contribution in modern times towards the experimental* philosophy of the human mind. The road was pointed out by Baconj and, by excluding the fallacious analogies ot thought to outward appearance, Descartes may be said to have marked out the limits of the proper field of inquiry. But, before Locke, there was no example in intellectual philosophy of ap aftiple enumeration of facts, collected and arranged for the express pur- pose of legitimate generalization. He him- self tells us, that his purpose was, " in a plain historical method, to give an account of the ways by which our understanding comes to attain those notions of things we have." In more modern -phraseology, this would be called an attempt to ascertain, by observa- tion, the most general facts relating to' the origin of human knowledge. There is some- thing in the plai-nness, and even homeliness of Locke's language, which strongly indicates his very clear conception, that experience must be his sole guide, and his unwilling- ness, by the use of scholastic language, to imitate the example of those who make a show of explaining facts, while in reality they only " darken , counsel by words without knowledge." He is content to collect the laws of. thought, as he would have collected those of any other object of physical know- ledge, from observation alone. He seldom embarrasses himself with physiological hy- pothesis,! or wastes his strength on those * This word "experimental," has the defect of not appearing to comprehend the knowledge which flows from observation, as well as that which is dbtained by exjierime?ii. The German word " em- pirical," is oppHed to all theinformaiion which ex- perience affords ; but it is in onr language degraded by another application. I therefore must use "experimental" in* a larger sense than its ety- mology warrants. t /^ stronger proof.can hardly be required than the following sentence, of his freedom from phy- siological prejudice. " This laying up of our ideas in the repository of the inemory, signifies no more but this, that the mind has the power in many cases to revive perceptions, with another percep- tion annexed to them, that it has. had them be- fore." The same chapter is remarkable for the exquisite,, and almost poetical beauty, of some of iis illustrations. "Ideas quickly fade, and often vanish quiie out of the underslaniling. leaving no more footsteps or remaining characters of them- selves than shadows do flying over a field of corn." — " The ideas, as well as children of our youth, often die btefore us, and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching ; where, though the brass and marble i*main, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the ima- gery moulders away. Pictures drawn in our ininds are laid in fading colours, and, unless some- times refreshed, vanish and disappear," — book ii. chap. 10. This pathetic language must have been inspired by experience ; and, though Locke couid not have been mor^ than fifty-six when he wrote these sentences, it is loo well known that the first decays of memory may be painfully felt loiig be- fore they can be detected by the keenest observer. 26 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. insoluble problems which were then called metaphysical. Though, in the execution of his plan, there are many and great defects, the conception of it is entirely oonformableto the Verulamian method of induction, which, even after the fullest enumeration- of parti- culars, requires a. cautious examination of each subordinate class of phenomena, before we attempt, through a very slowly ascending ' series of generalizations, to soar, to compre- hensive laws. "-Philosophy," asMr.Playfair excellently renders Bacon, " h^s either taken much from a few thingSj ot/ too-little from a great many; and in, both caSes has too nar- row a basis to be of much duration or utility." Or, to use the very words of the Master him- self — " We shall then have reason to hope well pf the sciences, when we rise by con- tinued steps from particulars to inferior axioms, and then to the njiddle, and only at last to, the most general.* It is not so much by an appeal to experience (for some degree of thai appeal is universal), as by the mode of conducting it, that the followers of Bacon' are distinguished from the framers bf hy- potheses." It is one thing ' to borrow from experience just enough to make ^supposition plausible ; it is quite anothei: to take from it all that is necessary to be the foundation of just theory.' In this respect perhapSj more than in any other, the philosophical writings.of Locke are contradistinguished from^ those of Hobbes. The latter saw, with astonishing rapidityof in- tuition sonie of the simplest and most general facts which may be observed in the operations of the understanding; and perhaps no' man ever possessed the same faculty of conveying' his abstract speculations in language of sudh clearness, precision, and force, as to engrave them on the rnind of the reader. But he 4id not wait to examine whether there might not be other facts equally general relating to the intellectual powers ; and he therefore " took too little from a great many things." He fell into the double error of hazily ap- plying his general Laws to the most conipli- cated brocesses of thought, without consider- ing whether these general laws were not themselves limited by other not less compre- hensive laws, and without trying to discover how they were connected with particulars, by a scale of intermediate and secondary laws. This mode of philosophising was well suited to the dogmatic confidence and dipta- torial tone which belonged to the character of the philosopher of Malmsbury, and which enabled him to brave the obloquy attendant on singular and obnoxious opimons. ■ " The plain historical method," on the other hand, chosen by Mr. Locke, produced the natural fruits of caution and modesty; taught him to distrust hasty and singular conclusions; dis- posed hjra, on fit occasions, to entertain a mitigated scepticism; and taught him also the rare courage to make an ingenuous avowal of ignorance. This contrast is one • Novum Organum, lib. i. i civ. of our reasons for doubting whether Locke be much indebted to Hobbes for his specu- lations ; and certainly the mere coincidence of the opinions of two metaphysicians is slender evidence, in , any case^ that either of them has borrowed his opinions from the other. Where the premises are dllferent, and they have reached the same conclusion by differenlf roads, such a coincidence is scarcely any evidence at all. Locke and Hobbes agree ' chiefly on those points in which, except the Cartesians,, all the specu- lators of their age were also agreed. They differ on the most momentous questions,— the sources of knowledge, — the power of ab^ straction, — the nature of 'the will ; on the two last of which subjeils, Locke, by his very failures themselves, evinces a strong repug- nance to the dbctrines of Hobbes. ' They dif- fer not only in all their premises, and many of their conclusions, but in their ipanner of philosophising itself. Locke had no preju- dice which could lead him to imbibe doc- trines from the enemy of liberty and religion. His style, with all its faults, is that of a man who thinks for himself; and an original style is not usually the vehicle of borrowed opin- ions. Few books have contributed more thah Mr. Locke's fissay to rectify prejudice; to undermine established errors; to diffuse a just mode of thinking ; to excite a fearless spirit of inquiry, and yet to contain it within the boundaries which Nature has prescribed to the human understanding. An amend- ment of the general ha,bits of thought is, in most p&rts of knowledge, an object as impor- tant as even the discovery of new truths ; though it is not so palpable, nor in its nature so capable of bein^ estimated by superficial observers. ^ In the mental and moral world, which scarcely admits of any thing which can be called discoveryf thecofrectionofthe intellectual habits is probably the greatest service which can be rendered to Science. In this respect, the merit of Locke is unri- valled. His writings have difiused through- out the civilized world, the love of civil lib- erty and the spirit of toleration and charily in religious differences, with the disposition to reject whatever is obscure, fantastic, or hypothetical in speculation, — to reduce ver- bal disputes to their proper value,-^to aban- don problems which admit of no solution, — to distrust whatever cannot clearly be ex- pressed, — to render theory the simple ex- pression of facts, ^-and to prefer those studies which most directly contribute to human happiness. If Bacon first discovered the rules by which knowledge is improved, Locke has most contributed to make man- kind at large observe them. He has done most, though often by remedies of silent and almost insensible operation, to cure those mental distempers which obstructed the adoption of these rules; and has thus led to that general diffusion of a healthful and vigorous understanding, which is at once the greatest of all improvements, and the ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 27 instrument by which all other progress must be accomplished. He has left to posterity the instructive example of a prudent re- former, and of a philosophy temperate as well as liberal, which spares the feelings of the gpod, and avoids direct hostility with obsti- nate and formidable prejudice. These bene- fits are very slightly counterbalanced by some political doctrines liable to misapplica- tion, and by 'the scepticism of some of his ingenious followers; — an inconvenience to which every philosophical school is eipo^ed, which does not steadily limit its theory to a mere exposition of experience. If Locke made few discoveries, Socrates made none : yet both did more for the improvement of the understanding, and not less for the progress of knowledge, than the authors«of the most brilliant discoveries. Mr. Locke will ever be regarded as one of the great ornaments of the English nation ; and the most distant posterity will speak of him in the language addressed to him by the poet — " O Decus AngliaciE'certe, Luxalteragfentis!"* * Gray, De Principiis Cogitandi. A DISCOURSE ON THE LAW OP NATURE AND NATIONS/ Before I begin a course of .lectures on a science of great extent and importance, I think it my duty to lay before the public the reasons which have induced me to undertake such.a labour, as well as a short account of the nature and objects of the course which I propose to deliver. I have always been un- willing' to waste in unprofitable inactivity that leisure which the first years of my pro- fession usually allow, and which diligent men, even with moderate talentij, might of- ten .employ in a manner neither discreditable to themselves, nor wholly useless to others. Desirous that my own leisure should not be consumed in sloth, I anxiously looked about for some way of filling it up, which might enable me according to the measure of my humble abilities, to contribute somewhat to the stock of general ^sefulnes^. I had long been convinced that public lectures, which have been used in most ages and countries to teach the elements of almost every part of learning, were the most convenient mode in which these elements could be taught; — that they were the best adapted for the im- portant purposes of awakening the attention of the student, of abridging his labours, of guiding hih inquiries, of relieving the tedious- ness of private study, and of impressing on his recollection the principles of a science. I saw no reason why the law of England should be less adapted to this mode of in- struction, or less likely to benefit by it, than * This discourse was the preliminary one of a course of lectures delivered in the hall of Lincoln's Inn during the spring pf the year 1799. From the state of the original MSS. notes of these lectures, in the possession of the editor, it would seem that the lecturer had trusted, with the exception of a few passages prepared in extenso, to his powerful memory tor all the aid that was required beyond what mere catchwords could- supply. — Ed. any gther part of knowledge. A learned gen- tleman, however, had already occupied that ground,* and will, I doubt not, persevere in the useful labour which he has undertaken. On his province it was far from my wish to intrude. It appeared to me that a course of lectures on another science closely con- . nected with all liberal professional studies, and which had long been the subject of my own reading and reflection, might not only prove a most useful introduction to the law of England, but might also become an inter- esting part of general study, and an import- ant branch of the education of those who were not destined for the profession of the law. I was confirmed in my opinion by the assent and approbation of men, whose nameSj if it were becoming to mention them on so slight an occasion, would add authority to truth, and furnish some excuse even for error. Encouraged by their approbation, I resolved without delay to commence the un- dertaking, of which I shall now proceed to give some account ; without interrupting the progress of my discourse by anticipating or answering the remarks of those who may, perhaps, sneer at me for a departure from the usual course of my profession, because I am desirous of employing in a rational and "useful pursuit that leisure, of which the same men would have required no account, if it had been wasted on trifles, or even abused in dissipation. The science which teaches the rights and duties of men and of states, has, in modern times, been called " the law of nature and nations." Under this coinpreherisive title * See" A Syllabus Of Lectures on the Law of England, to be delivered in Lincoln's Inn Hall by M. Nolen, Esq." 28 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. are included' tJie rules of morality, as they prescribe the eoriduct of private men towards each other in all the various relations of hu- man life; as they regulate both the obedi- eijce of citizens to the lavi's, and the authority of the magistrate in- framing laws, and ad- ministering- government ; and as they modify the intercourse of independent common- wealths in peace, and prescribe limits to their hostility in . war. This ' important science comprehends only that part of private ethics which is capable of being reduced to fixed and general riiles. It considers only those general principles of jurisprudence and poli- tics which the wisdom of the lawgiver adapts to the peculiar situation of his own country, and which,the skill of the statesman applies to the more fluctuating aijdinflnitely varying circumstances which/affect its immediate welfare and safety. " For there are in nature certain fountiiins of justice whence all civil laws are derived, but as streams ; and likeas waters do take, tinctures and tastes from th6 soils through which they run, so'do civil laws vary according to the regions and govern- ments where they are planted, though 'they proceed from the same fountains."* On the great questions of morality, of poli- tics, and of municipal law, it is the object of this science to deliver only those. funda- mental truths of which the particular appli- cation is as extensive as the whale private and public conduct, of men ; — to discover those '-fountains of justice," -w-ithout pursu- ing the '• streaijis" through the endless va- riety of their course. But another p3,rt of the subject is to be treated with greater ful-' ness and minuteness of application ; namely, that important branch of it which professes to regulate the relations and intercourse of states, and more especially, (both on account of their greater perfection and their more immediate reference to use), the regulations of that intercourse as they are modified by the usages of the civilized nations of Chris- tendom. Here this science no longer rests on general principles* That province of it which we now' call the " law of nations," has, in many of its parts, acquired among Euro- pean ones much of the precision and cer- tainty of positive law'; and the particulars of that. law are chiefly to-be found in the works of those writers who have treated, the science of which I now speak. It is because they have classed (in a manner which seems peculiar to modern times) theTdutiSs of indi- viduals with those of nations, and established ■i .'A ., their obligation on similar grounds, that the whole science hag been called, " the law of np.ture and nations." Whether this appellation be the happiest that could have been chosen for the science, and by what steps it came to be adopted * Advancement of Learning, book ii. I have not been deterred by some petty incongruity of metaphor from qaoting thia noble sentence. Mr. Hume had, perhaps, thie sentence in his recollec- tion, when he wrote a remarkable passage of his works. See his Essays, vol. ii. p. 352. among our modem moralists and lawyers,* are inquiries, perhaps, of more curiosity than use, and oneS w'hichj if they deseirve any where to be deeply pursued, will-be pursued with more propriety in a 'full ejtairiination of the subject than w'ithin the short limits of an introductory- discourse. Names are, h6w- ever, in a great measure arbitrary; but the distribution of knowledge into its parts, though it may often perhaps be varied with little' disadvantage, yet certainly depends upon some -fixed- principles. The modem method of considering individual and na- tional morality as the subjects of the same scienOej seems to me as convenient and rea- .sonable an arrangement as can be adopted. The same rules of m.orality which hold toge- ther men in families, and which form'families into comihpnwealths, also link together these commonwealths as members of the great so- ciety of mankind. Commonwealths, as well as private men, are liable to injury, and' ca- pable of benefit, from each other; it is, therefore, their iiiterest, . as well as . their duty; to "reverence, to practise, and to en- force those rules of justice which control aiid restrain injury, — which regulate and augment benefit, — which, even in their pre- sent inlperfeot observance, preserve civilized states in a tolerable condition of security from Wrong, and which, if they could be gen- erally obeyed, wOuld esfabhsh, and perma- nently maintain, the well-being of the uni- versal commonwealth of the human race'. It is therefore with justice, that one part of th's science has been called " the natura,! law of individuals," and thb other " the natural law of states;" and it is too obvious to require obsel'vation,t that the application of both these laws, of the former as much as of the latter, is inodified and varied by customs * The learned reader is aware that the "jus rvaturae" and "jus gentium" of the Roman law- yers are phrases of very e Repub. lib. iii. cap. 22. t Ecclesiastical Polity, book i. in the conclusion. t "Age vero urbibus constitutjs, ut fidem co- lere et justitiam retirlere discerent, et aliis parere sua volunlate consueacerent, ac non modd labores excipiendos communis commodi causarSed etiarr vitam amittendam existimarent ; qui tandem fier potuit', nisi homines ea, quae ratione •n^erisnti.t eloquentia persuadere potuissent ?'•" — De Itivent. Rhet. lib. :. cap. 2. c 2 30 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. fraita of their genius. If these grand senti- ments of "the good and fair" have some; tirnes prevented them from delivering the principles of ethics with the nakedness and dryness of science, at least we, must own that they have. chosen tl^e better part,^hat they have preferred virtuous feeling to moral theory, and practical benefit to speculative exactness. Perhaps these wise men may have supposed that the minute dissection and anatomy of Virtue might, to the ill-judg- ing eye, weaken the cha'rm Of h^r beauty. It is not for me to attempt'a theme which has perhaps been exhausted by these great writers. I am indeed much less called upon to display the worth and usefulness of the law of nations, than to vindicate myself from presumption iii attempting a subject which has been already handled by so many rrias- tfers. For the purpose of that vindication it will be necessary to sketch a very short and slight account (for such in this place it must unavoidably be)- of the progress arid present state of the science, and of Jhat succession of able writ-OTS who have; gradually brought it to its present perfeiction. We have no (jreek or Roman treatise re- maining on the law' of nations. From the title of one of the. lost worksof Aristotle, it appears that he composed a treatise on the laws of war,* which, if we had the good for- tune to possess it, would doubtless have am:- ply. satisfied our' curiosity, and. would have taught us both the practice of the- ancient nations and the opinions of their moralists, with that depth and precision which distin- guish the other works of that great philoso- pher. We can now only iipperfectly collect that practice and those opinions from various passages which are scattered over the writ- ings of' phil6sophers, historians, poets, and orators. When the ,time shall arrive f6r a more full consideration of the state of the government and manners of the ancient world, I shall be able, perhaps, .to ofier satis- factory reasons why these enlightened na- tions did not separate from the general pro- vince of ethics that part of morality which regulates the intercourse of states, and erect, it into an independeht science.^ .It would re- quire a long discussion to unfold the various causes which united the modern nations of Eu'rope into a closer society, ^-^'hich linked ihem totrether by the firmest bands of mutual dependence, and which thus, in' process of time, gave to the law that regulated their intercourse, greater importance, higher im- provement, and more binding force. Among these causes, we may enumerate a common extraction, a common veligion, similar man- ners, nistitutigns, and languages; in earlier ages the aiilhovitv of the See of Rome, and the extravagant claims of the infiperial crown ; in latter times the connexions of trade^ the jealousy of power, the refinement of civiliza- tion, the cultivation of science^ and, above all, that general mildness of character and mai> ners which arose from the combined and progressive influence of chivalry, of com- merce, of learning and of religion. Nor must we omit the similarity of those poKtical in-, stitutions whiohf in every couritry that had been overrun- iythe-Gothic conquexors, bore discemible marks (which the revolutions of' succeeding ages heUl obscured, but not ob- literated) of the jude but bold and noble outr" line of liberty that was originally sketched by the hand of these . generous barbaria,ns.- These arid many other causes conspired to- uBite the nations of Europe in a more inti- mate cormexion and a more constant i-nter- course, and, of-consequence, made the regu- lation of their .intercourse more necessary, and the law that was to govern it more im- portant. In proportion as they approached to the conditionof provinces of the same em- pire^ it Tjecame alm'ost as essential thdt Europe should have a precise and compre- hensive code of the law of nations, as that each country s.hould have a system of mu- nicipal law. Thoslaboursof the learned, accordingly, began to be directed to this sub- ject in the sixteenth century, soon after the revival of learning, and after that regular distribution of power and territory vrhich has subsisted, with little variation, until our times. The critical exaniination of these early writers would, perhaps, not be very in- teresting in an extensive work, and it would be unpardonable in a short discourse. It is sufficient to observe that they were all more or less shackled by the barbarous phi- losophy of the schools, an,d that -they were imp^Bded ih their progress by a timorous def- erence for the inferior and technical parts of the Roman law, ■without raising their views to the 'comprehensive principles which will for ever^inspire mankind with veneration for that grand monument of human wisdom . It was only, indeed, in the sixteenth, century that the Roman law was first studied and understood as a, science connected with ,Ro- man history and ,Iiterature, and illustrated by men v^hom Ulpian and Papinian would not have disdained to acknowledge as their suc- cessors.* Among the writers of that age we may perceive the ineffectual attempts, the partial ad-vances, the occasional stieaks of light which always precede great discov- eries, and works that are to mstruct pos- terity. ' The reduction of the law of nations to a system was reserved for Grotius. It was by the advice of Lord Bacon and Peiresc that he undertook this arduous task. He produced a work which we now, indeed, justly deem im- perfect, but which is perhaps the most com- plete that the world has yet owed, at so early a stage in the progress of any science, to the * Cujacius, BrisdoniuB, Hottomannns, &c., &c. — See Gravina Origines Juris Civilis (Lips. 1737), pp. 132—138. Leibnitz, a great mathematician as wtell as philosopher, declares that he knows no- thing which . approaches so near to the method and precision of Geometry as the Roman law.— Op. vol. iv. p. 254. ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. genius and leamingof one man. So great is the uncertainty of posthumous reputation, and BO liable is the fame even of the greatest men to be obscured by tiose new fashions of thinking and. writing which succeed each other so rapidly among polished nations, that Grotius, who filled so large a space in the eye of his contemporaries, is now perhaps known to some of my readers only by name. Yet if we fairly estimate both his- endow- menfsand hisvirtues, we may justly consider him as pne of the most memorable men who have done honour to modern times. He combined the discharge of the most impor- tant duties of active and pubhc life withlthe attainment of that exact arid varioils learning which is generally the portion only of the recluse student. He was distinguished as an advocate and a magistrate, and he com- posed the most valuable works on the law of his own country; he was almost equally celebrated as an historian, a scholar, a poet, and a divine -j—a, disinterested statesman, a philosophical lawyer, a patriot who united moderation with firmness, and a theologian who was taught candour ,by his learning. Unmerited exile .did not damp his patriot- ism; the bitterness of controversy did not extinguish his charity. ' The sagacity of his numerous -and fierce adversaries could not discover a blot on 1^'s character; and in the midst of all the hard trials and galling provo- cations of a turbulent political life, he never once deserted his friends when .they were unfortunate, nor insulted his enemies when they were weak. In times of the most fu- rious civil and religious fiction he preserved his name unspotted, and he knew how to reconcile fidelity to his own party, with moderation towards his opponents. Such was the man who was destined to give a new form to the law of natibns, or ra- ther to create a science, of which only rude sketches and undigested materials were scattered over the writings of those who had gone before hira. By tracing the lg.ws of his country to their principles, he was led to the contemplation of the la.w of nature, which he justly considered as the parent of all mu- nicipal law.* Few wbrks were more cele- brated than that of GrOtius in his ovm days, and in the age which succeeded. It has, however, been the fashion of the last half- century to depreciate his work as a shape- less corapilS-tioiij in which reason lies buried urider a mass of authorities and quotations. This fashion originated among French wits and declaimers, and it has been, I know not for what reason, adopted, though with far greater moderation and decency, by some respectable writers among ourselves. As to those who first used this language, the most candid suppositioii that we can make with respect to them is, that they never read the work; for, if they had not been deterred from the perusal of it by such a formidable * " Proavia juris civilis." De Jure Belli ac Pacis, proleg. v xvi. display of Greek characters, they must soon have discovered that Grotius never quotes on. any subject till he has first appealed to some principles, and often, in my humble opinion, though not always, to tj^ soundest and most rational principles. ■ But another sort of answer is due to some of those* wlio have criticised Grotius, and that answer might be given in the words of Grotius himself.t He was not of such a stu- pid and servile cast of mind, as to quote the opinions of poets or orators, of historians and philosophers, as those of judges, from whose decision there was no appeal. He quotes them, as he. tells us himself, as wit- nesses whose conspiring testimony, mightily strengthened and con finned by their discorcl- ance on almost every other subject, is a conclusive propf of the unanimity of the whole human face on the great rules of duty and the -fundamental principles of morals. On such matters, poets and orators are the most unexceptionable of all witnesses; for they address themselves to the general feel- ings and sympathies of mankind ; they are neither .warped by system, nor perverted by sophistry ; they can attain none of their ob- jects, they can' neither .please hox persuade, if they dwell on moral sentiments not in uni^ son with those of their readers. No system of moral philosophy can surely disregard the general feelings of human nature and the according judgment of all ages and nations. But where are these feelings and that judg- ment recorded -and preserved 1 In those very writings which Grotius is gravely blamed for having quoted. The usages and laws of nations, the events of history, the opinions of philosophers, the sentiments of orators and poets, as well as the observation of common life, are, in truth, the materials out of which the science of morality is formed ; and those who neglect them are justly charge- able with a vain attempt tp phifosophise without regard to fact and experience, — the sole foundation of all true philosophy. If this were merely an objection of taste, I should be willing" to allow that Grotius has indeed poured forth his learning with a pro- fusion that sometimes rather encumbers than adorns his work, and which is not always necessary to the illustration of his subject. Yet, even in making that concession, I should rather yield to the. taste of others than speak from my oym feelings. I own that such rich- ness and splendour of literature have apower- ful charm for me. They fill my mind with an endless variety of delightful recollections and associations. They relieve the under- standing in its progress through a vast science, by calling up the memory of great men and of interesting events. By this means we see the trujhs of morality clothed with all the eloquence, — not that could be produced hy the powers of one man,— ^bul that could be bestowed on them by the col- * Dr.. Paley-, Principles of Moral and Polilical Philosophy, pref. pp. xiv, xv. t De Jure Belli, proleg. ^ 40. 32 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. leotive- genius of the World. Even Virtue and Wisdpm themselves acquire neve majesty in my eyes, when T thus see all the great masters of thinking and writing called to- gether, as it were, from all times and couut tries, to do them homage, and to appear in their train. But this is no place for discussions of taste, and I am ver^ ready to own that mine msiy becorrupted. The work of Grotius is liable to a more serious objection; though I do not recollect that it has ever been made. His method is inconvenient and unscientific : he has inverted the natural order.. That natural order undoubtedly dictates, that we should first search for the original principles, of the science in human nature ; then apply them to the regulation of the conduct of indivi- duals; and lastly, employ them for the decision, of those difficult and complicated questions that arise whh- respect to the intercourse of nations. But Grotius hafe chosen the re- verse of this method. H^ begins with the consideration of the states of peace and war, arid he exarafnes origihal principles oAly pC; casionally and incidentally, as they grow out of, the questions which he is called upon' to decide. It is a necessary consequence of this disorderly method, — which exhibts the ele- ments of the science in the form of scattered digressions, that he seldom ernploys sufficient discu's.sion on these fundamental truthsj and never in the place where such a discussion would, be most instructive to the reader' This defect in the plan of Grotius was per- ceived and supplied by Puffendorff, who re- stored naturallaw to that superiority which belonged to it, and, with great propriety, trealv' ed the law of nations as only one main branch of the parent'stock. Without the genius of his master, and with vqry inferior learning, he has yet^treated this subject with sound sense, with clear mlethod,with extensive and accurate knowledge, and with a. copious- ness of detail sometimes indeed tedious, but always instructive and satisfactory. His work will- be always studied by those who spare' no labour to, acquire a deep knowledge, of the subject ; but it will, in our times, I fear^ be oftener found on the shelf th^an on the desk of the general student. In the time of Mr. Locke it was considered as the manual of those who "were intended for active life; but in the present age, I-believe it will be found that men of business are too rpuchoccu- pied,^-men of letters are too fastidious, and men of the w>orId too indolent, for the study or even the perusal of siioh works. Far be it from me to derogate' from the real and great merit of so useful a writer as Puffen- dorff. His treatise is a mine in which all his successors milst dig. I only presume to sug- gest, that a book so prolix, and so utterly void of all the attractions of composition, is likely to repel many readers who are interested in its subject, and who might perhaps be dis- posed to acquire some knowledge of the principles of public law. Many other circumstances might be men- tioned, which conspire to prove that neither of the great works of which I have spoken, has superseded the necessity of a new at- tempt to lay before the public a system' of the law of nations. Tlie language of Science is so completely changed since both these' woiks were written, that whoever was now to employ their terms in his moral reasonings would 'be almost unintelhgibfe to some of his hearers or readers, — and to some among them, too, who are neither ill qualified, ndf ill disposed, to study such subjects with con- siderable adva,!)tage to themselves. The learned,indeedj well know how little novelty or variety ie to be found in scientific disputes. Jhe samfe truths and Jhe same errors have been repeated from, age to age, with'little va- riation but in the langiiage ; and novelty of expression is often mistaken^ by the ignorant for substantial discovery. Perhaps, too, very nearly the -same portiori of genius and judg- rrient has been exerted in most of the various forms under which science has been culti- vated at different periods of history. The superiority of those writers who contir^ue to be read, perhaps ofteii consists chiefly in taste, in. prudence, in a happy choice of sub- ject, in a fayourable moment, in an agreeable styfe,' in the' good fortune of a prevalent lan- guage, or in other advantages which are rfther accidental, or are the result rather of the secondary, than of the highest,faculties of Iha mind. But these reflections, while they moderate the pride of invention, aiid dispel the extravagant conceit, of superior illumination,, yet serve to prove the use, and indeed the necessity, of composing, from time to time, new systems of science ada'pt- "ed to the opiriions and language of each suc- ceeding peridd. ' Every age rhust be taught in its Own language. If aman were now lo begin a discourse on ethics vrith an account of the "moral eritities" of Pufl'ehdorfl",* he would-speak an unknown tongue. It is hot, however, alone as a'lnere trans- lation of former writers into modern language ■ that a new system of public law seems iikely to be usefuL The age "in which we live possesses many advantages which are pe- culiarly favourable to such an undertaki^ig. Since the composition of the great works of Grotius and Puflendorff, a more modest, simple, and intelligible philosophy has been introduced into the schools; which has' in- deed bebn grossly abused by' sophists, but which, from the lime of Locke, has been cultivated and improved by a succession of disciples worthy of their illustrious master. We are thus enabled to discuss with pre- cision, and to explain with clearness, the principles qf the science of human nature, • r do not mean to i'mpeach the soundness of nny part of Puffendorff's reasoning founded on moral entities : it may be- explained in a manner consistent wiih the most just philoaophy. He used, as every writer must do, the scientific language of his o^vn time, I only assert that, to those who flre unacquainted vvilh ahcient systems, his philo- sophical vocabulary ie obsolete and unintellifrlblo. ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF NATUEE AND NATIONS. 33 which are in themselves on a level with the capacity of every man of good sense, and ■which only appeared to be abstruse from th,e unprofitable subtleties with which they were loaded, and the barbarous jargon in which they were expressed. The deepest doctrines of morality have since that time been treated in the perspicuous and pofiular style, and with ^ome degree of the beauty and elo- quence of the ancient moralists. That phi- losophy on which are founded the principles of our duty, if it has not become more cer- tain (for morality admits no discoveries), is at least less "harsh and crabbed," less ob- scure and haughty in its language, and less forbidding and disgusting in its appearance,, than in the days of our ancestors. If this progress of leaning towards popularity has engendered (as it must be owned that it has) a multitude of superficial and most mis- chievous sciolists, the antidote must, come from the eame^ quarter with the disease: popular reason can alone correct popular sophistry. Nor is this the only advantage which a writer of the present age would possess over the celebrated jurists of the last' century. Since that time vast additions have been made to the stock of our knowledge of hu- man nature. Many dark periods of history have since been explored : many hitherto unknown regions of the globe have been visited and described by travellers and navi- gators not less intelligent than intrepid. We may be said to stand at the confluence of the greatest number of streamsof knowledge flowing from the most distant sources that eVer met at one point. ' We are not confined, as the learned of the last age generally were, to the history of those reriowned nations who are our masters in literature. We can bring before us man in a lower and more abject condition than any in which he was ever before seen. The records have been partly opened to us of those mighty empires of Asia* where the beginnings of civilization are lost in the darkness of an unfathomable antiquity. We can make human society pass in review before our mind, from the brutal and helpless barbarism of Terra del Fuego, and the mild and voluptuous savages of Otaheite, to the tame, but ancient and immovable civilization of China, which be- stows its own arts on every successive race * I cannot prevail on myself to pass over tViis subject without paying my humble tribute. to the memory of Sir William .Tones, who has laboured so successfully in Oriental literature ; whose fine genius, pure taste, unwearied industry, unrivalled and almost prodigious variety of acquirements, — not to speak of his amiable manners, and spotless integrity, — must fill every one who cultivates or admires letters with reverence, tinged with a me- lancholy which the recollection of his recpnt death is so well adapted to inspire. I hope I shall be pardoned if I add my applause to the genius and leariiing of Mr. Maurice, who treads in the steps of his illustrious friend, and who has bewailed his death in a strain of genuine and beautiful poetry, not unworthy of happier periods of our English iiterstut^. of conquerors,— to the meek and servile na- tives of Hindostan, who preserve their inge- nuity, their skill, and their science, through a long series of ages, under the yoke of foreign tyrants, — and to the gt;osa and in- corrigible rudeness of the Ottomans,, incapa- ble of improvement, and extingiiishing the •remains of civilization among their unhappy subjects, once the most ingenious nations of the earth. We can exaniine almost every imaginable variety in the character, man- ners, 6pinions, feelings, prejudices, apd in- stitutions of mankind, into -which they can be thrown, either by the rudeness of barba- rism, of by the capricious corruptions of re- finement, or by those innumerable combina- tions of circumstances, which, both in these opposite conditions,, and in all the interme- diate stages between them, influence or direct the course of human affairs. History, if I may be allowed the expression, is now a vast museum, in which specimens of every variety of human nature may be studied. From the,se great accessions to knowledge, ,lawgivers and sta'tesmen, but, above all, moralists and political philosophers, may reap the most important instruction. They may plainly discover in all the useful and beautiful variety of governments and insti- tutions, and under all the fantastic multitude of usages and rites which have prevailed among men, the same fundamental, compre- hensive truths, the sacred master-principles which are the guardians of human society, recognised and revered (with few and slight exceptions) by every nation upon earth, and uniformly taught (with still fewer excep- tions) by a succession of wise men from the flrst dawn of specula.tion to the present mo- ment. The exceptions, few as they are, will, on more reflection, be found rather apparent than real. If we could raise ourselves to that height from which we ought to survey so vast a subject, these_ exceptions would altogether vanish ; the brutality of a handful of savages would disappear in the immense prospect of human nature, and the murmurs of a few licentious sophists vrould not ascend to break the general harmony. This consent of mankind in first principles, and this end- less variety in their application, which is one among many valuable truths which we may collect from our present extensive acquaint- ance with the history of man. is itself of vast importance. Much of the majesty and au- thority of virtue is derived from their consent, and almost the whole of practical wisdom is founded on their variety. What former age could have supplied lacts for such a work as that of Montesquieu ? He indeed has been, perhaps justly, charged with abusing this advantage, by the undis- tinguishing adoption of the narratives of travellers of very diffefent degrees of accu- racy and veracity. But if we reluctantly confess the justness of this objection ; if we are compelled to own that he exaggerates the influence of climate, — that he ascribes too much to the foresight and forming "kill 34 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. of legislators, and far too little to time and circumstances, in the growth of political con- stitutions,— -that the substantial character and essential differences of goyernnients are often lost and confounded in his technical language and arrangement,— that he often bends the free and irregular outline of nature to the irpposing but fallacious geometrioal' regularity of system, — that he has chosen a style of affected alDruptness, sententious- ness, and vivacity, ill suited to the gravity of his subject ; — after all these concessions (for his fame is large enough to spare many concessions), the Spirit of Laws will stillTe- main not only one of the most solid and du- rable monuments of the powers of the hu- man mind, but a striking evidence of the inestimable advantages which political philo- sophy may receive from a wide survey of all the various conditions of human society. In the present century a slow and silpnt, but very substantial, mitigation has; taken place in the practice of war; and in. propor- tion as that mitigated practice has received the sanction of, time, it is raised from' the rank of mere usage,, and becOrnes part of the law of nations. Whoever will' compare our pre- sent modes of warfare with the ' system of Grotius* will clearly discern the immense iinprovements which have taken place in that respect since the publication of his work, during a period, perhaps in every point of view the happiest to be found in-,the his- tory of the world. In the same period many important points of public law- have been the subject of contest both by argument and by arms, of which we find either no mention, or very obscure traces, in the history of prece- ding times. There are other circumstances to which I allude withhe^itationand reluctance, th6ugh it must be owned that they afford to a writer of this "age some degree of unfortunate qind deplorable advantage over his predecessors. Recent events hive accumulated more terri- ble practical ins^^ruotioti on every subject of politics than could have be6n in other times acquired by. the experience of ages. Men's wit. sharpened by their passions has penetra- ted to the bottom of almost ^11 political ques- tions. Even the fundamental rule&of moral- ity themselves have, for the first time, unfor- tunately for mankind, become the subject of doubt and discussion. I shall consider it as my duty to abstain from all mention of these awful events, and of these f^ital controversies. But the niind of that man must indeed be in- curious and indocile, who has either over- looked all these things, or reaped no instruc- tion from the contemplation of them. ' From these reflections it appears, that, since the composition of those two great works on the law of nature and nations which continue to be the classical and stand- ard works on that subject, we have gained both more convenient instruments of reason- * Especially those chapters of ihe third book,' riiititletl, " Temperamentum Circa Captivo'e," &c. ing and more extensive materials for science, — that the code of war has been enlarged and improved,-r-that new questions have been practically decided, — and that, new con- ■ t^oversies have arisen regarding the' inter- cour.se of independent states, and the first principles of morality and civil goveriiment. , Some readers may, however, think that in these observations which I^ffer, to e.\cuse the presumption of my own attempt, I have oitiitted the mention of later .writers, to whom some part of the remarks is not jtistly applicable. But, perhaps, further considefa- tion will acquit me in the judgment of such readers. Writers on particular questions of public law are not within the scope of my observations. They have furnished ,the most valuable materials; but I speak only of a system. To the large work of WolfBus, the observations which I have made on Puffen- dorff as a book ior general use, will surfely apply with tenfold force. His abridger, 'Vat- tel,. deserves, indeed, eonsiderabte praise : he is a very ingenious, clear, elegant, arid useful writer. But he only considers one part of this extensive subject, — namely, the law of na- tions, strictly so called ; and I eamiot help thinking, that, even in this department of the science, he has adopted some doubtful and dangerous pi-inciples, — not to mention his constant deficiency in that fulness of example and illustration, which so much embellishes and strengthens reason. It- is hardly neces- sary to take any notice of the text-book of Heineccius, the best writer of elementary books with whom I am acquainte(i on any subject. Burlamaqui is an author of superior merit; but he confines himself too much to the gerleral principles of niorality and politics, to require much observation from me m this place. The same reason will excuse me for passing over in silence the. works of many philosophers and moralists, to whom, in the course of my proposed lectures, I shall owe and confess the greatest obligations ; and it might perhaps deliver me from the neces- sity of speaking of the work of Dr. Paley, if I were not desirous of this public opportu- nity of pi;ofessing my gratitude for the in- struction and pleasure' which I have received from that excellent wi'iter, who possesses, in so eminent a degree, those invaluable quali- ties of a moralist. ^^ood sense, caution, sobriety, and perpetual reference to conve- nience and practice; and who certainly is thought less original than he really is, merely because his taste and modesty have led hiin to disdaiil the ostentation of novelty, and be- cause he generally employs more art to blend his own argurpents with the body of received opinions (so as that they are scarce to be distinguished), than other men in the pursuit of a transient popularity, have exert- ed to disguise the most miserable common- places in the shape of paradox. No writer since the time of Grotius, of Puffendorff, and of Wolf, has combined an investigation of the principles of natural and public law, with a full application of these ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 35 principles to particular cases ; and in these circumstances, I trust, it will not be deemed extravagant ppesumption in me to hope that I shall be able to exhibit a view of this science, which shall, at least, be more intelligible and attractive to students, than the learned trea- tises of these celebrated men. I shall now proceed to state' the general plan and sub- jects of the lectures in which I am to make this attempt. I. The being whose actions the law of nature professes to regulate, .is man. It is on the knowledge of his nature that the "science of his duly must be founded.* It is impossible to approach the threshold of moral philosophy without a previous examination of the faculties and habits of the human mind. Let no reader be repelled from this examination by the odious and terrible name of "metaphysics;" for it is, in truth, nothing more than the employment of good sense, in observing our own thoughts,- feelings, and actions;; and when the faqts which s^re thus observed are expressed, as they ought to be, in plain language, it is, perhaps, above all other sciences, most on a level with the capacity and information of the generality of' thinlfing men. When it is thus expressed, it requires no previous qualificationj but "a sounp judgment perfectly to comprehend it ; and those who w^ap it up in a technical and mysterious jargon, always give us, strong reason to suspect that they are not philoso- phers, but impostors. Whoever thoroughly understands such a science, must be able to teach it plainly to all ttien of common sense. The proposed course will therefore open with a very short, and, I hope, a very simple and intelligible account of the powers and operations of the human mind. Ry this plain statement of facts, it will not be diffi- cult to decide many celebrated, though frivo- lous and merely verbal, controversies, which have long amused the leisure of the school's, and which owe both their fame .and their existence to the ambiguous obscurity of scholastic language. It will, for example, only require an appeal to every man's ex- perience, that we often act purely from a regard to the happiness of others, and are therefore social beings ; and it is not neces- sary to be a' consumniate judge of the de- ceptions-of language, to despise the sophis- tical trifler, who tells us, that, because we experience a gratification in oar benevolent actions, we «.re therefore exclusively and uniformly selfish. A correct examination of facts will lead us to discover that quality which is common to all virtuous actions, and which distinguishes them from those which are vicious and criminal. But we shall see that it is necessary for man to be governed, not by his own transient and hasty opinion upon the tendency of every particular action, but by those fixed and unalterable rules, which are the joint result of the impartial * " Natura emm juris explicanda est nobis, eaque ab hominis repfetenda natura." — De Leg. iib. u c. & judgment, the natural feelings, and the em- bodied experience of mankind. The autho- rity of these rules is, indeed, founded only on their tendency to promote private and pu-blie welfare; but the morality ot actions will appear solely to consist in their corres- pondence with the rule. By the help of this obvious distinction we shall vindicate a just theory, which, far from being modern, is, in fact, as ancient as philosophy, both from plausible objections, and fVom the odious imput9.tion of Supporting thoste absurd and monstrous systems which have- been built upon it. Beneficial tendency is the founda- tion of iules, and the criterion by which habits and sentiments are to be tried : but it is neither the iftimediate standard, nor can it ever be the prinbipal motive of action. An action to be completely virtuous, must accord with moral rules, and must ilow from our natural feelings and afiections, moderated, matured, and improved into steady habits of right conduct.'* Without, however, dwelling longer on subjects which cannot be clearly stated, unless they are fully unfolded, I content myself \viik observing, that it shall be my object, in this preliminary, but most important, part of the course, to lay the foundations of morality so deeply m hu- man nature, as to satisfy the coldest inquirer; and, at the same time, to vindicate the para- mount authority of the rules Of our duty, at air times, and in all places, over all opinions of interest and speculatiofes of benefit, so.,ex- tensively, so universally, and so inviolably, as may well justify the grandest and the most apparently extravagant effusions ofmo- ral enthusiasm. If, notwithstanding all my endeavours to deliver these doctrines with the utmost simplicity, any of my auditors should still reproach me for introducing such abstruse matters, I must shelter myself be- hind the authority of the wisest of mien. " If they (the ancient moralists), before they had come to the popular and received, notions of virtue and vice, had staid a little longer upon the inquiry concerning the roots of good and evil, they had given, iti my opinion, a great light to that which followed ; and especially if they had consulted with nature, they had -made their doctrines less, prolix, and more profound."t What Lord Bacon desired for the mere gratification of scientific curiosity, the welfare of mankind now imperiously de- mands. Shallow systems of metaphysics have given .birth to a brood of abominable and pestilential paradoxes, which nothing but a more profound philosophy can destroy. However we may, perhaps, lament the neces- sity of discussions which may shake the ha- bitual reverence of some men for those rules .which it is the chief interest Of all men to practise, \ye have now no choice left. We must either dispute, or abandon the ground. Undistinguishing and unmerited invectives * " Est autem virtus nihil alind, quam in so perfects mqae ad summum perducta nalura." Ibid. lib. i. c. 8. ■t Advancement of Learning, boob ii 36 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. against philosophy will only ha'tden sophists and their, disciples in the insolent conceit, that they are in possession of an undisputed superiority of reason; and that their antago- nists have no arms to employ against them, but those of popular declamation. Let us not for a moment even appear to suppose, that philosophical truth and human happiness are so irreconcilably at variance. I cannot express my opinion on this subject so weH as in the words of a most valuable, though ge- nerally neglected writer: "The science of abstruse learning, wlien completely attain- ed, is like Achilles' spear, that healed the wounds it had made before; 'so, this' know- ledge'serves to repair the damage itself had occasioned, and this perhaps is all that it. is good for ; it casts no additional light iipon the paths of life, but disperses the clouds with whifch it had overspread them before; Jt ad- vances not the traveller one step in his jour- ney, but conducts hira back again to the spot from whence he wandered. Thus the land of philosophy consists partly Of aft open cham- paign country, passable by ;every common understanding, and partly of a range of woods, tmverpable only by the speculative, and where they too 'frequently delight to amuse them- selves. Since then we shall be obliged to make incursions into- this latter track, and shall probably find it a region of obscurity, danger, and difHculty, it behooves us to use our litmoist endeavours for enlightening and smoothing the way before us."* We' shall, however, remain in the forest, only long enough to visit the fountains of those streams which flow from it, and which watei- and fertilise the cultivated Tegion of morals, to become acquainted withthe-nibdesof warfare practised by its savage inhabitants, and to learn the means of guarding our fair and fruitful land against their desolating incur- sions. I shall "hasten from speculations, to which I am naturally, perhaps, but too prOne, and proceed to the riiore profitable considera- tion of our practical duty. The first and mosb simple part of ethics is that which regards the duties of private men towards each other, whenth^y are considered apart from the sanction of positive laws. I say apart from that sanction, not antecedent to it ; for though we separate private from politi- cal duties for the sake of greater clearness and order iri reasoning, yet we are not to be so deluded by thiS' mere arrangement of con- venience as .to suppose that human society ever has subsisted, or "ever could subsist, without being protected by government, and bound together bV laws. A)l these relative duties of private life have been so copiously and beautifully treated by the moralists of antiquity, that few tnen will now choose to follow them, w'ho are not actuated by the wild ambition of equalling Aristotle in precision, or rivalling Cicero in eloquence. ' They have been also admirably treated b.y modern mo- ralists, among whom it would be gross in- • Light of Nature, vbl.i. pref. p. xxxiii. justice not to nurflber many of the preachers of the Christian religion, whose peculiar char- acter is that spirit of universal charity, which is the living principle of all our social duties; For it was long ago said, with great truth, by- Lord Bacon, "that there never was any phi- losophy, religion, or other discipline, which did 50 plainly and highly exalt that 'good which is communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as the Christian faith,"* The appropriate praise of this religion is not so much that it has taught new duties, as that it breathes a milder and more benevolent spirit over the whole extent of morals. ' , On a subject which ha's been so exhausted, I shoiild naturally have contented myself with the most slight and general survey; if some fundamentaTprinciples had not of late been brought into question, which, in all former times, have been deemed too evident to require the support Of argument, and almost too sacred to 'admit the liberty of dis- cussion. I shall here endeavour to strengthen some parts of .the fortifications of morality which have hitherto been neglected, because no man had ever been hardy enough to attack theni. Almost all the relatiye duties of hu- man life will be found more immediately, or more remotely, to arise out of the two great institutions of property and marriage. They constitute, preserve, and improve society. Upon their gradual improvement depends the progressive civilization of mankind ; on them rests the whole order of civil life. We are told'by Horace, that the first efibrts of law- givers to civilize men consisted in strength- ening and regulating these .institutions, and fencing them roOnd with rigotons penal laws. " Oppida cceperunt munire, et ponere leges, Ne ijuia fur esset, neu latro, neu quis adulter .'!,t A celebrated ancient orator,t of whose poems we have but a few fragments remain- ing, has well described the progressive order in whichihuman society is gradually led to it? highest improvements under the^ardian- ship of those laws which secure, propeity and regulate marriage. " Et leges sanctas dbcuit, et ohara ju^vit Corpora conjugiis; et magnas condidit urbes." These two grrat institutions convert the selfish as well as the social passions of our nature into the firmest bands of a peaceable and orderly intercourse; they change the sources of discord into principles of quiet; they discipline the most ungovernable, they refine the grossest, and they exalt the most sordid propensities ; ^o that they become the perpetual fountain of all that strengthens, and preserves, and adorns society : they sus- tain the individual, and they perpetuate the race. Around these institutions all our social (Juties will be found at various distances to range themselves ; some more near, obviously • Advancement of Learning, book ii. t Sermon, lib. i. Serm. iii. 105. X C. Licinius Calvus. ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 37 essential to the good order of human life ; others more remote, and of which the ne- cessity is not at first view so apparent; and, sorrie so distant, that their importance has been sometimes doubted, though upon more mature consideration they will be found to be outposts and advanced guards of these fundamental principles, — that man should securely enjoy the fruits, of his labour, and that the society of the sexes should ,be so' wisely ordered, as to make it a school of the kind affeotionsj and a fit nursery for the com- monwealth,. The subject of property is of great extent. It will be necessary to establish the founda- • tion of the r;ghts of acquisitjor), alieng.tion, and transmission,>not in imaginary contracts or a pretended state of nature,- but in their subserviency to the subsistence and well- being of mankind. It Will tiot only be curious, but useful, to trace the history of -property from the first loose' and transient occupancy of the savage, through all the modifications which it has at different times received, tq that comprehensive, subtle, and anxiously minute code of property which is the last result of the most refined civilization. I shall observe the same order in consider- ing the society of the sexes, a,s it is- ifeguiated by the institution of marriage.*, I shall en- deavour to lay open those, unalterable princi- ples of general interest on which that institu- tion rests; and if I entertain a hop? that on this subject I may be able to add something to what Our masters in morality have taught US; L trust, that the reader will bear in mind, as an excuse for my presumption, that they were not likely to employ much argument where they did not foresee the possibility of doubt._ I shall also consider the histopyt of marriage, and trace it through all the forms which ■ it has assumed, to that descent and happy permanency of union, which has, per- haps above all other causes, contributed to the quiet of society, and the refinement of manners in modern times. Among many other inquiries which this subject will sug- gest, I shall be led more particularly to ex- amine the natural station and duties of the female sex, their condition among different * See on this subject ^n incomparable fragment of the firsl book-of Cicero's Economics, which is too long forinsertion here, biit which, if it be closely examined, may perhaps dispel the illusion of'those gentlemen, who have so strangely taken it for granted that Cicero was incapable of exact reasoning. t This progress is traced with great accuracy in some beautiful lines of Lucretius :— Mulier, conjuncta yiro, concessit in unum; Castaque privatae Veneris connubia laeta Cognita sunt, prolemque ex se vidSre creatam ; Turn genus humanum primum moUescere ccepit, ■ ' ;, puerique parentum Blanditiis fecile ingenium fregere superbum. Tunc et amicitiam coeperunt jungere, habentes Finitimi inter se, i^ec leedere, nee violare ; EtpuerOscommendarunt, muliebreque saeclum, Vocibus et igestu ; cum balbe significarent, Imbecillorum esse aequum miserier'omni. De Rfirum Nat. lib. v. nations, its improvement in Europe, and the bounds which nature herself has prescribed to the progress of that improvernent : beyond which every pretended advance will be a real degradation. % Haying established the-principles .of private duty, I shall p'roceed to consider man under the important relation of -subject and sove- reign, or, in other words, of citizen and ma- gistrate. The duties which arise from this relation I shall endeavour to establish, not upon supposed compacts, which are alto- gether chimerical, which must be admitted to be false in fact, and which, if they are to be considered as fictions, will be found to, serve no purpose of just reasoning, and to be equally the foundation of a system of uni- versal despotism in Hobbes, and of universal anarchy in Rousseau ; but on the solid basis of generftl convenience. Men cannot -subsist without' society and mutual aid ; they can neither rriaintain social intercourse nor re- ceive aid from, each other without the pro- tection^f government ; and they cannot en- joy that protection without submitting to the restraints which a just goyerment im- poses. This plain argument establishes the duty of obedience on the part of the citizen^ and the duty of protection on that of magis- trates, on the same foundation with that of every other moral duty ; and it shows, with sufRcient.evideijce,- that these duties are re- ciprocal ; — the only rational , end for w:hioh the fiction of a contract Should have been invented. I shall not encumber my reason- ing by any speculations on the origin of government, — a question on which so much reiison has beeji wasted in modern times; but which the ancients* in a higher spirit of ^philosophy have never once mooted. If our principles be just,, our origin of government must have been coeval with that of man- kind ;■ and as no tribe has ever been dis- covered so brutish as to be without some government, and yet so enlightened as to establish a government by common consent, it is surely unnecessary to employ any seri- ous argiiment in the confutation of the doc- trine that is, inconsistent with reason, and unsupported by experience. But though all inquiries into the origin of government be chimerical, yet the history of its progress is curious and useful. The various stages through which it passpd from savage inde- pendence, which implies every man's power of injuring his neighbour, to legal liberty, which consists in every man's security against wrong; the manner in which a family ex- pands into a tribe, and tribes coalesce into a "The introduction to'the first book of Aristotlela' Poliiics is the best demonstration of the necessity of pohtical society to the well-being, and indeed to the very being, of man, with which I am ac- quainted. Having shown the circumstances which render man necessarily a social being, he justly cohcltldes, *' Ka.) qt^ avfl^ajr&c tpu^u TroxtTiidv ^Ciav." The same scheme of philosophy is admirably pur- sued in the short, bijt invaluable fragment of the sixth .book of Polybius, which describes the .lis tory and revolutions of government. 38 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. nation, — ^in which public justice is gradually engrafted on private revenge, and tenipoiary submission ripened iato habitual obedience; form a most important and extensive subject of inquiry, which dotnprehends all the im- provements of mankind in police, in judica- ture, and in legislation. I have already giver! the reader to under-' stand that' the descriptioa of liberty which seems to me the most comprehensive, is that of security against wrong. Liberty is there- fore the object of all government. Men are more free under every government, feveri the most imperfect, thaii they, would. be if it' were possible for them to exist vifithout any government at all : they are more secure from wrong, more undisturbed in the exer- cise of their natural powers; and therefore more free, even' in the most obvious and grossest sense of the word, than if they were altogether unprotected aguinst injury from each other. But as general security is ea- joyed in very different degrees under dif- ferent governments, those Which guard it most perfectly, are by the way of eminence called "free." -Such governments attain ttiost completely the end which is common to all government. A free constitution of govern- ment and a good constitution of goverrlment ar.e therefore different' expressions for the same idea. Another material distinction, however, soon presents- itself. In most civilized states the subject is tolerably protected against gross injustice from his fellows by impartial laws, which it is the manifest interest of the sov?-' reign to enforce : but sonqe comnionwealths are so happy as to^be founded on a principle of much more refilled and Jjrovident wi'Sdom. The subjects, of such commonwealths- are guarded not oiilyagainst the injiaStice of each other, but (as far as human prudence can con- trive) against oppression from the magistrate. Such states, like all other extraordinary exam- ples of public or private excellence and hap- piness, are thinly scattered over the different ag-^s and countries of the world. In them the will of the sovereign islimited with so exact a measure, that his protecting authority is not weakened. Such a combination of skill and fortune is not often to be expected, and indeed never can arise, but from the constant though gradual exertions of wisdom and virtue, to improve a long succession of most favourable circumstances. There is, indeed, scarce any society so wretched as to be deslilute of some sort of weak provision against the in- justice of their governors. Religious institu- tions, favourite prejudices, national manners, h^ave in different countries, with unequal de- grees of force, checked or mitigated the ex- ercise of supreme power. The privileges of a powerful nobUity, of opulent mercantile communities, of great judicial corporations, have in some monarchies approa,cned more near to a control on the sovereign. Means have been devised with more or less wisdom to temper the despotism of an aristocracy over their sulpjects, and in democracies to protect the minority against the majority, and the whole people against the tyrannytf demagogues. But in these unmixed fomis of government^ as the right of legislation is vested in one individual or in one order, it ia obvious that the legislative power may shake "off all the restraints which the laws have imposed on it. All such governments, there- fore, tend, towards despotism, and the se- curities which they admit against misgovern- ment are extremely feeble and precarious. The best security which human wisdom, can devise, seems to be the distribution of poli- tical authority among- differetjt individu.-'ls and bodies, yrilh separate interests, and separate characters, corresporiding to the variety of classes of which civil society is composed, — each interested to guard their 6v/n order from'- oppression by the rest, — each also interested to prevent any of the others from seizing on excltisive, and there- fore despotic power; and ^11 hav'irig a com- mon interest to co-operate in carrying on the ordinary and necessary administration of government. If there were not an interest to resist each other in extraordinary cases, there would not, be liberty: if there were not an interest to co-operate in the ordinary course of affairs, there could be no govern- ment. The object of such wise institutions, which make selfishness of governors a. se- curity against their injustice, is to protect men against wrong both from their rulers and their fellows. Such governments are, -with justice, peculiarly and emphatically called "free;" and in ascribing that liberty to the skilful combination of mutual ' dependance and mutual check, I -feel my own conviction greatly stTengthened by calling to mind, that in this opinion I agree with all the wise men who 'have ever deeply considered the prin- ciples 'of p9litics;^with Aristotle and Poly- bius, with Cicero and'Tacitus, with Bacon and Machiavel, with Montesquieu and Hume.* It is impossible in such a cursory sketch as the present, even to allude to a very small part of those philosophical principles, poli- * To the weight of these great names let me add the opinion of two illnstrious msn of the pre- sent age, as both their opinions are combined by one of ^them in the following passages : " He (Mr. Fox) always thought any of the simple un- balanced governments bad ; simple monarchy, simple .arisKJcracy, simple democracy ; he held them all imperfect or vicious, all were bad by themselves ; the composition alone was good. These had been always his principles, in which he agreed with his friend, Mr. Burke.'' — Speech on the Army Estimates, 9th Feb. 1790. In speak- ing of both these illustrious men, whose names I here joiii, as they will be joined in fame bv poste- rity, which will forget their temporary dirferences in the recollectioii of their genius and their friend- ship, Ido not entertain the vain imagination that I can add to their' ginry by any thing that I can say. But it is a gratification to me to give utter- ance to my feelings; to express the profound ve- neration with w'hich I am filled for the memory of the one, and the warm affection which I cherish for the other, whom no one ever heart! in public without admiration, or knew in private life with- out loving. ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 39 tical reasonings, and historical facts, which are necessary for the illustration of this mo- mentous subject. In a full discussion of it I shall be obliged to examine the general frame of the most celebrated governments of ancient and modem times, and especially of those which have been most renowned for their freedom. The result of such an exa- mination will be, that no institution so de- testable as an absolutely unbalanced govern- ment, perhaps fiver existed ; that the simple governments' are mere creatures of the ima- gination of theorists,, who have transformed names used for convenience of arrangement into real politics; that, as constitutions of government approach more nearly to that unmixed and uncontrolled simplicity they become despotic, and as they recede farther from that simplicity they becgme free. By the constitution of a state, I mean "the body of those writteii and unwritten funda- iriental laws which regulate the most iiiiport- ant rights of' the higher magistrates, and the most essential privileges* of the subjects." Such a body of political laws must in all countries arise out of the character and situation of a people ; they must grow with its progress, be adapted to its peculiarities, change with its changes, andbe incorporated with its habits. Human, wisdom cannot form such a constitution by one act, for human wisdom caiinot create the materials of which it is composed. The attempt, alvpays inef- fectual, to change by violence the ancient habits of men, and the 'established order of spciety, So as to fit them for an absolutely new scheme of government, flows from the most presumptuous ignorance, requires the suppoft of the most ferocious tyranny, and le^ds to consequences which its authors can never foresee, — generally, indeed, to institu- tions the most opposite to thoise of which- they profess to seek the establishment .