THE

ENQUIRER.

REFLECTIONS

ON

EDUCATION, MANNERS,

AND

Déc. 1896.

LITERATURE:

IN A SERIES OF ESSAYS.

BY WILLIAM GODWIN.

-Ingenuas didiciffe fideliter artès,
Emollit mores, nec finit effe feros.

LONDON:

MDCCXCVII.

PRINTED FOR G. G. AND J. ROBINSON, PATERNOSTER-ROW,

الله

PREFACE.

THE volume here presented to the reader,

is

upon a conftruction totally different from that of a work upon the principles of political science, published by the same author four years ago.

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

There are two principal methods according to which truth may be inveftigated,

The firft is by laying down one or two fimple principles, which seem scarcely to be exposed to the hazard of refutation; and then developing them, applying them to a number of points, and following them into a variety of inferences. From this method of investigation, the first thing we are led to hope is, that there will refult a fyftem confentaneous to itself; and, fecondly, that, if all the parts fhall thus be brought into agreement with a few principles, and if those principles be themselves true, the whole will