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THE volume here prefented to the reader, is upon

a conftruction totally different from that of a work

upon the principles of political science, published by the fame 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 first is by laying down one or two fimple principles, which seem scarcely to be expofed to the hazard of refutation; and then developing them, applying them to a number of points, and following them into a variety of inferences. From this method of investigation, the first thing we are led to hope is, that there will result a system consentaneous to itself; and, 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 be found conformable to truth. This is the method of investigation attempted in the Enquiry - concerning Political Juftice.

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An enquiry thus purfued is undoubtedly in the highest style of man. But it is liable to many dif advantages; and though there be nothing that it involves too high for our pride, it is perhaps a method of inveftigation incommenfurate to our powers. mistake in the commencement is fatal. An error in almost any part of the procefs is attended with extenfive injury; where every thing is connected, as it were, in an indiffoluble chain, and an overfight

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in one step vitiates all that are to follow. The intellectual eye of man, perhaps, is formed rather for the inspection of minute and near, than of immenfe and diftant objects. We proceed most fafely, when * we enter upon each portion of our procefs, as it were, de novo; and there is danger, if we are too exclufively anxious about confistency of system, that we may forget the perpetual attention we owe to experience, the pole-ftar of truth.

An inceffant recurrence to experiment and actual obfervation, is the fecond method of investigating truth, and the method adopted in the prefent volume. The author has attempted only a fhort excurfion at a time; and then, dismissing that, has set out afresh upon a new purfuit. Each of the Effays he has written, is intended in a confiderable degree to ftand by itself. He has carried this principle fo far, that he has not been severely anxious relative to inconfiftencies that may be discovered, between the speculations of one Essay and the speculations of another.

The Effays are principally the refult of converfations, fome of them held many years ago, though the Effays have all been compofed for the prefent occafion. The author has always had a paffion for colloquial difcuffion; and, in the various opportunities that have been afforded him in different fcenes of life, the refult feemed frequently to be fruitful both of amufement and inftruction. There is a vivacity, and, if he may be permitted to say it, a richness, in the hints ftruck out in converfation, that are with difficulty attained in any other method. In the fubjects of feveral of the most confiderable Effays, the novelty of idea they may poffibly contain, was regarded with a kind of complacency by the author,

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