Esp. des L.j livre VI, chap. r r

7. Common Sente, chap. I er . — Cf. Priestley, An Estay, etc., éd. 1771, p. 15, sec t. H. Political Liberty : The more coinplex any machine is, and the more nicely it is fitted to answer its purpose, the more liable it is to disorder. — p. 53, sect. III, Civil Liberty : Little difliculty, however, bas, in fact, arisen from the nature of the things, in com pari son of the difficultés that hâve been occasioned by its being the interest of men to combine, confound, and perplex them. — p. 42, sect. II, Pol. lib. : In large s ta tes, this ultimate sent of power, tins tribunal to which lies an appeal from every other, and from which no appeal can even be imagined, is too much hid, and kept out of sight by the présent coin pic x forms of government, which dérive their authority from it.

8. Vindieiœ Galtûiœ, sect. V. — Paine (Rùjhts of Mau, Part II, chap. rv), cite la pensée de Swift : a Government is a plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of many heads ». Cf. William Godwio, Préface : Political complexity is one of the errors that take strongest hold oo the understanding ; and it was only by ideas suggested by the French Révolution, that he was reconciled to tlie desirableness of a government of the simplest description.

— Il est curieux de remarquer que Burke connaissait l'objection : il avait réfuté, dans sa Vindication of Suturai Society (Works, vol. I, pp. 12-13), la théorie propre aux « bigots and enthusiasts », selon laquelle il faut respecter les préjuges. — « Absurd and blasphémons notion ! as if ail happiness was not connected with the practice of virlue, which necessarily dépends upon the knowledge of truth ; that is, upon the knowledge of those u naît érable relations which Providence lias ordained that every thing should bear to every other, those relations, which are truth itself, the foundationof virtuc, andconsequcntly, the only measures by which we sliould direct our reasoning. — V. la remarque de Godwin [Pol. Just., Book I, chap. u ; 2 e éd., vol. I, p. i\ note) sur cet ouvrage de Burke.

9. Vind. GtUl., sect. I. — Et encor The philosophers of Europe had for a century discussed ail objects political œconomy. The conviction of a great majority of enlightened men had, after many controversies, become, on most questions of gênerai politics, uniform. A degrec of cer-

3i(i NOTES. (Pp. 38-69)

tainlv, perhaps nearh equal to that which such topics will admit, had been a t tain éd.