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

7. Common Sensé, chap. I er . — Cf. Priestley, An Essay, etc., éd. 1771, p. 15, sect. II. Political Liberty : The more complex any machine is, and

the more nicely it is filted to answer its purpose, the more liable it is to ilisorder. — p. 53, sect. III, Civil Liberty : Little difficulty, however, has, in fact, arisen from the nature of the things,. in comparison of the difficulties that hâve been occasioned by its being the interest of men to combine, confound, 9nd perplex them. — p. 42, sect. II, Pol. lib. : In large states, this ultimate seat of power, this 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 complex forms of government, which dérive their authority from it.

8. Vindiciœ GaMeùe, sect. V. — Paine (Rights of Man, Part II, chap. iv), cite la pensée de Swift : « 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 on the understanding; and it was only by ideas suggested by the French Révolution, that he was reconciled to the desirableness of a government of the simplest description. — Il est curieux de remarquer que Burke connaissait l'objection : il avait réfuté, dans sa VindicaHon of Natural Society (Works, vol. I, pp. 12-13), la théorie propre aux « bigots and enthusiasts », selon laquelle il faut respecter les préjugés. — « Âbsurd and blasphemous notion ! as if ail happiness was not connected with the practice of virtue, which necessarily dépends upon the knowledge of truth ; that is, upon the knowledge of those unalterable relations which Providence has ordained that every thing should bear to every other, those relations, wbich are truth itself, the foundationof virtue, and consequently, the only measures by which we should direct our reasoning. — V. la remarque de Godwin (Pol. Jtt&t., Book I, chap. h ; 2 e éd., vol. I, p. 14 note) sur cet ouvrage de Burke.

9. Vind. Gall., sect. I. — Et encore : The philosophera of Europe had for a century discussed ail objects of political œconomy. The conviction of a great majority of enlightened men had, after many controversies, become, on most questions of gênerai politics, uniform. A degree of certain ty, perhaps nearly equal to that which such topics will admit, had been attained.