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

1. Common Sense, chap. Ier. — Cf. Priestley, An Essay, ete., éd. 1771, p. 15, sect. IL. Political Liberty : The more complex 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 difficulty, however, has, in fact, arisen from the nature of the things, in comparison of the difficulties that have been occasioned by its being the interest of men to combine, confound, and 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 present complex forms of government, which derive their authority from it. :

8. Vindiciæ Galliciæ, sect. V. — Paine (Rights of Man, Part IX, chap. 1v), cite la pensée de Swift : « Government is a plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of many heads ». Cf. William Godwin, 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 Revolution, 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 Vindication of Natural Society (Works, vol. I, pp. 12-13), la théorie propre aux « bigots and enthusiasts », selon laquelle il faut respecter les préjugés. — « Absurd and blasphemous notion ! as if all happiness was not connected with the practice of virlue, which necessarily depends 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, which are truth itself, the foundation of virtue, and consequently, the only measures by which we should direct our reasoning. — V. la remarque de Godwin (Pol. Just., Book I, chap. 11, 2€ éd., vol. [, p. 14 note) sur cet ouvrage de Burke.

9. Vind. Gall., sect. I. — Et encore : The philosophers of Europe had for a century discussed all objects of political œconomy. The conviction of a great majority of enlightened men had, after many controversies, become, on most questions of general politics, uniform. À degree of certainty, perhaps nearly equal to that which such topies will admit, had been attained. é