بحث في العدالة السياسية، المجلد الأول

to undertake the prefent treatife. The dire6l execution may be difmiffed in a few words. It was projefted in the month of May 1791 : the compofition was begun in the following September, and has therefore occupied a fpace of fixteen months. This period was devoted to" the purpofe with unremitted ardour. It were to be wiflied it had been longer ; but it feemed as if no contemptible part of the utility of the work depended upon its early appearance. The printing of the following treatife, as well as the compofition, was influenced by the fame principle, a defire to reconcile a certain degree of difpatch with the neceffary deliberation. The printing was for that reafon commenced, long before the compofition was finiihed. Some difadvantages have arifen from this circumftance. The ideas of the author became more perfpicuous and digefted, as his enquiries advanced. The longer he confidered the fubjeft, the more accub rately X PREFACE. b rately X PREFACE. rately he feemed to underftand it. This circum- fiance has led him into a few contradiftions. The principal of thefe confifls in an occafional inaccuracy of language, particularly in the lirft book, refpefting the word government. He did not enter upon the w^ork, without being aware that government by its very nature countera61;s the improvement of individual mind ; but he underftood the full meaning of this proportion more completely as he proceeded, and faw more diftinftly into the nature of the remedy. This, and a few other defers, under a different mode of preparation would have been avoided. The candid reader will make a fuitable allowance.…