政治正义论，第一卷

ened age is progreffive ; and the bell elementary treatifes after a certain time are reduced in their value by the operation of fubfequent difcoveries. Hence it has always been defired by candid en- quirers, that preceding works of this kind fhould from time to time be fuperfeded, and that other produ6tions including the larger views that have fmce offered themfelves, ftiould be fubftituted in their place-It would be llransje if fomethingr of this kind were not dehrable in politics, after the great change that has been produced in men's minds upon this fubjeftj and the light that has been 1 thrown vi PREFACE. thrown upon it by the recent difcuffions of America and France. A fenfe of the value of fach a work, if properly executed, was the motive which o-ave birth to thefe volumes. Of their execution the reader muft judge. Authors who have formed the defign of fuper- feding the works of their predeceffors, will be found, if they were ii;i any degree equal to the defign, not merely to have Golle6ted the fcattered information that had been produced upon the fubje6l, but to have increafed the fcience with the fruit of their own meditations. In the following work principles will occafionally be found, which it will not be juft to rejeft without examination, merely becaufe they are new. It was impoflible perfeveringly to refleft upon fo prolific a fcience, and a fcience which may be faid to be yet in its infancy, without being led into ways of thinking that were in fome degree uncommon. Another PREFACE. vli'