Bolingbroke has observed, that to enable one to take a commanding view of the field of law and legislation, there are two principal vantage grounds on which it is necessary to mount — history and metaphysics. The road is smooth and ﬂowery to that vantage ground offered by history. There has been no want of those who have ascended to it, and taken post upon it. To that which belongs to the region of metaphysics, the road is rugged and full of thorns. Few have attempted to gain it; fewer have succeeded in placing themselves in a position whence a view at once clear and extensive could be obtained.
Many of the definitions which I shall adopt may be controverted. They are attempts to give some precision and accuracy to the most difficult department of Social Science. 'lord Bacon has said that civil knowledge is conversant about a subject which, above all others, is most immersed in matter the hardest to be reduced to axiom. Aristotle, in the Politics, condemns the pursuit of a delusive geometrical accuracy in moral reasoning. Still, the first principles of Jurisprudence are maxims of reason which pervade all human laws, and the oh servance of which is discovered by experience to be essential to happiness and security.
|Category||Political Theory and History|