becomes always the more free; and, on the other hand, when you mix a little of liberty with monarchy, the yoke becomes always the more grievous and intolerable. In a government, such as that of FRANCE, which is abfolute, and where law, cuftom, and religion concur, all of them, to make the people fully fatisfied with their condition, the monarch cannot entertain any jealousy against his subjects, and therefore is apt to indulge them in great liberties both of speech and action. In a government altogether republican, such as that of HOLLAND, where there is no magistrate so eminent as to give jealousy to the state, there is no danger in intrufting the magiftrates with large discretionary powers; and though many advantages refult from fuch powers, in preserving peace and order, yet they lay a confiderable reftraint on men's actions, and make every private citizen pay a great respect to the government. Thus it feems evident, that the two extremes of abfolute monarchy and of a republic, approach near to each other in fome material circumftances. In the firft, the magiftrate has no jealousy of the people: in the fecond, the people have none of the magiftrate: Which want of jealoufy begets a mutual confidence and truft in both cafes, and produces a fpecies of liberty in monarchies, and of arbitrary power in republics.

To juftify the other part of the foregoing obfervation, that, in every government, the means are moft wide of each other, and that the mixtures of monarchy and liberty render the yoke either more eafy or more grievous; I must take notice of a remark in TACITUS with regard to the ROMANS under the emperors, that they neither could bear total flavery nor total liberty, Nec totam fervitutem, nec totam libertatem pati poffunt. This remark a celebrated poet has translated and applied to the

ENGLISH, in his lively description of queen ELIZABETH'S policy and government,

Et fit aimer fon joug à l'Anglois indompté,
Qui ne peut ni fervir, ni vivre en liberté.

HENRIADE, liv. 1.

According to these remarks, we are to confider the ROMAN government under the emperors as a mixture of defpotism and liberty, where the defpotifm prevailed; and the ENGLISH government as a mixture of the same kind, where the liberty predominates: The confequences are conformable to the foregoing observation; and such as may be expected from those mixed forms of government, which beget a mutual watchfulness and jealousy. The ROMAN emperors were, many of them, the most frightful tyrants that ever difgraced human nature; and it is evident, that their cruelty was chiefly excited by their jealousy, and by their obferving that all the great men of ROME bore with impatience the dominion of a family, which, but a little before, was no wife fuperior to their On the other hand, as the republican part of the government prevails in ENGLAND, though with a great mixture of monarchy, it is obliged, for its own prefervation, to maintain a watchful jealousy over the magistrates, to remove all discretionary powers, and to fecure every one's life and fortune by general and inflexible laws. No action must be deemed a crime but what the law has plainly determined to be fuch: No crime must be imputed to a man but from a legal proof before his judges; and even thefe judges must be his fellow-fubjects, who are obliged, by their own intereft, to have a watchful eye over the encroachments and violence of the minifters. From thefe caufes it proceeds, that there is as much liberty,

own.

and

and even, perhaps, licentiousness in GREAT BRITAIN, as there were formerly flavery and tyranny in Rome.

Thefe principles account for the great liberty of the prefs in these kingdoms, beyond what is indulged in any other government. It is apprehended, that arbitrary power would fteal in upon us, were we not careful to prevent its progrefs, and were there not an easy method of conveying the alarm from one end of the kingdom to the other. The fpirit of the people muft frequently be rouzed, in order to curb the ambition of the court; and the dread of rouzing this fpirit must be employed to prevent that ambition. Nothing fo effectual to this purpofe as the liberty of the prefs, by which all the learning, wit, and genius of the nation may be employed on the fide of freedom, and every one be animated to its defence. As long, therefore, as the republican part of our government can maintain itself against the monarchical, it will naturally be careful to keep the prefs open, as of importance to its own preservation.

It must however be allowed, that the unbounded liberty of the press, though it be difficult, perhaps impoffible, to propose a suitable remedy for it, is one of the evils, attending thofe mixt forms of government.

ESSAY

III.

That POLITICS may be reduced to a SCIENCE.

1 hential difference between one form of government

T is a queftion with feveral, whether there be any

and another? and, whether every form may not become good or bad, according as it is well or ill administered * ? Were it once admitted, that all governments are alike, and that the only difference confifts in the character and conduct of the governors, most political difputes would be at an end, and ali Zeal for one constitution above another, must be esteemed mere bigotry and folly. But, though a friend to moderation, I cannot forbear condemning this fentiment, and should be forry to think, that human affairs admit of no greater stability, than what they receive from the cafual humours and characters of particular men.

It is true; those who maintain, that the goodness of all government confifts in the goodness of the administration, may cite many particular inftances in hiftory, where the very fame government, in different hands, has varied fuddenly into the two oppofite extremes of good and bad. Compare the FRENCH government under HENRY III. and under HENRY IV. Oppreffion, levity, artifice on the part of the rulers; faction, fedition, treachery, rebellion, difloyalty on the part of the fubjects: Thefe compofe the character of the former, miferable æra. But

*For forms of government let fools conteft,
Whate'er is beft adminifter'd is beft.

ESSAY ON MAN, Book 3. when

when the patriot and heroic prince, who fucceeded, was once firmly feated on the throne, the government, the people, every thing seemed to be totally changed; and all from the difference of the temper and conduct of these two fovereigns. Inftances of this kind may be multiplied, almost without number, from ancient as well as modern. history, foreign as well as domeftic.

But here it may be proper to make a diftinction. All abfolute governments muft very much depend on thê administration; and this is one of the great inconveniences attending that form of government. But a republican and free government would be an obvious absurdity, if the particular checks and controuls, provided by the constitution, had really no influence, and made it not the intereft, even of bad men, to act for the public good. Such is the intention of these forms of govern ment, and fuch is their real effect, where they are wifely conftituted: As on the other hand, they are the fource of all diforder, and of the blackeft crimes, where either fkill or honefty has been wanting in their original frame and inftitution.

So great is the force of laws, and of particular forms of government, and fo little dependence have they on the humours and tempers of men, that confequences almost as general and certain may fometimes be deduced from them, as any which the mathematical fciences afford

us.

The conftitution of the ROMAN republic gave the whole legislative power to the people, without allowing a negative voice either to the nobility or confuls. This unbounded power they poffeffed in a collective, not in a reprefentative body. The confequences were: When the people, by fuccefs and conqueft, had become very numerous, and had fpread themselves to a great distance.

from