332 Mc))iorinI of George Broioi Goode. 



Researches in literature, to which may be united those in morals, government, and 

 laws, are so vague in their nature, and have been so little methodised, as scarcely to 

 have obtained the name of sciences. No man has denied the importance of these 

 pursuits; though the English nation, from whom we have borrowed so many useful 

 things, has not thought proper to give them that consistency and standing among 

 the objects of laudable ambition, to which they are entitled. Men the most eminent 

 in these studies have not been members of their learned associations. Locke, Ber- 

 kely. Pope, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, Adam Smith, and Blackstone, were never 

 admitted into the Royal Society. This is doubtless owing to the nature of tneir gov- 

 ernment ; though the government itself exerts no influence in these elections. The 

 science of morals connects itself so intimately with the principles of political insti- 

 tutions, that where it is deemed expedient to keep the latter out of sight, it is not 

 strange that the former should meet no encouragement. 



This polic}' is strikingly exemplified in the history of the French Institute. That 

 learned and respectable body was incorporated by the national convention in the 

 year 1795, and took place of all the old academies, which had been previously 

 abolished. It was composed of three classes, according to the objects to be pursued 

 by its members. The first was the class for the physical sciences, the second was 

 the class for the moral and political sciences, the third was for the fine arts. Thus 

 it went on and made great progress in its several branches, till the j'ear 1803, when 

 Bonaparte's government assumed that character which rendered the pursuit of moral 

 and political .science inconvenient to him. He then new modeled the Institute, and 

 abolished that class. But lest his real object should be perceived, and he be accused 

 of narrowing the compass of research, he created two new classes in the room of this ; 

 one for ancient literature, and one for the French language. On the same occasion 

 an order was issued to all the colleges and great schools in France, suppressing the 

 professorships of moral and political philosophy. 



But in our country, and at this early epoch in the course of republican experiment, 

 no subjects of research can be more important than those embraced by these branches 

 of science. Our representative system is new in practice, though some theories of 

 that sort have been framed by speculative writers ; and partial trials have been made 

 in the British dominions. But our federal system, combined with democratical 

 representation is a magnificent stranger upon earth ; a new world of experiment, 

 bursting with incalculable omens on the view of mankind. It was the result of 

 circumstances which no man could foresee, and no writer pretended to contemplate. 

 It represented itself to us from the necessity of the situation we were in ; dreaded at 

 finst as an evil by many good men in our country, as well as by our friends in 

 Europe; and it is at this day far from being imderstood, or properly appreciated, by 

 the generality of those who admire it. Our practice upon it, as far as we have gone, 

 and the vast regions of our continent that present themselves to its embrace, must 

 convince the world that it is the greatest improvement in the mechanism of govern- 

 ment that has ever been discovered, the most consoling to the friends of liberty, 

 humanity, and peace. 



Men who have grown old in the intrigues of ca1)inets, and those who, in the 

 frenzy of youthf^il ambition, present themselves on the theatre of politics, at the 

 head of armies, which they cannot live without, are telling us that "no new principle 

 of government has been discovered for these two tliou.sand years;"' and that all 

 propo.sals to ameliorate the .sy.stem arc vain ab.stractions, unworthy of sound philos- 

 oi)hy. They may tell us too that no new principle in mechanics had been discovered 

 since we came to the knowledge of the lever ; no new principle in war, since we first 

 found that a man would cease to fight the nu)ment he was killed. Yet we .see in the 



' This is asserted in a book written to sujjjjort the present government in I'rance. 

 I forget the title 



