ON POLITICAL SCIENCE. 5 



are matters which relate immediately to human happiness, and those studies which teach 

 the principles on which all good government must rest, the respective duties, powers and 

 privileges of the different executive, legislative and judicial authorities, and the eternal 

 maxims of civil liberty, are studies which, when taught in the spirit of a judicious and 

 honest historian, are well worthy of the name of a science, and should obtain a preemiu- 

 ence over all departments of thought and study, except the teaching of the true lessons of 

 Christianity. In the words of the distingirished essayist from whom I quoted in com- 

 mencing this lecture : " If there is a science of politics at all, it must needs be almost the 

 most complicated of all sciences. It deals with that curious phenomenon called the 8tate, 

 which is a kind of organism composed of human beings. The lives of individual men, 

 even the greatest men, are included in the life of the State ; almost everything indeed is 

 included in it. Does not the very thought of studying such a vast comprehensive pheno- 

 menon, and of discovering the laws that govern it, give rise to a feeling of bewilderment ? 

 Does it not strike you that this study must rest upon other studies, that this science must 

 presume the results of other sciences, therefore that it cannot be properly studied by itself? 

 . . . "Would you know what is wise and right in politics, you must consult experience. 

 In politics, as in other departments, wisdom consists in the knowledge of the laws that 

 govern the phenomena, and these laws can only be discovered by the observation of facts, 

 history. If this is so, how can we avoid the conclusion that such a study of politics as 

 you meditate cannot be separated from the study of history ?" 



Canada, though a young country compared with the old ciAalizations of Europe, 

 presents a very interesting field for the student in this department of study. Though not 

 a national sovereignty like the United States, and therefore probably inferior to it in that 

 respect as an object of contemplation and reflection for European statesmen, its political 

 history, its fundamental law and constitution, its economic system, its social institutions 

 and the racial characteristics of its peoi^le are worthy of the close study, not only of Cana- 

 dians, but of all persons who wish to follow the gradual development of communities 

 from a state of cramped colonial pupilage to a larger condition of political freedom which 

 gives it many of the attributes of an independent nation, never before enjoyed by a 

 colonial dependency. 



A course of Political Science, to be in any measixre complete, would mean that we 

 should study, in the first place, the political history of our own country, from the time 

 the French laid the foundation of their colonial government on the heights of Quebec, 

 down to the conquest of Canada by England in 1*759-60, and thence through all the poli- 

 tical and constitutional changes which have brought about a federation of provinces 

 under the somewhat ambitious name of " Dominion." This historical study necessarily 

 leads us to review the political and social conditions of old France during the century 

 and a half when Canada was under its government. We cannot fail to see how the 

 conflict between G-reat Britain and France for centuries actually meant a conflict for 

 supremacy in America, and how the development of French Canada was retarded by the 

 ambitious designs of the French monarch in Europe, and the way consequently made 

 easier for the triumph of the mother country on this continent. 



The history of the unfortunate difiereuces which led to the separation of the old 

 thirteen colonies, the state of political parties in England during the days when the 

 people of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were contending for extended political 



