Account of 
Dr Smith. 
108 HISTORY of the SOCIETY. 
fyftematical form which encourages and aids the labours of 
future enquirers. 
In profecuting the fcience of politics on this plan, little af- 
fiftance is to be derived from the fpeculations of ancient philo- 
fophers, the greater part of whom, in their political enquiries, 
confined their attention to a comparifon of different forms 
of government, and to an examination of the provifions they 
made for perpetuating their own exiftence, and for extending 
the glory of the State. It was referved for modern times to 
inveftigate thofe univerfal principles of juftice and of expedien- 
cy, which ought, under every form of government, to regulate 
the focial order ; and of which the object is, to make as equi- 
table a diftribution as poffible, among all the different members 
of a community, of the advantages arifing from the political 
union. 
Tue invention of printing was perhaps neceflary to prepare 
the way for thefe refearches. In thofe departments of litera- 
ture and of fcience, where genius finds within itfelf the mate- 
rials of its labours ; in poetry, in pure geometry, and in fome 
branches of moral philofophy ; the ancients have not only laid 
the foundations on which we are to build, but have left great 
and finifhed models for our imitation. But in phyfics, where 
our progrefs depends on an immenfe collection of facts, and 
on a combination of the accidental lights daily ftruck out in 
the innumerable walks of obfervation and experiment ; and in 
politics, where the materials of our theories are equally fcatter- 
ed, and are collected and arranged with {till greater difficulty, 
the means of communication afforded by the prefs have, in the 
courfe of two centuries, accelerated the progrefs of the human 
mind, far beyond what the moft fanguine hopes of our prede- 
ceffors could have imagined. 
Tue progrefs already made in this fcience, inconfiderable as 
it is in comparifon of what may be yet expected, has been fuf- 
ficient to fhew, that the happinefs of mankind depends, not on 
the 
