314 oti scientific government. Fch. ig. 



mon interest, or common information, ha\'e, in the 

 course of two centuries, totally changed the structuie 

 of society at large. 



The strongest holds of regal authority and super- 

 stition have been Iwppily pulled down. Men have 

 become acquainted with their own rights, and have 

 been enabled to afsociate, for their defence, or for ac- 

 quiring that to which they are entitled. 

 ' England excluded, in the last century, the king, 

 and discarded him and his family, as a well ordered 

 family would exclude and discard the principal ser- 

 vant, who acted without its authority, and against its 

 interest. But En gland was not sufficiently enlightened 

 then to amend her faulty constitution ; because a ve- 

 neration for the old establiilied forms pofsefsed the 

 minds of the people. In the present age we have 

 seen north America form herself into an independent 

 nation, on the luminous principles of philosophy, af- 

 ter having thrown off" the yoke of tyranny, without 

 the intervention of religious zeal, or of superstition ; 

 and still more recently we have seen the great nation 

 of France, difsblving altogether, and in one moment, 

 a fabric of preposterous government, that had been 

 erecting for three centuries, and replacing it, by a 

 grand and beautiful structure, erected on the basis 

 of general and equal liberty, which I trust will with- 

 stand the fliock of ages, unhurt by the subtilty of 

 princes, or the imprudence of the people. 



We have seen the unity of the legislative power 

 establiihed, by rejecting the project of a third estate, 

 forming a body- of janizaries, for the king and the 



