Account cf 

 Dr Smith. 



108 HI SHORT of the SO CI EH T 



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 distribution as pomble, among all the different members 

 of a community, of the advantages arifing from the political 

 union. 



The invention of printing was perhaps necefTary 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 itill 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- 

 celfors could have imagined. 



The 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 



