profecution of the fubject. A writer upon the law of nature, whofe explications in every part of philofophy, though always diffuse, are often very fuccefsful, has employed three long fections in endeavouring to prove, that "per"miffions are not laws." The difcuffion of this controversy, however effential it might be to dialectic precifion, was certainly not neceffary to the progrefs of a work defigned to defcribe the duties and obligations of civil life. The reader becomes impatient when he is detained by difquifitions which have no other objec than the fettling of terms and phrafes; and, what is worse, they, for whofe ufe fuch books are chiefly intended, will not be perfuaded to read them at all.

I am led to propose these ftrictures, not by any propensity to depreciate the labours of my predeceffors, much lefs to invite a comparison' between the merits of their performances and my own; but folely by the confideration, that when a writer offers a book to the public upon a fubject on which the public are already in poffeffion of many others, he is bound by a kind of literary juftice, to inform his readers diftinctly and fpecifically, what it is he profeffes to fupply, and what he expects to improve. The imperfections above enumerated are thofe which I have endeavoured to avoid or remedy. Of the execution the reader muft judge: but t was the defign.

Concerning the PRINCIPLE of mo would be premature to speak; but con

Dr. Rutherforth, author of "Inftitutes of Natural La

the manner of unfolding and explaining that principle, I have somewhat which I wish to be remarked. An experience of nine years in thẻ office of a public tutor in one of the univerfities, and in that department of education to which these chapters relate, afforded me frequent occafion to obferve, that, in discoursing to young minds upon topics of morality, it required much more pains to make them perceive the difficulty, than to understand the folution; that, unless the subject was fo drawn up to a point, as to exhibit the full force of an objection, or the exact place of a doubt, before any explanation was entered upon; in other words, unless fome curiofity was excited before it was attempted to be fatisfied, the labour of the teacher was loft. When information was not defired, it was feldom, I found, retained. I have made this obfervation my guide in the following work; that is, upon each occafion I have endeavoured, before I fuffered myself to proceed in the difquifition, to put the reader in complete poffeffion of the queftion; and to do it in the way that I thought most likely to fir up his own doubts and folicitude about it.

In pursuing the principle of morals through the detail of cafes to which it is applicable, I have had in view to accommodate both the choice of the fubjects, and the manner of ling them, to the fituations which arife in of an inhabitant of this country in s. This is the thing that I think to ally wanting in former treatises; aps, the chief advantage which will din mine. I have examined no doubts, I have

I have difcuffed no obfcurities, I have encountered no errors, I have adverted to no controverfies, but what I have feen actually to exift. If fome of the queftions treated of appear to a more inftructed reader minute or puerile, I defire fuch reader to be affured that I have found them occafions of difficulty to young minds ; and what I have obferved in young minds, I fhould expect to meet with in all who approach thefe fubjects for the first time. Upon each article of human duty, I have combined with the conclufions of reason the declarations of fcripture, when they are to be had, as of coordinate authority, and as both terminating in the same sanctions.

In the MANNER of the work, I have endeavoured fo to attempt the oppofite plans above animadverted upon, as that the reader may not accufe me either of too much hafte, or of too much delay. I have beftowed upon each fubject enough of differtation to give a body and fubftance to the chapter in which it is treated of, as well as coherence and perfpicuity: on the other hand, I have seldom, I hope, exercised the patience of the reader by the length and prolixity of my effays, or disappointed that patience at laft by the tenuity and unimportance of the conclufion.

There are two particulars in the following work, for which it may be thought neceffary that I fhould offer fome excufe. The first of which is, that I have fcarcely ever refered to any other book, or mentioned the name of the author, whose thoughts, and fometimes, poffibly, whofe very expreflions I have adopted.

My

My method of writing has conftantly been this; to extract what I could from my own flores and my own refledions in the fir place, to put down that, and afterwards to confult upon each fubject fuch reading as fell in my way; which order, I am convinced, is the only one whereby any perfon can keep his thoughts from fiding into other men's trains. The effect of fuch a plan upon the production itfelf will be, that whil fome parts in matter or manner may be new, others will be little elfe than a repetition of the old. I make no pretensions to perfect originality: I claim to be something more than a mere compiler. Much no doubt is borrowed: but the fact is, that the notes for this work having been prepared for fome years, and fuch things having been from time to time inserted in them as appeared to me worth preferving, and fuch infèrtions made commonly without the name of the author from whom they were taken, I should, at this time, have found a difficulty in recovering these names with fufficient exaaneis to be able to render to every man his own. Nor, to fpeak the truth, did it appear to me worth while to repeat the fearch merely for this purpose. When authorities are relied upon, names must be produced: when a discovery has been made in science, it may be unjust to borrow the invention without acknowledging the author. But in an argumentative treatife, and upon a fubje&t which allows no place for discovery or invention, properly fo called; and in which all that can belong to a writer is his mode of reafoning, or his judgment of probabilities; I fhould have thought

thought it fuperfluous, had it been easier to me than it was, to have interrupted my text, or crowded my margin with references to every author, whofe fentiments I have made ufe of. There is, however, one work to which I owe fo much, that it would be ungrateful not to confefs the obligation: I mean the writings of the late Abraham Tucker, Efq, part of which were publifhed by himfelf, and the remainder, fince his death, under the title of "The Light of Nature purfued, by Edward Search, Efq." I have found in this writer more original thinking and obfervation upon the feveral fubjects that he has taken in hand, than in any other, not to say, than in all others put together. His talent alfo for illuftration is unrivalled. But his thoughts are diffused through a long, various, and irregular work. I fhall account it no mean praife, if I have been fometimes able to difpofe into method, to collect into heads and articles, or to exhibit in more compact and tangible maffes, what, in that otherwife excellent performance, is fpread over too much furface.

The next circumftance for which fome apology may be expected, is the joining of moral and political philofophy together, or the addition of a book of politics to a fyftem of ethics. Against this objection, if it be made one, I might defend myself by the example of many approv ed writers, who have treated DE OFFICIIS HOMINIS ET CIVIs, or, as fome choose to exprefs it," of the rights and obligations of man, in "his individual and focial capacity," in the fame book. I might allege alfo, that the part a

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