The age we live in is a busy age;in which knowledge is rapidly advancing towards perfection.In the natural world,in particular,every thing teems with discovery and with improvement.The most distant and recondite regions of the earth traversed and explored the all-vivifying and subtle element of the air so recently analyzed and made known to striking evidences,were all others wanting,of this pleasing truth.
Correspondent to discovery and improvement in the natural world,is reformation in the moral;if that which seems a common notion be,indeed,a true one,that in the moral world there no longer remains any matter for discovery.Perhaps,however,this may not be the case:perhaps among such observations as would be best calculated to serve as grounds for reformation,are some which,being observations of matters of fact hitherto either incompletely noticed,or not at all would,when produced,appear capable of bearing the name of discoveries:with so little method and precision have the consequences of this fundamental axiom,it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong ,been as yet developped.
Be this as it may,if there be room for making,and if there be use in publishing,discoveries in the natural world,surely there is not much less room for making,nor much less use in proposing,reformation in the moral.If it be a matter of importance and of use to us to be made acquainted with distant countries,surely it is not a matter of much less importance,nor of much less use to us,to be made better and better acquainted with the chief means of living happily in our own:If it be of importance and of use to us to know the principles of the element we breathe,surely it is not of much less importance nor of much less use to comprehend the principles,and endeavour at the improvement of those laws,by which alone we breathe it in security.If to this endeavour we should fancy any Author,especially any Author of great name,to be,and as far as could in such case be expected,to avow himself a determined and persevering enemy,what should we say of him?We should say that the interests of reformation,and through them the welfare of mankind,were inseparably connected with the downfall of his works:of a great part,at least,of the esteem and,influence,which these works might under whatever title have acquired.
Such an enemy it has been my misfortune (and not mine only)to see,or fancy at least I saw,in the Author of the celebrated COMMENTARIES on the LAWS of ENGLAND;an Author whose works have had beyond comparison a more extensive circulation,have obtained a greater share of esteem,of applause,and consequently of influence (and that by a title on many grounds so indisputable)than any other writer who on that subject has ever yet appeared.
It is on this account that I conceived,some time since,the design of pointing out some of what appeared to me the capital blemishes of that work,particularly this grand and fundamental one,the antipathy to reformation;or rather,indeed,of laying open and exposing the universal inaccuracy and confusion which seemed to my apprehension to pervade the whole.For,indeed,such an ungenerous antipathy seemed of itself enough to promise a general vein of obscure and crooked reasoning,from whence no clear and sterling knowledge could be derived;so intimate is the connexion between some of the gifts of the understanding,and some of the affections of the heart.
It is in this view then that I took in hand that part of the first volume to which the Author has given the name of INTRODUCTION.It is in this part of the work that is contained whatever comes under the denomination of general principles .It is in this part of the work that are contained such preliminary views as it seemed proper to him to give of certain objects real or imaginary,which he found connected with his subject LAW by identity of name:two or three sorts of LAWS of Nature ,the revealed LAW,and a certain LAW of Nations .It is in this part of the work that he has touched upon several topics which relate to all laws or institutions (1)in general,or at least to whole classes of institutions without relating to any one more than to another.
To speak more particularly,it is in this part of his work that he has given a definition,such as it is,of that whole branch of law which he had taken for his subject;that branch,which some,considering it as a main stock,would term LAW without addition;and which he,to distinguish it from those others its condivident branches ,(2)terms law municipal:an account,such as it is,of the nature and origin of Natural Society the mother,and of Political Society the daughter,of Law municipal,duly begotten in the bed of Metaphor:a division,such as it is,of a law,individually considered,into what he fancies to be its parts:an account,such as it is,of the method to be taken for interpreting any law that may occur.
