thofe to which he has given his confent, were it practicable, is no otherwise necessary to the enjoyment of civil liberty, than as it affords a probable fecurity against the dictation of laws, imposing fuperfluous reftrictions upon his private will. This remark is applicable to the rest. The diversity of these definitions will not furprise us, when we confider that there is no contrariety or opposition amongst them whatever; for by how many different provifions and precautions civil liberty is fenced and protected, fo many different accounts of liberty itself, all fufficiently consistent with truth and with each other, may, according to this mode of explaining the term, be framed and adopted.

Truth cannot be offended by a definition, but propriety may. In which view thofe definitions of liberty ought to be rejected, which by making that effential to civil freedom which is unattainable in experience, inflame expectations that can never be gratified, and disturb the public content with complaints, which no wisdom or benevolence of government can remove.

It will not be thought extraordinary, that an idea, which occurs fo much oftener as the subject of panegyric and carelefs declamation, than of juft reafoning or correct knowledge, fhould be attended

attended with uncertainty and confusion; or that it should be found impoffible to contrive a definition, which may include the numerous, unsettled, and ever varying fignifications, which the term is made to ftand for, and at the fame time accord with the condition and experience of focial life.

Of the two ideas that have been stated of civil liberty, whichever we affume, and whatever reafoning we found upon them, concerning its extent, nature, value and prefervation, this is the conclufion-that that people, government, and constitution, is the freeft, which makes the best provifion for the enacting of expedient and falutary laws.

CHAP.

CHAP. VI.

OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

A

S a series of appeals must be finite, there neceffarily exifts in every government a power from which the constitution has provided no appeal; and which power, for that reason, may be termed abfolute, omnipotent, uncontrollable, arbitrary, defpotic; and is alike fo in all

countries.

The perfon, or affembly, in whom this power refides, is called the fovereign, or the supreme power of the state.

Since to the fame power universally appertains the office of establishing public laws, it is called alfo the legislature of the state.

A government receives its denomination from the form of the legislature; which form is likewife what we commonly mean by the conftitution of a country.

Political writers enumerate three principal forms of government, which, however, are to be regarded

regarded rather as the fimple forms, by some combination and intermixture of which all actual governments are compofed, than as any where existing in a pure and elementary state. Thefe forms are,

I. Defpotifm, or abfolute MONARCHY, where the legislature is in a single person.

II. An ARISTOCRACY, where the legislature is in a select assembly, the members of which, either fill up by election the vacancies in their own body, or fucceed to their places in it by inheritance, property, tenure of certain lands, or in refpect of fome personal right, or qualifica

tion.

III. A REPUBLIC, or democracy, where the people at large, either collectively or by reprefentation, conftitute the legiflature.

The separate advantages of MONARCHY, are unity of council, activity, decifion, fecrecy, difpatch; the military ftrength and energy which refult from these qualities of government; the exclufion of popular and ariftocratical contentions; the preventing, by a known rule of fucceffion, of all competition for the fupreme power; and thereby repreffing the hopes, intrigues, and dangerous ambition of afpiring citizens.

The

The mischiefs, or rather the dangers of MoNARCHY, are tyranny, expence, exaction, military domination; unneceffary wars waged to gratify the paffions of an individual; risk of the character of the reigning prince; ignorance in the governors of the interefts and accommodation of the people, and a confequent deficiency of falutary regulations; want of conftancy and uniformity in the rules of government, and, proceeding from thence, infecurity of perfon and property.

The separate advantage of an ARISTOCRACY confifts in the wisdom which may be expected from experience and education-a permanent council naturally poffeffes experience; and the members, who fucceed to their places in it by inheritance, will, probably, be trained and educated with a view to the ftations, which they are destined by their birth to occupy.

The mischiefs of an ARISTOCRACY are, diffenfions in the ruling orders of the state, which, from the want of a common superior, are liable to proceed to the moft defperate extremities; oppreffion of the lower orders by the privileges of the higher, and by laws partial to the separate interefts of the law makers.

The