whatever in the legiflative. This chapter is terminated by a parallel between the Conftitution of 1795 and the British Conftitution, which the French legiflators have spoiled in all its parts, in endeavouring to imitate, or, rather, to improve and perfect it.

In the fourteenth and last chapter, M. du V. endeavours to demonftrate, that, in the prefent fituation of affairs, the only alternative left to France is, the perpetual tyranny of the Directory, or the lawful authority of her King; that the people perfit in their rejection of all republican inftitutions; that, while they yield to violence, their hatred for the republic increafes with the adoration which they are compelled to pay it; that the Directory are as hoftile to the prefent as to every other conftitution which would allow the people any portion of influence; because they have learnt, from the elections of 1797, that, even under the new fyftem, the public opinion. may be loudly pronounced against them. The author then fhews, that in a monarchical government there is a restorative principle for nations exhausted by civil diffentions; while, in the prefent government of France, there is a principle of perpetual warfare, foreign and domeftic, founded on the intereft of those who govern. War with all nations is neceffary for them, in order to extend, by force of arms, the empire of liberty and philofophy; to erect univerfal anarchy on the ruins of focial order; and to have a pretext for plunder, devastation, and other revolutionary measures. Thus we have feen them reject every propofal for a general pacification which might have fupplied them with the means of terminating, with advantage, a fatal war; and openly support the fyftem of separate treaties, in order to preferve the means and opportunity of deftroying the powers of Europe fucceffively, after curtailing their refources and diminishing their strength.

The difplay of the advantages of the monarchical over the republican government, of hereditary over elective royalty, is followed by a curfory view of the events which preceded and followed the revolution of the 4th of September, 1797; and of the system of terror adopted by the Directory, in order to maintain their authority against the public opinion. This brings on a difcuffion, the object of which is to prove, that the extravagant oath of hatred to royalty is null according to the principles of the constitution, abfurd according to all principles of policy, and facrilegious according to the principles of religion; and that royalty will be revived in fpite of the oaths which profcribe it ;

"The state of France," fays the author, "exhibits one of thofe erifes which portend and bring on revolutions. A Catholic nation, and

an atheistical government! A royalift nation, and a republican conftitution, a defpotic government! This combat between the nation and the government, between opinion and force, may be prolonged for a time, but the iffue is certain."

We moft fincerely defire, that the calculations on which the author founds his hopes may not deceive him; but we much fear, that the object of his wifhes, as of our own, is fill far diftant.

Having thus prefented our readers with a complete analyfis of the work before us, we fhall now proceed to make thofe critical obfervations on particular parts of it which our duty to the public requires.

M. du V. eftablishes (P. 8) the true bafis of civil fociety on the irrefiftible impulfe of nature. The confequence of this principle is, that man has always lived in fome ftate of fociety, as the author pofitively proves, from the fact itself; and that the state of nature in which man is confidered as an infulated being has never exifted. Neverthelefs, M. du V. afterwards abandons this falutary principle to follow the fpeculative philofophers in their dreams on the state of nature, the real existence of which, he, by degrees, almost admits, and even finishes, by drawing a picture of that ftate of nature which is fuppofed to have preceded focial order.

If man have always lived in fome ftate of fociety, or other, there must have been, in fuch ftate, a certain focial order, laws, and magiftrates connected with the existence of that order. Thefe inflitutions were certainly rude and imperfect; but fo are all the rudiments of thofe of civilized nations; and the former only differ from the latter, inafmuch, as the author obferves, as "the perfectibility of man has no limits, and is developed by the fociety of his fellow-créatures." It is with focial order as it is with languages. A barbarous people have a barren, irregular, and rude language; but will it be faid that they have no language, becaufe they have neither dictionary nor grammar: Man can no more difpense with social order than with language; and, in fact, the very favages of Africa and America are fubject to other laws than those of

nature.

The fiction of a state of nature anterior to the existence of focial order, is contrary to the information which we derive from Scripture on the origin of fociety; it is built on a verbal equivique, and it inevitably leads to another fiction, that of a ntract, by which men unite in fociety, on certain conditions, the infraction of which fanctions a final refiftance to lawful authority. By a fimple denial of the existence of a Bate of nature, all the fophifins of a primordial contract, and

its confequences are done away; and fociety thus becomes a matter of fact, founded on neceffity and the nature of man, and deftined to undergo all the various degrees of perfectibility.

The author, adopting a mode of reafoning directly the reverse of this, pretends that political focieties were created by man; that domeftic fociety does not answer all the purposes of nature; that the right of property can only be regulated by civil rights; that there is no civil fociety except among paftoral nations; that governments have been legitimated by time; and that the defect in their birth has been remedied by the acquiefcence of the people; and, laftly, he gives the hiftory (P. 14) of a kind of Congrefs, at which the heads of different families deliberate on the means of maintaining order, and of Jubjecting the will of the whole to that of one, or of feveral. All thefe affertions are not only extremely open to contradiction, but they moreover tend to deftroy, fundamentally, the whole fyftem of the work. It was precifely on a fimilar combination of ideas, that Milton, Hobbes, Locke, Rouffeau, and others, founded all their principles, and their deductions are certainly more confiftent than thofe of our

author.

It was to be expected that a writer who took up his pen in defence of focial order, would begin, by overthrowing all the falfe fyftems of philofophic politicians, and would adhere folely to this eftablifhed truth, that fociety has always exifted, though under different forms; that the words property and government fhould always be employed in a relative, and not in an abstract, fenfe, fince they are a neceffary confequence of fociety, and follow its progrefs; in a word, that the tranfition from domestic faciety to political fociety took place by imperceptible degrees, and was not the fudden refult of mature deliberation, which fuppofes, in the perfons deliberating, the wisdom to defire a government without the virtue to difpenfe with it.

If we were not apprehenfive of fubjecting ourfelves to the imputation of carrying the fpirit of criticifm too far, we might cafily expofe the fallacy of the trivial and incorrect reflection at the beginning of the fecond chapter:-" There is no fentiment more deeply engraven in the heart of man than the love of liberty." We could fhew, that the love of power is much more habitual to the heart of man, because it originates in pride, which forms one of the integral parts of his moral character. But, without ftopping to difcufs this point, we fhall proceed to confider the definition of liberty, which, according to the author, " is, in the most extenfive fignification of the term, the right and the power of doing whatever a man wishes to do." (P. 45.) Never was any definition lefs accurate.

Man,

Man, being effentially a focial animal, and having always lived in a state of fociety, only enjoys liberty fubject to certain limitations. He does not wish to do all that he has the power to do; that is to fay, he has a repugnance to exert all the phyfical and moral force which he has received from nature, and rather choofes to reftrain its developement, in order to direct it to a determinate end, by voluntarily uniting with his fellow-creatures. It is this difpofition to union that conftitutes fociableness; which is itself the inftinct of the human fpecies, and the true caufe which limits the freedom of man; for the union of the will of different individuals neceffarily fuppofes that they have not all the fame intenseness of will. It is not then correct to fay, that liberty includes, at once, the right and the power to do whatever a man wishes to do. Thus, inftead of examining, as the author does, whether man has the right and the power to do all that he wishes to do, it would have been more proper to enquire whether he has the right of wishing to do all that he has the power to do; to prove that his right is limited by fociety, and his power by nature; that God, in giving to man a certain portion of force, reftricted its difplay by that fympathetic tendency which inceffantly governs him, prevents him from becoming a folitary being, and deters him from harbouring a defire to enjoy unlimited freedom.

We are concerned to find, in the fame chapter, which cer- tainly contains many excellent things, one paragraph of which the author feems to have neither weighed the expreflions, nor to have forefeen the confequences. He affirms, (P. 67,) that if we recur to the birth of fociety, we fhall fee that it is in virtue of a folemn contract, attefied by history, ar fairly implied, between the nation and its chiefs, that the Prince, or the Senate, is invefted with legiflative power: yet he had before faid, (P. 12,) that we can only form conjectures on the conduct obferved by the founders of focial order, and that the birth of focieties was loft in the shades of antiquity. He had declared, (P. 24,) that he knows only three ftates which have a conititution reduced into a charter ;* (P. 35) that the conftitution

of

* One of thefe ftates is England. When a foreigner lands in this country, he hears every por-houfe politician talking, with fo much confidence, of the conftitution, of its defects, of the abufes, the infractions of it, the means of improving and reforming it, that he, naturally enough, fuppofes it a thing which every man knows and understands; which a man, in fhort, may take out of his pocket,

or

of a state may be changed by fudden innovations, or by gradual variations; (P. 39) that the conftitution of all the flates of Europe is a vaft edifice, which was neither conftructed altogether at the fame time, nor after a regular plan.

Here the author, abandoning these inconteftible principles, adopts the chimera of a pact between the Sovereign and his fubjects. But, in the first place, the contradiction is palpable; for the diftribution of the legislative power forms the most important part of a conftitution; fecondly, fo far from history establishing the exiftence of the formal, or implied contract, here infifted on, it proves, that the legislative power has been modified in different ways, at different times, according to the unfkilfulness of the governors, or the turbulence of the governed; thirdly, the opinion which we combat favours, in a fingular manner, the doctrine of refiftance; for the idea of a contract includes that of a fpecies of reciprocal obligation, which gives to both parties an equal right of exacting, by force, the mutual execution of their respective engagements it affords to factious demagogues a facility of perfuading the people, on every trivial occafion, in which their own crude notions, or ambitious defigns have been thwarted, that the conditions of the focial pact have been violated; and of deducing the confequence-a diffolution of the government. From this principle naturally flows the revolutionary right of infurrection, and its first-born offspring, anarchy.

Nothing proves more clearly the abfurdity of a state of nature anterior to a focial state, than the embarrassment in

or take down from his fhelf, and read and expound it with as much facility as he would a paragraph in a newfpaper. He little imagines that our conflitution, as it is inaccurately called, is nothing less than the whole code of our public laws; and that, in order perfectly to understand it, thofe laws must be regularly ftudied. What has much contributed to the error under which foreigners, in general, labour on this point, is the panegyric which they fo frequently find pronounced by our hiftorians, and political writers, on Magna Charta; they do not confider that charter in a relative point of view, but haftily adopt the idea, that it contains the whole fpirit of the British conftitution, the aggregate of English freedom. It is, on this falfe fuppofition, no doubt, that M. du Voifin claffes England among the ftates whofe conftitutions are reduced into a charter. Let those who are fond of recurring to first principles, content themselves with the mighty advantages beftowed by this boafted charter; they are not made to fatisfy us. We prefer the flavery of 1799 to the freedom of 1215; the tyranny of George to the liberality of John.REVIEWER