been deemed too evident to require the fupport of argument, and almoft too facred to admit the liberty of difcuffion. I fhall here endeavour to ftrengthen fome parts of the fortifications of morality which have hitherto been neglected, becaufe no man had ever been hardy enough to attack them. Almost all the relative duties of human life will be found more immediately, or more remotely, to arife out of the two great inftitutions of property and marriage. They conftitute, preserve, and improve fociety. Upon their gradual improvement depends the progreffive civilization of mankind; on them refts the whole order of civil life. We are told by Horace, that the first efforts of lawgivers to civilize men confifted in strengthening and regulating these inftitutions, and fencing them round with rigorous pe nal laws. Oppida cœperunt munire et ponere leges Neu quis fur effet, neu quis latro, neu quis adulter. 1.Serm. iii. 105. A celebrated ancient orator, of whofe poems we have but a few fragments remaining, has well defcribed the progreffive order in which human fociety is gradually led to its highest improvements under the guardianthip of those laws which fecure property and regulate marriage; ¦ Et leges fanctas docuit, et chara jugaviti pr Thefe These two great inftitutions convert the selfish as well as the focial paffions of our nature into the firmest bands of a peaceable and orderly intercourfe; they change the fources of difcord into principles of quiet; they difcipline the most ungovernable, they refine the groffeft, and they exalt the most fordid propenfities; fo that they become the perpetual fountain of all that strengthens, and preferves, and adorns fociety; they fuftain the individual, and they perpetuate the race. Around thefe inftitutions all our focial duties will be found at various distances to range themselves; fome more near, obviously effential to the good order of human life, others more remote, and of which the neceffity is not at firft view fo apparent, and fome fo diftant, that their importance has been fometimes doubted, though upon more mature confideration they will be found to be outposts and advanced guards of these fundamental principles; that man fhould fecurely enjoy the fruits of his labour, and that the fociety of the fexes fhould be fo wifely ordered as to make it a fchool of the kind affections, and a fit nursery for the commonwealth. The fubject of property is of great extent. It will be neceffary to eftablish the foundation of the rights of acquifition, alienation, and transmission, not in imaginary contracts or a pretended state of nature, but in their fubferviency to the fubfiftence and well-being of mankind. It will not only be curious, but ufeful, to trace the hiftory of property from the firft loofe and tranfient occupancy of the favage, through all the modifications which it has at different times received, to that comprehenfive, fubtle, and anxioufly minute code of property which is the laft refult of the most refined civilization. *་ ་ * I fhall obferve the fame order in confidering. the fociety of the fexes as it is regulated by the inftitution of marriage. I fhall endeavour to lay open those unalterable principles of general intereft on which that inftitution refts: and if I entertain a hope that on this fubject I may be able to add fomething to what our mafters in morality have taught us, I trust that the reader will bear in mind, as an excufe for my prefumption, that they were not likely to employ much argument where they did not forefee the poffibility of doubt. I fhall alfo confider the hiftory of marriage, and trace * See on this fubject an incomparable fragment of the first book of Cicero's Economics, which is too long for infertion here, but which, if it be closely examined, may perhaps difpel the illufion of thofe gentlemen, who have fo ftrangely taken it for granted, that Cicero was incapable of exact reafoning. This progrefs is traced with great accuracy in fome beautiful lines of Lucretius: -Mulier conjuncta viro conceffit in unum, Caftaque privatæ Veneris connubia læta Cognita funt, prolemque ex fe vidêre coortam: TUM GENUS HUMANUM PRIMUM MOLLESCERE CŒPIT. -puerique trace it through all the forms which it has affumed, to that decent and happy permanency of union, which has, perhaps above all other caufes, contributed to the quiet of fociety, and the refinement of manners in modern times. Among many other inquiries which this fubject will fuggeft, I fhall be led more particularly to examine the natural ftation and duties of the female fex, their condition among different nations, its improvement in Europe, and the bounds which Nature herfelf has prefcribed to the progrefs of that improvement; beyond which, every pretended advance will be a real degradation. III. Haying eflablished the principles of pri vate duty, I fhall proceed to confider man under the important relation of fubject and fovereign, or, in other words, of citizen and magistrate. The duties which arife from this relation I fhall endeavour to establish, not upon fuppofed compacts, which are altogether chimerical, which must be admitted to be falfe in fact, which if they are to be confidered as fictions, will be found to ferve no purpose of just reasoning, and to be -puerique parentum Blanditiis facile ingenium fregere fuperbum. IMBECILLORUM ESSE ÆQUUM MISERIER OMNIUM. Lucret. lib. v. l. 1010—1022, equally the foundation of a fyftem of univerfal defpotifm in Hobbes, and of universal anarchy in Rouffeau; but on the folid bafis of general convenience. Men cannot fubfift without fociety and mutual aid; they can neither maintain focial intercourse, nor receive aid from each other, without the protection of government; and they cannot enjoy that protection without fubmitting to the restraints which a juft government impofes. This plain argument establishes the duty of obedience on the part of citizens, and the duty of protection on that of magiftrates, on the fame foundation with that of every other moral duty; and it fhows, with fufficient evidence, that thefe duties are reciprocal; the only rational end for which the fiction of a contract could have been invented.. I fhall not encumber my reasoning by any fpeculations on the origin of government; a queftion on which fo much reafon has been wafted in modern times; but which the ancients in a higher fpirit of philofophy have never once mooted. If our principles be *The introduction to the first book of Ariftotle's Politics is the best demonstration of the neceffity of political fociety to the well-being, and indeed to the very being, of man, with which I am acquainted. Having fhown the circumstances which render man neceffarily a focial being, he juftly concludes, σε Και ότι άνθρωπος φύσει πολίτικον ζωον.” Arift. de Rep. lib. i. The fame fcheme of philofophy is admirably pursued in the fhort, but invaluable fragment of the fixth book of Polybius, which defcribes the hiftory and revolutions of govern ment. just, |