The Online Library of Liberty

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• Preface.
• An Enquiryconcerning Political Justice: Book I.OF The Importance of Political Institutions
• Chap. I.: Introduction
• Chap. II.: History of Political Society
• Chap. III.: The Moral Characters of Men Originate In Their Perceptions
• Chap. IV.: Three Principal Causes of Moral Improvement Considered
• I. Literature
• II. Education
• III. Political Justice
• Chap. V.: Influence of Political Institutions Exemplified
• Chap. VI.: Human Inventions Capable of Perpetual Improvement
• Chap. VII.: Of the Objection to These Principles From the Influence of Climate
• Part I.: Of Moral and Physical Causes
• Part II.: Of National Characters
• Chap. VIII.: Of the Objection to These Principles From the Influence of Luxury
• An Enquiryconcerning Political Justice: Book II.PRINCIPLES Of Society
• Chap. I.: Introduction
• Chap. II.: Of Justice
• Appendix, No. I. P. 87.: Of Suicide
• Appendix, No. II.: Of Duelling
• Chap. III.: Of Duty
• Chap. IV.: Of the Equality of Mankind
• Chap. V.: Rights of Man
• Chap. VI.: Of the Exercise of Private Judgment
• An Enquiryconcerning Political Justice: Book III.PRINCIPLES Of Government
• Chap. I.: Systems of Political Writers
• Chap. II.: Of the Social Contract
• Chap. III.: Of Promises
• Chap. IV.: Of Political Authority
• Chap. V.: Of Legislation
• Chap. VI.: Of Obedience
• Appendix
• Chap. VII.: Of Forms of Government
• An Enquiryconcerning Political Justice: Book IV.MISCELLANEOUS Principles
• Chap. I.: Of Resistance
• Chap. II.: Of Revolutions
• Section I.: Duties of a Citizen
• Section II.: Mode of Effecting Revolutions
• Section III.: Of Political Associations
• Section IV.: Of the Species of Reform to Be Desired
• Chap. III.: Of Tyrannicide
• Chap. IV.: Of the Cultivation of Truth
• Section I.: Of Abstract Or General Truth
• Section II.: Of Sincerity
• Appendix, No. I. P. 233.: Of the Connexion Between Understanding and Virtue
• Appendix, No. Ii, P. 242.: Of the Mode of Excluding Visitors
• Appendix, No. Iii, P. 252.: Subject of Sincerity Resumed
• Chap. V.: Of Free Will and Necessity
• Chap. VI.: Inferences From the Doctrine of Necessity
• Chap. VII.: Of the Mechanism of the Human Mind
• Chap. VIII.: Of the Principle of Virtue
• Chap. IX.: Of the Tendency of Virtue

I. LITERATURE

BOOK I. CHAP. IV. Benefits of literature.FEW engines can be more powerful, and at the same time more salutary in their tendency, than literature. Without enquiring for the present into the cause of this phenomenon, it is sufficiently evident in fact, that the human mind is strongly infected with prejudice and mistake. The various opinions prevailing in different countries and among different classes of men upon the same subject, are almost innumerable; and yet of all these opinions only one can be true. Now the effectual way for extirpating these prejudices and mistakes seems to be literature.

Examples. Literature has reconciled the whole thinking world respecting the great principles of the system of the universe, and extirpated upon this subject the dreams of romance and the dogmas of superstition. Literature has unfolded the nature of the human mind, and Locke and others have established certain maxims respecting man, as Newton has done respecting matter, that are generally admitted for unquestionable. Discussion has ascertained with tolerable perspicuity the preference of liberty over slavery; and the Mainwarings, the Sibthorpes, and the Filmers, the race of speculative reasoners in favour of despotism, are almost extinct. Local prejudice had introduced innumerable privileges and prohibitions upon the subject of trade; speculation has nearly ascertained that perfect freedom is most favour able to her prosperity. If in many instances the collation ofBOOK I. CHAP. IV. evidence have failed to produce universal conviction, it must however be considered, that it has not failed to produce irrefragable argument, and that falshood would have been much shorter in duration, if it had not been protected and inforced by the authority of political government.

Indeed, if there be such a thing as truth, it must infalliblyEssential properties of literature. be struck out by the collision of mind with mind. The restless activity of intellect will for a time be fertile in paradox and error; but these will be only diurnals, while the truths that occasionally spring up, like sturdy plants, will defy the rigour of season and climate. In proportion as one reasoner compares his deductions with those of another, the weak places of his argument will be detected, the principles he too hastily adopted will be overthrown, and the judgments, in which his mind was exposed to no sinister influence, will be confirmed. All that is requisite in these discussions is unlimited speculation, and a sufficient variety of systems and opinions. While we only dispute about the best way of doing a thing in itself wrong, we shall indeed make but a trifling progress; but, when we are once persuaded that nothing is too sacred to be brought to the touchstone of examination, science will advance with rapid strides. Men, who turn their attention to the boundless field of enquiry, and still more who recollect the innumerable errors and caprices of mind, are apt to imagine that the labour is without benefit BOOK I. CHAP. IV. and endless. But this cannot be the case, if truth at last have any real existence. Errors will, during the whole period of their reign, combat each other; prejudices that have passed unsuspected for ages, will have their era of detection; but, if in any science we discover one solitary truth, it cannot be overthrown.

Its defects. Such are the arguments that may be adduced in favour of literature. But, even should we admit them in their full force, and at the same time suppose that truth is the omnipotent artificer by which mind can infallibly be regulated, it would yet by no means sufficiently follow that literature is alone adequate to all the purposes of human improvement. Literature, and particularly that literature by which prejudice is superseded, and the mind is strung to a firmer tone, exists only as the portion of a few. The multitude, at least in the present state of human society, cannot partake of its illuminations. For that purpose it would be necessary, that the general system of policy should become favourable, that every individual should have leisure for reasoning and reflection, and that there should be no species of public institution, which, having falshood for its basis, should counteract their progress. This state of society, if it did not precede the general dissemination of truth, would at least be the immediate result of it.

But in representing this state of society as the ultimate result, we should incur an obvious fallacy. The discovery of truth isBOOK I. CHAP. IV. a pursuit of such vast extent, that it is scarcely possible to prescribe bounds to it. Those great lines, which seem at present to mark the limits of human understanding, will, like the mists that rise from a lake, retire farther and farther the more closely we approach them. A certain quantity of truth will be sufficient for the subversion of tyranny and usurpation; and this subversion, by a reflected force, will assist our understandings in the discovery of truth. In the mean time, it is not easy to define the exact portion of discovery that must necessarily precede political melioration. The period of partiality and injustice will be shortened, in proportion as political rectitude occupies a principal share in our disquisition. When the most considerable part of a nation, either for numbers or influence, becomes convinced of the flagrant absurdity of its institutions, the whole will soon be prepared tranquilly and by a sort of common consent to supersede them.