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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

II. EDUCATION

But, if it appear that literature, unaided by the regularityBenefits of education. of institution and discipline, is inadequate to the reformation of the species, it may perhaps be imagined, that education, commonly so called, is the best of all subsidiaries for making up its defects. Education may have the advantage of taking mind in its original state, a soil prepared for culture, and as yet unin BOOK I. CHAP. IV. fested with weeds; and it is a common and a reasonable opinion, that the task is much easier to plant right and virtuous dispositions in an unprejudiced understanding, than to root up the errors that have already become as it were a part of ourselves. If an erroneous and vicious education be, as it has been shewn to be, the source of all our depravity, an education, deprived of these errors, seems to present itself as the most natural exchange, and must necessarily render its subject virtuous and pure.

I will imagine the pupil never to have been made the victim of tyranny or the slave of caprice. He has never been permitted to triumph in the success of importunity, and cannot therefore well have become restless, inconstant, fantastical or unjust. He has been inured to ideas of equality and independence, and therefore is not passionate, haughty and overbearing. The perpetual witness of a temperate conduct and reasonable sentiments, he is not blinded with prejudice, is not liable to make a false estimate of things, and of consequence has no immoderate desires after wealth, and splendour, and the gratifications of luxury. Virtue has always been presented to him under the most attractive form, as the surest medium of success in every honourable pursuit, the never-failing consolation of disappointment, and infinitely superior in value to every other acquisition.

It cannot be doubted that such an education is calculated toBOOK I. CHAP. IV. Causes of its imbecility. produce very considerable effects. In the world indeed the pupil will become the spectator of scenes very different from what his preconceived ideas of virtue might have taught him to expect. Let us however admit it to be possible so to temper the mind, as to render it proof against the influence of example and the allurements of luxury. Still it may be reasonable to doubt of the sufficiency of education. How many instances may we expect to find, in which a plan has been carried into execution, so enlightened, unremitted and ardent, as to produce these extraordinary effects? Where must the preceptor himself have been educated, who shall thus elevate his pupil above all the errors of mankind? If the world teach an implicit deference to birth and riches and accidental distinctions, he will scarcely be exempt from this deference. If the world be full of intrigue and rivalship and selfishness, he will not be wholly disinterested. If falshood be with mankind at large reduced to a system, recommended by the prudent, commanded by the magistrate, inforced by the moralist* , and practised under a thousand forms, BOOK I. CHAP. IV. the individual will not always have the simplicity to be sincere, or the courage to be true. If prejudice have usurped the feat of knowledge, if law and religion and metaphysics and government be surrounded with mystery and artifice, he will not know the truth, and therefore cannot teach it; he will not possess the criterion, and therefore cannot furnish it to another. Again; if a man thus mighty, thus accomplished, thus superior to rivalship and comparison, can be found, who will consent to the profanation of employing him in cultivating the mind of a boy, when he should be instructing the world?

Education, in the sense in which it has commonly been understood, though in one view an engine of unlimited power, is exceedingly incompetent to the great business of reformingBOOK I. CHAP. IV. mankind. It performs its task weakly and in detail. The grand principles that the inventor seeks in his machines, and the philosopher in investigating the system of the universe, are such, as from a few simple data are sufficient to the production of a thousand events. But the education I have been describing is the reverse of this. It employs an immense combination of powers, and an endless chain of causes for the production of a single specimen. No task, which is not in its own nature impracticable, can easily be supposed more difficult, than that of counteracting universal error, and arming the youthful mind against the contagion of general example. The strongest mind that proposed this as its object, would scarcely undertake the forming more than one, or at most a very small number, of pupils. Where can a remedy be found for this fundamental disadvantage? where but in political justice, that all comprehensive scheme, that immediately applies to the removal of counteraction and contagion, that embraces millions in its grasp, and that educates in one school the preceptor and the pupil?

[*]The following passage is extracted from Lord Kaimes, late one of the judges of the kingdom of Scotland.

“Custom-house oaths now a-days go for nothing. Not that the world grows more wicked, but because nobody lays any stress upon them. The duty on French wine is the same in Scotland and in England. But as we cannot afford to pay this high duty, the permission underhand to pay Spanish duty for French wine, is found more beneficial to the revenue than the rigour of the law. The oath however must be taken that the wine we import is Spanish, to entitle us to the ease of the Spanish duty. Such oaths at first were highly criminal because directly a fraud against the public; but now that the oath is only exacted for form's sake, without any faith intended to be given or received, it becomes very little different from saying in the way of civility, 'I am, sir, your friend, or your obedient servant.”—Loose Hints upon Education, Appendix, p. 362. Edinburgh, 1781.

Archdeacon Paley in a work, the seventh edition of which lies before me, and which is used as a text book in the university of Cambridge, speaks thus:

“There are falshoods which are not lies; that is, which are not criminal; as—a servant's denying his master, a prisoner's pleading not guilty, an advocate asserting the justice, or his belief of the justice of his client's cause. In such instances no confidence is destroyed, because none was reposed.” Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, Book III. Part I. Chap. xv. London, 1790.