Title page from An Essay on the First Principles of Government

An Essay on the First Principles of Government

One of Priestley’s first extended discussions of the nature of civil liberty.

Key Quotes

Liberty

(Some) think it best, that every thing, which is not properly of a civil nature, should be entirely overlooked by the civil magistrate; that it is for the advantage of the society, upon the whole, that all those things be left to take their own natural course, and that the legislature cannot…