if I do not want leifure, to difcufs in the fame form every branch of English law, civil and criminal, private and publick; after which it will be easy to separate and mould into distinct works, the three principal divifions, or the analytical, the historical, and the synthetical, parts.

The great system of jurifprudence, like that of the Universe, confifts of many fubordinate fyftems, all of which are connected by nice links and beautiful dependencies; and each of them, as I have fully perfuaded myself, is reducible to a few plain elements, either the wife maxims of national policy and general convenience, or the pofitive rules of our forefathers, which are feldom deficient in wisdom or utility: if LAW be a science, and really deserve so sublime a name, it must be founded on principle, and claim an exalted rank in the empire of reason; but, if it be merely an unconnected series of decrees and ordinances, its ufe may remain, though its dignity be leffened, and He will become the greatest lawyer, who has the strongest habitual, or artificial, memory. In practice, law certainly employs two of the mental faculties; reason, in the primary investigation and decifion of points entirely new; and memory, in transmitting to us the reafon of fage and learned men, to which our own ought invariably to

yield, if not from a becoming modefty, at least from a just attention to that object, for which all laws are framed, and all focieties inftituted,

THE GOOD OF MANKIND.

ADVERTISEMENT.

AFTER I had finished the preceding tract, to the fatisfaction of feveral friends, but not to my own, I was informed, that the learned CHRISTIAN THOMASIUS had published a differtation on the fame fubject with the following title De Ufu Practico Doctrinæ difficillimæ Juris Ro- · mani de Culparum Præftatione in Contractibus; HALE, MDCCV. The fame of the author, and the high applaufe, which the very sensible Bynkershoek beftows on him, impressed me with a most favourable idea of his work, and with a ftrong defire to procure it; but, to my extreme disappointment, I cannot find it in any library, publick or private, in the Metropolis or in either of our Universities: I have fent for it, however, to Germany, and, when I receive it, fhall take a fincere pleasure, either in correcting such errors, as it may enable me to detect in my essay, or in confirming the fyftem, which I have adopted, by fo refpectable an authority.

AN INQUIRY

INTO

THE LEGAL MODE

OP

SUPPRESSING RIOTS,

WITH

A CONSTITUTIONAL PLAN

OF

FUTURE DEFENCE.

Res videas quo modo fe habeant: orbem terrarum, imperiis diftributis, ardere bello; urbem fine legibus, fine judiciis, fine jure, fine fide, relictam direptioni et incendiis.

CIC. Epift. ad Fam. 4. I..