When principles are well understood, the real consequences of burdensome institutions are clearly seen: when the purposes they are intended for, are not obtained, the abuse of the statesman’s administration appears palpable. People then will not so much cry out against the imposition, as against the misapplication. It will not be a land tax of four shillings in the pound, nor an excise upon wines and tobacco, which will excite the murmurs of a nation; it will be the prodigal dissipation and misapplication of the amount of these taxes after they are laid on. But when principles are not known, all inquiry is at an end, the moment a nation can be engaged to submit to the burden. It is the same with regard to every other part of this science.
Having pointed out the object of my pursuit, I shall only add, that my intention is to attach myself principally to a clear deduction of principles, and a short application of them to familiar examples, in order to avoid abstraction as much as possible. I farther intend to confine myself to such parts of this extensive subject, as shall appear the most interesting in the general system of modern politics, of which I shall treat with that spirit of liberty, which reigns more and more every day, throughout all the polite and flourishing nations of Europe.
When I compare the elegant performances which have appeared in Great Britain and in France with my dry and abstracted manner of treating the same subject, in a plain language void of ornament, I own I am discouraged on many accounts. If I am obliged to set out by laying down as fundamental principles the most obvious truths, I dread the imputation of pedantry, and of pretending to turn common sense into science. If I follow these principles through a minute detail, I may appear trifling. I therefore hope the reader will believe me, when I tell him, that these defects have not escaped my discernment, but that my genius, the nature of the work, and the connection of the subject, have obliged me to write in an order and in a stile where every thing has been sacrificed to perspicuity.
My principal aim shall be to discover truth, and to enable my reader to touch the very link of the chain where I may at any time go astray.
My business shall not be to seek for new thoughts, but to reason consequentially; and if any thing new be found, it will be in the conclusions.
Long steps in political reasoning lead to error; close reasoning is tedious, and to many appears trivial: this however must be my plan, and my consolation is, that the further I advance, I shall become the more interesting.
Every supposition must be considered as strictly relative to the circumstances presupposed; and though, in order to prevent misapplication, and to avoid abstraction as much as possible, I frequently make use of examples for illustrating every principle; yet these, which are taken from matters of fact, must be supposed divested of every foreign circumstance inconsistent with the supposition.
I shall combat no particular opinion in such intricate matters; though sometimes I may pass them in review, in order to point out how I am led to differ from them.
I pretend to form no system, but by following out a succession of principles, consistent with the nature of man and with one another, I shall endeavour to furnish some materials towards the forming of a good one.