In order to have a general and comprehensive knowledge of the whole, we
must be determined on this, as on every other subject, to overlook many
particulars and singularities, distinguishing different governments; to fix
our attention on certain points, in which many agree; and thereby establish
a few general heads, under which the subject may be distinctly considered.
When we have marked the characteristics which form the general points of
coincidence; when we have pursued them to their consequences in the several
modes of legislation, execution, and judicature, in the establishments
which relate to police, commerce, religion, or domestic life; we have made
an acquisition of knowledge, which, though it does not supersede the
necessity of experience, may serve to direct our inquiries, and, in the
midst of affairs, give an order and a method for the arrangement of
particulars that occur to our observation.
When I recollect what the President Montesquieu has written, I am at a loss
to tell, why I should treat of human affairs; but I too am instigated by my
reflections, and my sentiments; and I may utter them more to the
comprehension of ordinary capacities, because I am more on the level of
ordinary men.
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