ese general
principles are applicable to the late revolution; and that all the
rights and privileges, which ought to be sacred to a free nation, were
at that time threatened with the utmost danger. I am better pleased to
leave this controverted subject, if it really admits of controversy;
and to indulge myself in some philosophical reflections, which naturally
arise from that important event.

First, We may observe, that should the lords and commons in our
constitution, without any reason from public interest, either depose the
king in being, or after his death exclude the prince, who, by laws and
settled custom, ought to succeed, no one would esteem their proceedings
legal, or think themselves bound to comply with them. But should the
king, by his unjust practices, or his attempts for a tyrannical and
despotic power, justly forfeit his legal, it then not only becomes
morally lawful and suitable to the nature of political society to
dethrone him; but what is more, we are apt likewise to think, that the
remaining members of the constitution acquire a right of excluding his
next heir, and of chusing whom they please for his successor. This is
founded on a very singular quality of our thought and imagination. When
a king forfeits his authority, his heir ought naturally to remain in the
same situation, as if the king were removed by death; unless by mixing
himself in the tyranny, he forfeit it for himself. But though this
may seem reasonable, we easily comply with the contrary opinion. The
deposition of a king, in such a government as ours, is certainly an act
beyond all common authority, and an illegal assuming a power for public
good, which, in the ordinary course of government, can belong to no
member of the constitution. When the public good is so great and so
evident as to justify the action, the commendable use of this licence
causes us naturally to attribute to the parliament a right of using
farther licences; and the antient bounds of the laws being once
transgressed with approbation, we are not apt to be so strict in
confining ourselves precisely within their limits. The mind naturally
runs on with any train of action, which it has begun; nor do we commonly
make any scruple concerning our duty, after the first action of any
kind, which we perform. Thus at the revolution, no one who thought the
deposition of the father justifiable, esteemed themselves to be confined
to his infant son; though had that unhappy monarch