pose of enslaving, plundering, and imposing
upon mankind, it is of all things the least mysterious and the most easy
to be understood. The meanest capacity cannot be at a loss, if it begins
its enquiries at the right point. Every art and science has some point,
or alphabet, at which the study of that art or science begins, and by
the assistance of which the progress is facilitated. The same method
ought to be observed with respect to the science of government.

Instead then of embarrassing the subject in the outset with the numerous
subdivisions under which different forms of government have been
classed, such as aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, &c.
the better method will be to begin with what may be called primary
divisions, or those under which all the several subdivisions will be
comprehended.

The primary divisions are but two:

First, government by election and representation.

Secondly, government by hereditary succession.

All the several forms and systems of government, however numerous
or diversified, class themselves under one or other of those primary
divisions; for either they are on the system of representation, or on
that of hereditary succession. As to that equivocal thing called mixed
government, such as the late government of Holland, and the present
government of England, it does not make an exception to the general
rule, because the parts separately considered are either representative
or hereditary.

Beginning then our enquiries at this point, we have first to examine
into the nature of those two primary divisions.

If they are equally right in principle, it is mere matter of opinion
which we prefer. If the one be demonstratively better than the other,
that difference directs our choice; but if one of them should be so
absolutely false as not to have a right to existence, the matter settles
itself at once; because a negative proved on one thing, where two only
are offered, and one must be accepted, amounts to an affirmative on the
other.

The revolutions that are now spreading themselves in the world have
their origin in this state of the case, and the present war is a
conflict between the representative system founded on the rights of the
people, and the hereditary system founded in usurpation. As to what are
called Monarchy, Royalty, and Aristocracy, they do not, either as things
or as terms, sufficiently describe the hereditary system; they are but
secondary things or signs o