ior learning, he has yet treated this subject with sound
sense, with clear method, with extensive and accurate knowledge, and
with a copiousness of detail sometimes indeed tedious, but always
instructive and satisfactory. His work will be always studied by those
who spare no labour to acquire a deep knowledge of the subject; but it
will, in our times, I fear, be oftener found on the shelf than on the
desk of the general student. In the time of Mr. Locke it was considered
as the manual of those who were intended for active life; but in the
present age I believe it will be found that men of business are too much
occupied, men of letters are too fastidious, and men of the world too
indolent, for the study or even the perusal of such works. Far be it
from me to derogate from the real and great merit of so useful a writer
as Puffendorff. His treatise is a mine in which all his successors must
dig. I only presume to suggest, that a book so prolix, and so utterly
void of all the attractions of composition, is likely to repel many
readers who are interested, and who might perhaps be disposed to
acquire some knowledge of the principles of public law.

Many other circumstances might be mentioned, which conspire to prove
that neither of the great works of which I have spoken, has superseded
the necessity of a new attempt to lay before the public a System of the
Law of Nations. The language of science is so completely changed since
both these works were written, that whoever was now to employ their
terms in his moral reasonings would be almost unintelligible to some of
his hearers or readers; and to some among them too who are neither ill
qualified nor ill disposed to study such subjects with considerable
advantage to themselves. The learned indeed well know how little novelty
or variety is to be found in scientific disputes. The same truths and
the same errors have been repeated from age to age, with little
variation but in the language; and novelty of expression is often
mistaken by the ignorant for substantial discovery. Perhaps too very
nearly the same portion of genius and judgment has been exerted in most
of the various forms under which science has been cultivated at
different periods of history. The superiority of those writers who
continue to be read, perhaps often consists chiefly in taste, in
prudence, in a happy choice of subject, in a favourable moment, in an
agreeable style, in the good fortune of a prevalent language,