An Enquiry [4th Ed.] Concerning the Principles of Political Justice and Its Influence on General Virtue, Fourth Edition

Book 8, Chapter 10 : Reflections
BOOK VIII OF PROPERTY CHAPTER X REFLECTIONS I. Supposed danger in disseminating leveling principles. -- Idea of massacre. -- Qualification of this idea. -- Skeptical suggestions -- Means of suppressing inquiry. -- Nature of political science. -- II. Political duties, 1. of those who are qualified for public instructors -- temper -- sincerity. -- Pernicious effects of dissimulation in this case. -- 2. of the rich and great. -- Many of them may be expected to be advocates of equality. -- Conduct which their interest as a body prescribes. -- 3. of the friends of equality in general. -- Importance of a mild and benevolent proceeding. -- III. Connection between liberty and equality. -- Cause of equality will perpetually advance. -- Symptoms of its progress. -- Idea of its future success. -- Conclusion. (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Book 8, Chapter 09, Appendix 1 : Appendix. Of Health and the Prolongation of Human Life
BOOK VIII OF PROPERTY CHAPTER IX APPENDIX OF HEALTH, AND THE PROLONGATION OF HUMAN LIFE Omnipotence of mind. -- Application of this principle to the animal frame. -- Causes of decrepitude. -- Theory of voluntary and involuntary action. -- Present utility of these reasoning. -- Recapitulation. -- Application to the future state of society. The question respecting population is, in some degree, connected, with the subject of health and longevity. It may therefore be allowed us, to make use of this occasion, for indulging in certain speculations upon this article. What follows, must be considered, as eminently a deviation into the land of conjecture. If it be false, it leaves the system to which it is appended, in all sound reason, as impregnable as ever. Let us then, in this place, return to the sublime conjecture of Franklin, a man habitually conversant with t... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Book 8, Chapter 09 : Objection to this System from the Principle of Population
BOOK VIII OF PROPERTY CHAPTER IX OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION Objection stated. -- Opinions that have been entertained on this subject. -- Population adapted to find own level. -- Precautions that have been exerted to check it. -- Conclusion. An author who has speculated widely upon subjects of government1 has recommended equality, (or, which was rather his idea, a community of goods to be maintained by the vigilance of the state), as a complete remedy, for the usurpation and distress which are, at present, the most powerful enemies of human kind; for the vises which infect education in some instances, and the neglect it encounters in more; for all the turbulence of passion, and all the injustice of selfishness. But, after having exhibited this brilliant picture, he finds an argument that demolishes the whole, and restores hi... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Book 8, Chapter 8, Appendix 1 : Of Co-operation, Cohabitation and Marriage
BOOK VIII OF PROPERTY CHAPTER VIII APPENDIX OF COOPERATION, COHABITATION AND MARRIAGE Advantages of social refinement -- of individuality. -- Evils of cooperation. -- Ideas of the future state of cooperation. -- Its limits. -- Its legitimate province. -- Evils of cohabitation -- of the received system of marriage. -- Consequences of their abolition. -- A promiscuous commerce of the sexes estimated. -- Inconstancy estimated. -- Education need not be a sybject of positive institution. -- Of the division of labor. It is a curious subject, to inquire into the due medium between individuality and concert. On the one hand, it is to be observed that human beings are formed for society. Without society, we shall probably be deprived of the most eminent enjoyments of which our nature is susceptible. In society, no man, possessing the... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Book 8, Chapter 08 : Objection to this System from the Inflexibility of its Restrictions
BOOK VIII OF PROPERTY CHAPTER VIII OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE INFLEXIBILITY OF ITS RESTRICTIONS Objection stated. -- Natural and moral independence distinguished. -- Tendency of restriction properly so called. -- The system of equality not a system of restriction. An objection that has often been urged against a system of equality, is, "that it is inconsistent with personal independence. Every man, according to this scheme, is a passive instrument in the hands of the community. He must eat and drink, and play and sleep, at the bidding of others. He has no habitation, no period at which he can retreat into himself, and not ask another's leave. He has nothing that he can call his own, not even his time or his person. Under the appearance of a perfect freedom from oppression and tyranny, he is in reality subjected to this most unlimited slavery." To understand the force o... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Of Religious Establishments
BOOK VI Effects of the Political Superintendence of Opinion CHAPTER II Of Religious Establishments Their general tendency. - Effects on the clergy: they introduce, i. implicit faith - 2. hypocrisy: topics by which an adherence to them is vindicated. - Effects on the laity. - Application. ONE of the most striking instances of the injurious effects of the political patronage of opinion, as it at present exists in the world, is to be found in the system of religious conformity. Let us take our example from the church of England, by the constitution of which subscription is required from its clergy to thirty-nine articles of precise and dogmatic assertion, upon almost every subject of moral and metaphysical inquiry. Here then we have to conside... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Of the Suppression of Erroneous Opinions in Religion and Government
BOOK VI Opinions as a Subject of Political Institution CHAPTER III OF THE SUPPRESSIONS OF ERRONEOUS OPINIONS IN RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT Of heresy. - Arguments by which the suppres- sion of heresy has been recommended. - Answer. - Ignorance not necessary to make men virtuous. - Reason, and not force, the proper corrective of sophistry. - Incongruity of the attempt to restrain thought - to restrain the freedom of speech. _ Consequences that would result. - Fallibility of the men by whom authority is exercised. - Of erroneous opinions in government. Iniquity of the attempt to restrain them. - Difficulty of suppressing opinions by force. - Severities that would be necessary. - Without persecution and oppres- sion, opinions do not lead to violen... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Spirit of Political Institutions
CHAP. III. SPIRIT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. Robbery and fraud, two great vises in society-originate, 1, in extreme poverty-2, in the ostentation of the rich-3, in their tyranny-ern- dered permanent-1, by legislation-2, by the administration of law -3, by the manner in which property is distributed. ADDITIONAL perspicuity will be communicated to our view of the evils of political society if we reflect with further and closer attention upon what may be called its interior and domestic history. Two of the greatest abuses relative to the interior policy of nations, which at this time prevail in the world, consist in the irregular transfer of property, either first by violence, or secondly by fraud. If among the inhabitants of any country there... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Of Legislation
BOOK III Principles of Government CHAPTER V OF LEGISLATION Society can declare and interpret, but cannot enact. - Its authority only executive. HAVING thus far investigated the nature of political functions, it seems necessary that some explanation should be given upon the subject of legislation. "Who is it that has authority to make laws? What are the characteristics of that man or body of men in whom the tremendous faculty is vested of prescribing to the rest of the community what they are to perform, and what to avoid?" The answer to these questions is exceedingly simple: Legislation, as it has been usually understood, is not an affair of human competence. Immutable reason is the true legislator, and her decrees it behooves us to investi... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Of the Future History of Political Societies
BOOK V OF LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE POWER CHAP. XXII. OF THE FUTURE HISTORY OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES Quantity of administration necessary to be maintained. -- Objects of administration: national glory -- rivalship of nations. --Inferences: 1. complication of government unnecessary. -- 2.extensive territory superfluous -- 3. constraint, its limitations. -Project of government: police -- defense. THUS we have endeavored to unfold and establish certain general principles upon the subject of legislative and executive power. But there is one interesting topic that remains to be discussed. How much of either of these powers does the public benefit require us to maintain? We have already seen1 that the only legitimate object of political institution... (From : Anarchy Archives.)