PREFACE.

THE science of politics, on which the prosperity of nations has ever depended, has become intensely important to the welfare of the British Empire during the present crisis of public affairs.

This science is confessed by all to be an ennobling and enlarging study, singularly august in theory, and almost illimitable in application. But we need not here anticipate the panegyrics which our author has bestowed on it.

We wish to see the science of politics extensively studied in these eventful times, because the more profoundly and universally it is understood, the more likely are we to attain that spirit of Catholicity, Union, and Coalition, which is the best safeguard against the schisms, sects, parties, and factions, that so miserably lacerate our national constitution, and undermine its strength and beauty.

The more politics are studied as a science,-a

science of the loftiest dialectics and purest logic,— a science which demands from the truth-searcher whole years of arduous ratiocination, as subtle and severe as that applied to mathematics, and equally remote from the bias of party prejudices and passions,-a science, which, being the last effort of human genius working on human experience, seeks its proofs and illustrations from the history of all times and states;-the more chance shall we have of rearing senators worthy of the name, and of elaborating a system of laws, entitled to the veneration of posterity.

The science of politics and laws divides itself into two principal branches. First, the divine or theologic, from whence spring the ecclesiastical economies. This branch is treated at large by the inspired writers, the Jewish and Christian fathers, as Philo and Origen, and a great number of ecclesiastical lawyers.

The second grand branch of politics and laws, is the natural and national, the law of Nature and Nations, from whence arise the civil and municipal laws of particular states and provinces. This likewise has been treated at large by the sacred writers, and the Jewish and Christian fathers, particularly Augustine. Much information on this branch may be found in Selden's famous Treatise "on the Law of Nature and Nations, according to the discipline of the Hebrews,"