It is indeed wider in its extent, but it is infinitely less absolute in its power.  The state of society is incontestibly artificial; the power of one man over another must be always derived from convention, or from conquest; by nature we are equal.  The necessary consequence is, that government must always depend upon the opinion of the governed.  Let the most oppressed people under heaven once change their mode of thinking, and they are free.  But the inequality of parents and children is the law of our nature, eternal and uncontrolable.—­Government is very limited in its power of making men either virtuous or happy; it is only in the infancy of society that it can do any thing considerable; in its maturity it can only direct a few of our outward actions.  But our moral dispositions and character depend very much, perhaps entirely, upon education.—­Children indeed are weak and imbecil; but it is the imbecility of spring, and not that of autumn; the imbecility that verges towards power, and not that is already exhausted with performance.  To behold heroism in its infancy, and immortality in the bud, must be a most attractive object.  To mould those pliant dispositions, upon which the happiness of multitudes may one day depend, must be infinitely important.

Proportionable to what we have stated to be the importance of the subject, is the attention that has been afforded it in the republic of letters.  The brightest wits, and the profoundest philosophers have emulated each other in their endeavours to elucidate so valuable a theme.  In vain have pedants urged the stamp of antiquity, and the approbation of custom; there is scarcely the scheme so visionary, the execution of which has not at some time or other been attempted.  Of the writers upon this interesting subject, he perhaps that has produced the most valuable treatise is Rousseau.  If men of equal abilities have explored this ample field, I know of none, however, who have so thoroughly investigated the first principles of the science, or who have treated it so much at large.  If he have indulged to a thousand agreeable visions, and wandered in the pursuit of many a specious paradox, he has however richly repaid us for this defect, by the profoundest researches, and the most solid discoveries.

I have borrowed so many of my ideas from this admirable writer, that I thought it necessary to make this acknowledgement in the outset.  The learned reader will readily perceive, that if I have not scrupled to profit from his discoveries, at least I have freely and largely dissented from him, where he appeared to me to wander from the path of truth.  For my own part, I am persuaded that it can only be by striking off something of inflexibility from his system, and something of pedantry from the common one, that we can expect to furnish a medium, equally congenial to the elegance of civilization, and the manliness of virtue.