A Fragment on Government

which I perceive myſelf to have aſſumed. In determining what conduct to obſerve reſpecting it, I ſhould have conſidered whether the taint of error ſeemed to confine itſelf it to parts, or to diffuſe itſclf through r xxlii through the whole. In the latter caſe, the leaſt Gar i invidious, and conſidering the bulk of the work, the why attacked in the Characmoſt beneficial courſe would have been to have ter of an . taken no notice of it at all, but to have ſat down Vlter. and tried to give a better. If not the whole in general, but ſcattered poſitions only had appeared exceptionable, I ſhould have fat down to rectify thoſe poſitions with the ſame apathy with which they were advanced. To fall in an adverſe way upon a work ſimply expoſitory, it that were all there were of it, would have been alike ungenerous and unneceſfary, In the involuntary errors of the undlerſtanding there can be little to excite, or at leaſt to juſtify, reſentment, That which alone, in a manner, calls for rigid cenſure, is the ſiniſter bias of the affeftions. If then I may {till continue to mention as ſeparate, parts which in the work itſelf are ſo intimately, and, indeed, unciſtinguiſhably blended, it is the cenfortal part alone that has drawn from me that fort of animadverſion I have been led to beſtow indiſcriminately on the whole. To lay open, and if poſſible ſupply, the imperfections of the other, is an operation that might indeed of itſelf do ſervice ; ' but that which I thought would do {till more ſervice, was the weakening the authority of is. Under the ſanction of a great name every ſtring b 4 of * eee of wh 2 * * * e CPE BID A = EI — 8 * - — — % tt AW hf; — . — och po i pales de x neee LEG) Bn RF Pr Rs tw . 4 tht og ODS 2g Jah 2 } * x: * a4 rn Fn enn M+# m Fad: it "0. TICS 0": r — xxiv Our Author why attacked in the character of an Expoſi or · . of words however unmeaning, every opinion how.…