Preliminary Observations

My object in undertaking this work, was to examine and reflect on each of the great objects which had been discussed by Montesquieu; to form my own opinions, to commit them to writing, and in short, to accomplish a clear and settled judgment upon them. It was not very long before I perceived, that a collection of these opinions would form a complete treatise on politics or the social science, which would be of some value, if the principles were all just and well digested. After having scrutinized them with all the care that I was capable of, and reconsidered them well, I resolved to arrange the whole in another manner, so as to form a didactic work, in which the various subjects should be disposed in their natural order, consistent with their mutual dependence on each other, and without any regard to the order pursued by Montesquieu; which in my opinion is not in every respect the best: but I soon perceived, that if he had been mistaken in the choice of his order of discussion, I might be much more likely to deceive myself in attempting a new one, notwithstanding the vast accumulation of light, during the fifty prodigious years which have intervened between the period when he gave his labors to his contemporaries, and this at which I now present the result of my studies to mine. It was plain too, that in proportion as the order which I should have preferred differed from that of Montesquieu, the more difficult it would have been for me to discuss his opinions and establish my own; our paths must cross each other continually; I should have been forced into a multitude of repetitions, in order to render to him that justice which properly belongs to him; and I should then find myself reduced to the unpleasant necessity of appearing in opposition to him, without my motives being clearly perceived. Under such circumstances, it is questionable whether my ideas would ever have had the advantage of a sufficient examination: these considerations determined me to prefer the form I have adopted of a commentary and review of Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws.

Some future writer, if my effort be fortunate, may profit by the discussion, in giving a more perfect treatise on the true principles of laws: it is by such a course, I think all the sciences ought to proceed; each work commencing with the soundest opinions already received, and progressively receiving the new lights shed upon them by experience and investigation. This would be truly following the precept of Condillac.... proceeding rigorously from the known to the unknown. I have no other ambition, nor does my situation admit of more, than to contribute my effort to the progress of social science, the most important of all to the happiness of man, and that which must necessarily be the last to reach perfection, because it is the product and the result of all the other sciences.