Bonaparte, with his
repeated derisions of Ideologists (squinting at this author) has by
this time felt that true wisdom does not lie in mere practice without
principle. The next work Tracy wrote was the Commentary on Montesquieu,
never published in the original, because not safe; but translated and
published in Philadelphia, yet without the author's name. He has since
permitted his name to be mentioned. Although called a Commentary, it is,
in truth, an elementary work on the principles of government, comprised
in about three hundred pages octavo. He has lately published a third
work on Political Economy, comprising the whole subject within about
the same compass; in which all its principles are demonstrated with
the severity of Euclid, and, like him, without ever using a superfluous
word. I have procured this to be translated, and have been four years
endeavoring to get it printed: but, as yet, without success. In the mean
time, the author has published the original in France, which he thought
unsafe while Bonaparte was in power. No printed copy, I believe, has yet
reached this country. He has his fourth and last work now in the press
at Paris, closing, as he conceives, the circle of metaphysical sciences.
This work, which is on Ethics, I have not seen, but suspect I shall
differ from it in its foundation, although not in its deductions. I
gather from his other works that he adopts the principle of Hobbes,
that justice is founded in contract solely, and does not result from the
constitution of man.
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