Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Elements of Politics
Some years ago I was strongly impressed with the need of a book which Would expound, within a convenient compass, and in as systematic a form as the subject-matter might admit, the chief general considerations that enter into the rational discussion of political questions in modern states. Though there were many valuable treatises dealing with particular portions of this subject, no English writer - so far as I knew - had, since Bentham, attempted to treat it as a whole: and though such a comprehensive treatment must necessarily be brief, it appeared to me that even this brevity would have some advantages. For such a general treatment as I had in view, however full, must be for practical pur poses incomplete; and an exposition severely confined by limits of space would at any rate have the merit of keeping this inevitable incompleteness steadily before the minds\of both writer and readers. The present work is the result of an attempt to satisfy the need that I have just described. The plan upon which it has been composed I have en deavoured to explain in the first chapter: it only remains for me here to record the chief debts that I am conscious of owing to previous writers from whom I have derived ideas, and to express my gratitude to the friends who have aided me with criticisms and suggestions.
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