WRITINGS O F ID R. SMITH. iXXVII

to regulate the focial order; and of which the ob-jedl is, to make as equitable a diftribution as pof-fible, among all the different members of a com-munity, of the advantages arifing from the politi-cal union.

The invention of printing was perhaps neceffaryto^prepare the way for thefe rel'earches. In thofedepartments of literature and of fcience, wheregenius hnds within itfelf the materials of its labors;in poetry, in pure geometry, and in fome bran-ches of moral philofophy; the ancients have notonly laid the foundations on which we are to build,but have left great and finilhed models for our imi-tation. But in phyfics, where our progrefs dependson an immenfe collection of facts, and on a com-bination of the accidental lights daily ftruclt outin the innumerable walks of obfervation and ex-periment; and in politics, where the materials ofour theories are equally fcattered, and are collec-ted and arranged with ftill greater difficulty, themeans of communication afforded by the prefshave, in the courfe of two centuries, acceleratedthe progrefs of the human mind, far beyond whatthe moftfanguine hopes of our predecefl'ors couldhave imagined.

The progrefs already made in this fcience, in-confiderable as it is in comparifon of what may beyet expected, has been fufficient to lhow, thatthe happinefs of mankind depends not on the iff are