Smith was as fond as his master Aristotle of testing fine-spun theories by the coarse wear of daily life. He loved to march an army of common-folk through the cobwebs of political philosophy. A second objection was that, although a government may be entrusted to certain persons on certain conditions, the contract cannot bind their posterity. “It may indeed be said that by remaining in the country you tacitly consent to the contract, and are bound by it. But how can you avoid staying in it? You were not consulted whether you should be born in it or not. And how can you get out of it? Most people know no other language nor country, are poor, and obliged to stay not far from the place where they were born, to labour for a subsistence. They cannot therefore be said to give any consent to a contract, though they may have the strongest sense of obedience.” In a remarkable book on _English Government_ (1803), John Millar expresses his indebtedness to the “ingenious and profound author of the _Wealth of Nations_.” “I am happy,” he says, “to acknowledge the obligations I feel myself under to this illustrious philosopher by having at an early period of life had the benefit of hearing his lectures on the History of Civil Society, and of enjoying his unreserved conversation on the same subject.”[15] And this indeed was the spacious topic which occupied most of the course on public jurisprudence. Nations of hunters and fishers, he began, had properly no government at all. They lived according to the laws of nature. Then he came to the patriarchs of the Old Testament and of the Homeric age, and compared the growth of republican government in Greece, Rome, and modern Italy. How liberty was lost is the next theme. The students were reminded of Cæsar and Cromwell, of the contrast between Western and Oriental despotisms, of the improvements in law which have often been introduced by military conquerors. They were then led to see by the history of the fall of the Roman Empire how “military monarchy came to share that fated dissolution that awaits every state and constitution.” After describing the fall of the Roman Empire, Smith gave an account of the origin of the modern governments of Europe. Smith had Burke’s “salutary prejudice.” Despite a private partiality for republican institutions, he saw, like Montesquieu, in our constitution “a happy mixture of all the different forms of government properly restrained, and a perfect security to liberty and property.” The Commons in a great measure manage all public affairs, as no money-bill can take its rise except in that House. The judges are quite independent of the king. The Habeas Corpus Act and the methods of election are further securities of liberty. Lastly, “the law of England, always the friend of liberty, deserves praise in no instance more than in the careful provision of impartial juries.”