II. Of monarchy and hereditary succession. Here he brings out his great political axiom, _the equality of man in the order of creation_, and then ridicules the pretentions of kings, and demolishes the whole fabric of "sacred titles" by an appeal to sacred and profane history, to the rights of man, to his reason, to his affections, and to posterity. He has now prepared the mind of the American reader for the reception of truth, and he brings forward-- III. Thoughts on the present state of the American affairs. He begins by saying: "In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense." It is now he warms with the subject, and having before prepared the mind with exalted views of government and with the axioms upon which all just governments are founded; having before shown that all legislative powers are derived from the people, and founded in the consent of the governed; having, in short, announced his bill of rights, he now comes forward with an indictment against England. This is full and complete, and by the time the reader has done with it he is then prepared for his final argument, which is-- IV. The ability of America to acquire and maintain her independence. He afterward added an appendix, in which he recounts the principal causes which impel the colonies to a separation. The reader will remark the _method_ of the whole piece. He takes hold of the mind by strategy at first, and then places before it principles, facts, causes, and consequences, till he has made it entirely his own. If now the reader will return to the first Letter of Junius, he will find an admirable example of the same method. As to _method_, the two pieces are every way identical. Did a person not study this Letter of Junius, he would perhaps fail to get, at first, the exact likeness which Mr. Paine has so completely reproduced in Common Sense, as an artistic performance. Junius' Letter to the king is also an example of the same method. There is, first, the bill of rights, and then the indictment. We find here the same strategy, which takes possession of the mind of the people, the same method to place the writer above and beyond selfish motives, the same foundation of principles, the same superstructure of argument, and the same method of bringing the reader to the conclusions. Herein we find _policy_. * * * * *