Chapter VII. How far the Rights of Governors extend. Their lives are more sacred than the lives of private persons; but they may nevertheless be lawfully resisted, and, in certain cases, put to death. Chapter VIII. The ways of acquiring supreme Power. That government has most divine right that is best adapted to the public good: a divine right of succession to civil offices is ridiculous. Chapter IX. takes up the sphere of civil law. (1) To enforce the laws of nature; (2) To appoint the form &c., of contracts and dispositions, with a view to prevent fraud; (3) To require men to follow the most prudent methods of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; (4) To prescribe rules in matters morally indifferent, where uniformity is advantageous. Opinions should be tolerated; all except Atheism, and the denial of moral obligation. Chapter X. The Laws of Peace and War, belonging now to the subject of International Law. Chapter XI. (concluding the work) discusses some cases connected with the duration of the 'Politick Union.' This bare indication of topics will suffice to give an idea of the working out of Hutcheson's system. For summary:--I.--The Standard, according to Hutcheson, is identical with the Moral Faculty. It is the Sense of unique excellence in certain affections and in the actions consequent upon them. The object of approval is, in the main, benevolence. II.--His division of the feelings is into calm and turbulent, each of these being again divided into self-regarding and benevolent. He affirms the existence of pure Disinterestedness, a _calm_ regard for the most extended well-being. There are also _turbulent_ passions of a benevolent kind, whose end is their simple gratification. Hutcheson has thus a higher and lower grade of Benevolence; the higher would correspond to the disinterestedness that arises from the operation of _fixed ideas_, the lower to those affections that are generated in us by pleasing objects. He has no discussion on the freedom of the will, contenting himself with mere voluntariness as an element in moral approbation or censure. III.--The Summum Bonum is fully discussed. He places the pleasures of sympathy and moral goodness (also of piety) in the highest rank, the passive sensations in the lowest. Instead of making morality, like health, a neutral state (though an indispensable condition of happiness), he ascribes to it the highest positive gratification. IV.--In proceeding upon Rights, instead of Duties, as a basis of classification, Hutcheson is following in the wake of the jurisconsults, rather than of the moralists. When he enters into the details of moral duties, he throws aside his 'moral sense,' and draws his rules, most of them from Roman Law, the rest chiefly from manifest convenience. V. and VI.--Hutcheson's relation to Politics and Theology requires no comment. BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE. [1670-1733.]