There is some point in beginning with Burke’s treatment of the existing Catholic question, an issue which drew forth one of his earliest political compositions and continued to engage his attention throughout his life. As early as 1765 he had become concerned with the extraordinary legal disabilities imposed upon Catholics in Ireland, and about this time he undertook a treatise entitled _Tract on the Popery Laws_. Despite the fact that in this treatise Burke professes belief in natural law, going so far as to assert that all human laws are but declaratory, the type of argument he uses chiefly is the secular argument from circumstance. After a review of the laws and penalties, he introduces his “capital consideration.” The first and most capital consideration with regard to this, as to every object, is the extent of it. And here it is necessary to premise: this system of penalty and incapacity has for its object no small sect or obscure party, but a very numerous body of men—a body which comprehends at least two thirds of the whole nation: it amounts to 2,800,000 souls, a number sufficient for the materials constituent of a great people.[27] He then gave his reason for placing the circumstance first. This consideration of the magnitude of the object ought to attend us through the whole inquiry: if it does not always affect the reason, it is always decisive on the importance of the question. It not only makes itself a more leading point, but complicates itself with every other part of the matter, giving every error, minute in itself, a character and a significance from its application. It is therefore not to be wondered at, if we perpetually recur to it in the course of this essay.[28] The _Tract_ was planned in such a way as to continue this thought, while accompanying it with discussion of the impediment to national prosperity, and of “the impolicy of those laws, as they affect the national security.” This early effort established the tenor of his thinking on the subject. While representing Bristol in Parliament, Burke alienated a part of his constituency by supporting Sir George Savile’s measure to ease the restraints upon Catholics. In the famous _Speech to the Electors of Bristol_ he devoted a large portion of his time to a justification of that course, and here, it is true, he made principal use of the argument from genus (“justice”) and from consequence. The argument from circumstance is not forgotten, but is tucked away at the end to persuade the “bigoted enemies to liberty.” There, using again his criterion of the “magnitude of the object,” he said: