Excerpt from The Commonwealth of Reason As the end of all government is, or ought to be, the security, happiness, and advantage of the governed, and not the exclusive benefit and interest of those i11t1usted with the legislative or executive power, who should only be considered as the organs by Which the majority of the community express their will, and as the servants of the Commonwealth, amenable at all times, for their conduct. To the people, these being the fountain from whence alone can spring legitimate, authority; it may not be unacceptable, in these speculative times, when the science of political government-appears to have awakened men's curiosity in an extraordinary degree, and the greater part of the world seem bent on the investigation of its principles, and on the destruction of those abuses, the existence of which has but too long disgraced civilized society, to have some mode pointed out, by which, should any of the present systems, so fraught with ruin, and injurious to the true interests of mankind, be abolished, we can reasonably hope to obtain what ought to constitute the only object of every institution, whether political or social - public happiness, from which source alone can flow individual felicity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.