The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Discourse on the Study of the Law of
Nature and Nations, by James Mackintosh

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Title: A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations

Author: James Mackintosh

Release Date: July 11, 2009 [EBook #29372]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note

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For ease of reading, the footnotes have been moved to the end of the
book.

A DISCOURSE

ON

THE STUDY

OF THE

LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS.

BY

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, M.P.

_SECOND EDITION._

LONDON:
HENRY GOODE AND CO.

QUEEN'S HEAD PASSAGE, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

SOLD BY T. CLARK, EDINBURGH; AND WARDLAW AND CO. GLASGOW.

M.DCCC.XXVIII.

A DISCOURSE,

ETC.

* * * * *

Before I begin a course of lectures on a science of great extent and
importance, I think it my duty to lay before the public the reasons
which have induced me to undertake such a labour, as well as a short
account of the nature and objects of the course which I propose to
deliver. I have always been unwilling to waste in unprofitable
inactivity that leisure which the first years of my profession usually
allow, and which diligent men, even with moderate talents, might often
employ in a manner neither discreditable to themselves, nor wholly
useless to others. Desirous that my own leisure should not be consumed
in sloth, I anxiously looked about for some way of filling it up,