ORIGINAL PREFACE.
It may appear to many, that a man who has been enployed during his whole life in the study and practice of medicine, cannot be a fit person to write on a subject of a political nature. To such people the following considerations are submitted:—
That the Essay treats on the Effects of Civilisation on the mass of the people.
That the principal effect of civilisation is the reduction of the mass of the people in civilised societies to their present condition.
Of this condition—i. e., the mariner in which the people live—who has more opportunities of acquiring the knowledge, than a physician? He is admitted into the dwellings of all ranks of people, and into the innermost parts of them; he sees them by their fireside, at their tables, and in their beds; he sees them at work, and at their recreations; he sees them in
