themselves, have seldom any laws or government; nations united in a body, frame and adopt laws and a form of government, to which every individual submits, for the general good of the community.

85. A state or commonwealth is a body of people connected by the same government, and yielding obedience to the same general laws.

Obs. The members of some states are free, enjoying equal rights and privileges, and are subject to the supreme law alone, as in the northern provinces of the United States; in others, a difference of rights prevails, and some are slaves or vassals, some commons and citizens, and some few are called nobles, enjoying peculiar privileges.

86. The origin of all states is traced to force or conquest, when the majority is compelled to yield to the will of a few, or of one man; or it springs from a social compact, by which a constitution, or fundamental laws, are fixed for the government of the state and the welfare of individuals.

87. The exercise of supreme power is either vested in one or shared by many.

Obs. The supreme power consists of three parts: 1. The legislative, which enacts laws; 2. The judicial, which determines the application of the law in individual cases ; and 3. The executive, which puts the laws in execution.

88. A monarchy is that state in which the supreme power is vested in one person; and it may be either arbitrary, limited, hereditary, or elective.

89. When the monarch has the exercise of the supreme power without control, when his will is the law, the state is called an arbitrary or despotic monarchy; as Russia, Turkey, and many of the states of Asia.

90. That state wherein the monarch has only a part of the supreme power in common with some of his subjects (as the nobility, clergy, and commons), and is bound to observe the fundamental

laws or constitution of the kingdom, is called a limited monarchy.

Obs. 1. The subjects having a share in the government are named peers, estates, representatives, &c. and their assembly is called a diet, a parliament, &c.

2. Sweden, France, and Britain, are limited monarchies. 91. Hereditary monarchy descends, by inheritance, to a relation of the same family.

Obs. Denmark, Britain, France, and Spain, are hereditary monarchies.

92. In an elective monarchy the chief magistrate is chosen by certain electors on the death or abdication of his predecessor.

Obs. Such were once Poland and the German empire.'

93. A republic is that state in which the supreme power is shared by many; and it may be either an aristocracy or a democracy.

94. An aristocracy is a republican state, wherein the supreme power is consigned to the nobles, or to a few privileged men.

Obs. Venice and Genoa were once of this class.

95. A democracy is a republican state, wherein the supreme power is placed in the hands of rulers, chosen by and from the whole body of the people, or by their representatives assembled in a congress or national assembly, as the United States of America, which elect their president every four years.

96. Political liberty is enjoyed in various degrees, according to the modifications of the government, or the constitution of states.

Obs. 1. In Britain, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, are blended; and the powers of the king, the lords, and the commons, have been so modified as to form a reciprocal cheek to each other; and, therefore, a safeguard against oppression. 2. Aristocracy and democracy are blended in the Swiss

states.

97. According to its extent, population, revenue,

naval and military force, and civilisation, so do we judge of the strength of any state.

THE USE OF THE GLOBES.

98. A GLOBE, or SPHERE, is a body every way perfectly round. Artificial globe is a term more particularly used to denote a globe of metal, plaster, paper, pasteboard, &c. If, upon such a globe, the several continents, empires, kingdoms, countries, cities, oceans, seas, rivers, &c. &c., that are spread over the surface of our earth, be accurately delineated, it will form what is called a terrestrial globe*, and is so named in contradistinction to the celestial globe, which is an inverted representation of the starry heavens, upon a similar globe or sphere.

The use of these artificial globes is to illustrate, in a clear and familiar manner, the leading principles of geography and astronomy, and to exhibit the intimate connection which exists between these two sister sciences; and for this purpose a number of circles, &c. are drawn upon them, and others may be represented by the apparatus or furniture with

*The figure of the earth is not, strictly speaking, that of a true sphere, but of an oblate spheroid, being a little compressed at the polar, and swelled out at the equatorial regions. According to the most recent experiments and observations, the equatorial diameter is 7925 648 miles; the polar 7899.170; their difference, 26.478 miles. The proportion of this diameter is very nearly 299: 298, and consequently, their difference 2 of the greater, being too little to require or to admit of any deviation from a true sphere, even in the largest of those artificial globes usually constructed to represent the earth and heavens.

M