use of learning, of the science of the world, and of wit; concluding
with a satire against the misapplication of them, illustrated by
pictures, characters, and examples.

The third book regarded civil regimen, or the science of politics, in
which the several forms of a republic were to have been examined and
explained; together with the several modes of religious worship, as far
forth as they affect society; between which the author always supposed
there was the most interesting relation and closest connexion; so that
this part would have treated of civil and religious society in their
full extent.

The fourth and last book concerned private ethics or practical morality,
considered in all the circumstances, orders, professions, and stations
of human life.

The scheme of all this had been maturely digested, and communicated to
the Lord Bolingbroke, Dr Swift, and one or two more, and was intended
for the only work of his riper years; but was, partly through ill
health, partly through discouragements from the depravity of the times,
and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted,
postponed, and, lastly, in a manner laid aside.

But as this was the author's favourite work, which more exactly
reflected the image of his strong capacious mind, and as we can have but
a very imperfect idea of it from the _disjecta membra poetae_ that now
remain, it may not be amiss to be a little more particular concerning
each of these projected books. The first, as it treats of man in the
abstract, and considers him in general under every one of his relations,
becomes the foundation, and furnishes out the subjects, of the three