On the very threshold of the book we meet the dogma of the perfectibility of man.

"Whatever," Priestley rhapsodizes, "was the beginning of this world, the end will be glorious and paradisaical, beyond what our imaginations can now conceive." "The instrument of this progress ...

towards this glorious state" is government; though a little later we are to find that the main business of government is noninterference.

Men are all equal, and their natural rights are indefeasible.

Government must be restrained in the interests of liberty.