Price owes much to Priestley and to Hume, and he takes sentences from Montesquieu where they aid him.

But he has little or nothing of Priestley's utilitarianism and the whole argument is upon the abstract basis of right.

Liberty means self-government, and self-government means the right of every man to be his own legislator.
Price, with strict logic, follows out this doctrine to its last consequence.

Taxes become "free gifts for public services"; laws are "particular provisions or regulations established by Common Consent for gaining protection and safety"; magistrates are "trustees or deputies for carrying these regulations into execution." And almost in the words of Rousseau, Price goes on to admit that liberty, "in its most perfect degree, can be enjoyed only in small states where every independent agent is capable of giving his suffrage in person and of being chosen into public offices." He knows that large States are inevitable, though he thinks that representation may be made so adequate as to minimize the sacrifice of liberty involved.
But the limitation upon government is everywhere emphasized.
"Government," he says, "...

is in the very nature of it a trust; and all its powers a Delegation for particular ends." He rejects the theory of parliamentary sovereignty as incompatible with self-government; if the Parliament, for instance, prolonged its life, it would betray its constituents and dissolve itself.