Work · Empiricism, Enlightenment & Liberalism
An Historical View of the English Government
History of the English constitution from the Saxon settlement to the Revolution of 1688, written as a Whig answer to Hume: changes in property, commerce and manners, not the plans of rulers, explain the growth of royal power, of Parliament and of liberty.
Introduction
Millar published the first part of the work in 1787, tracing English government from the settlement of the Saxons to the accession of the House of Stuart. He continued it to the Revolution of 1688; after his death his nephew John Craig and his son-in-law James Mylne brought out an enlarged edition in four volumes (1803). Millar treated the English constitution as the product of changing property, commerce and manners, defended the continuity of Saxon institutions and, especially for the Stuart period, set out where he thought Hume’s History of England had misjudged Crown and Commons. A note in Book II, chapter 10, acknowledges his debt to Smith’s lectures and calls Montesquieu the “Lord Bacon” and Smith the “Newton” of this branch of philosophy.
Connections
Builds on
- The Wealth of Nations1776 · Adam Smith
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