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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Ways and Means of Improving the Conditions of Europe, Interspersed with Miscellaneous Observations.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Using history to support his opinion, what did Paine find unsurprising about how governments began?
(a) They began in ignorance.
(b) They began in chaos.
(c) They began as murderers.
(d) They began as robbers.

2. As Paine explained in Ways and Means of Improving the Conditions of Europe, what should the increase of commerce never be attributed to?
(a) The international laws.
(b) The nation-state.
(c) The nation-government.
(d) The international opinion.

3. What did Paine urge the people of Europe to believe in?
(a) Their understanding of civilization.
(b) Their ability to organize themselves.
(c) Their understanding of laws.
(d) Their ability to govern themselves.

4. Because of the American and French Revolutions, what was being undermined about the old governments in Paine's opinion?
(a) Authority.
(b) History.
(c) Legitimacy.
(d) Control.

5. What distinction did Paine make in the Preface?
(a) Between the state and the religion.
(b) Between the state and the nation.
(c) Between the state, the nation and the government.
(d) Between the nation and the government.

Short Answer Questions

1. What mood was the beginning of the second Preface of Rights of Man written by Paine?

2. After explaining why he thought corporations should be abolished, what did Paine say companies should be free to do?

3. How did Paine react to Burke's refusal to respond to Part One of Rights of Man?

4. Challenging Burke's view that the government had knowledge, what did Paine insist that Burke could not prove?

5. As he noted in the Preface, where did Paine desire to collect his political thoughts?

(see the answer key)

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