A treatise is a formal and systematic exposition in writing of the principles of a subject, generally longer and more detailed than an essay. A lengthy discourse on some subject.

Noteworthy treatises

• Treatises have been written by various philosophers:
• Aristotle—various treatises
• Xenophon—Oeconomicus
• Chanakya—Arthashastra
• Claudius Ptolemaeus—Almagest
• John Locke—Two Treatises of Government
• David Hume—A Treatise of Human Nature
• René Descartes—Treatise on the World and Compendium Musicae
• William Godwin—one of the first anarchist treatises
• Karl Marx—Das Kapital
• Niccolò Machiavelli—The Prince, and Discourses on Livy
• Hector Berlioz—Treatise on Instrumentation (sometimes, Treatise on Orchestration)
• Charles Darwin—The Origin of Species
• Nizam al-Mulk—Siyasatnama (The Book of Government)

• Other well-known treatises include:
• Sun Tzu—The Art of War
• Thomas Paine—Rights of Man, Common Sense, and The Age of Reason
• Geoffery Chaucer—The Parson's Tale
• Euclid—Elements
• Ptolemy—Geography (Treatise on cartography)

• Treatises on art:
• Shitao—Hua Yu Lu (Treatise on the Philosophy of Painting)

• Treatises on architecture:
• Vitruvius—De architectura
• Leon Battista Alberti—De re aedificatoria
• Andrea Palladio—I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura

• Recent economics treatises have also been written:
• Ludwig Von Mises—Human Action
• Paul Samuelson—Foundations of Economic Analysis
• Milton Friedman—Capitalism and Freedom

See also

• Legal treatise