immense progress of physical science has multiplied a thousand-fold the means of producing wealth. There is in the overflowing and exhaustless bounty of nature, not only enough, but a superfluity for every one of the children of men. Yet some mysterious and invisible, but impassable barrier impedes its distribution, and shuts out the masses from the promised land. Portentous and gigantic social evils, present and approaching, mock the wisdom of the wise.

Political economists! Look at England's boundless wealth and hopeless poverty. At Ireland's starving myriads. At her dearest children escaping for their lives, like Lot from the cities of the plain? At the periodical alternations of manufacturing prosperity and manufacturing depression and starvation! At the expanse of untilled lands, spread abroad amidst a starving, idle and congested population! At your own differences and disagreements about rent, population, currency, wages, profits! At the theories opposed to yours, not only in fashion and in power, in France, Germany, Russia and America, but supported by the most original thinkers and greatest writers. Some of these writers have been unjust to you. They affirm that instead of a science, solid and practical, you are but the authors of a literature, unsatisfactory, obscure, presumptuous, and which would be dangerous, were it not eminently tedious.

But we must also look forward with courage and

But in the mean time, the which the new and true

confidence. The imperfect and rudimentary condition of the science of political economy while it accounts for present evils, is for that very reason the sure ground of hope for the future. It is manifest that we have not yet hit on the true theory. tools and implements with political economy is destined to work, are beginning to multiply around us. The Steam-engine, Steam-navigation, Railways, Mechanical Inventions, the Electric Telegraph, Modern Chemistry, have not appeared for nothing. A science of political economy will yet dawn, that shall perform as well as promise. A science that will rain the riches of nature into the laps of the starving poor. Men do not even yet dream of the prosperity which is in store for all orders of the people.

As in other sciences, so in political economy, each accession of knowledge will not only be a step to further, but to greater acquisitions. True and solid. knowledge will not only advance, but advance in a continually increasing ratio. The world now presents a variety of communities far advanced in civilization; the field of experience is enlarged and diversified. But besides ordinary experience, there is an artificial experience, which is called experiment. At this moment the anxious and vigilant attention of theoretical and practical men is invited to vast experiments now in progress. It were to be wished that some other community, and not the noble British Empire,

had been selected as the vile corpus of experiment. We shall suffer much, and what is worse, the innocent will be the sufferers. We shall probably lose a large portion of our possessions. But we shall be wiser. We shall finally adopt the true policy, and after much tribulation enter into a better state of things.

Is it more correct to say that political economy is already a science, or that it will be one?

CHAPTER II.

"Legislate on sound principles."

WHICH, being interpreted, means, "SURRENDER YOURSELF TO THE SPIRIT OF SYSTEM.' "CARRY OUT YOUR THEORIES."

The SPIRIT OF SYSTEM, a fertile source of error, fertile in most sciences, is peculiarly so in political economy. It is a foe to solid knowledge, the more insidious and fatal, because it usually accompanies superior mental capacity, being very nearly allied to that love and relish of truth which distinguishes minds of a superior order.* The spirit of system consists in a tendency to reduce all phenomena to a few general rules, and to find a greater

* History shews, that it is not the learned only, whom the spirit of system fascinates and misleads. It is sometimes an epidemic passion or fever maddening all ranks down to the very populace.

Republican government has the charm of simplicity. The English and French nations have accordingly been seized by turns with a fanaticism for it. Straightway property was sacrificed, and blood poured out like water for a mere political theory.

So a year or two ago England was fascinated with the specious theory of free-trade. The agricultural interest, the colonies, the shipping interest, the whole kingdom of Ireland were dust in the balance. The enthusiasm is beginning to evaporate, and men will soon marvel how they ever came to be under its influence.

men;

degree of order, symmetry and simplicity, in the natural, moral, or political world, than really exists or can exist. Instead of expanding the mind to the rich and endless variety and subtilty* of nature or art, it would contract that variety to the narrow limits of the human understanding. It finds ready acceptance with all for it flatters both the pride and the indolence of human nature. It is much easier to comprehend and apply a few general rules, than to understand the complicated structure and regulations of human society. Any man may make a parade of knowledge by dogmatizing about imaginary general principles, but to master facts and details, is a long, toilsome, and humbling occupation.

Men are not often undeceived who worship a few general principles, however erroneous. When a man has grown grey in the honest assertion of doctrines which he believes to be right-has spent, in the endeavour to disseminate them his best years, depends on them for his reputation and self-approval,—what a cruel fate, to be undeceived,-to discover that they are not only erroneous, but mischievous! Accordingly we find that erroneous general principles last for a generation that to expect an inveterate theorist to abandon his theories, is as reasonable as to expect him to slay his children. The seed of truth must be sown in the fresh and grateful soil of a new generation.

* Subtilitas naturæ subtilitatem sensûs et intellectûs multis partibus superat. Nov. Org.