is not to be ascertained on this, as on other subjects, by careful and judicious inquiry; or that random conjecture and blind impulse are to be preferred in this, any more than in other matters, to rules deduced from extensive and systematic investigation. In the economy of states, just as in the management of human bodies, diseases have occasionally been brought on or heightened, as well by false theory as by ignorant guess-work; but no one will dispute that it is to the sedulous prosecution of scientific inquiry that we can alone look for correct views and safe or beneficial treatment.

Neither should any one be deterred from this study by a notion of its inherent difficulty or dryness. True it is that crabbed and tiresome works have been written upon it; and many who have looked into them may have laid down the books in disgust at their dulness, or despair of being able to comprehend their reasoning. There is, however, good ground for suspecting that these abstruse writers were themselves as much lost in the maze of their arguments as their readers. Truth, on this as on other subjects relating to the daily business of mankind, is simple in itself, and may be made clear and intelligible to all ordinary capacities. And as to its presumed want of interest, surely an examination of the means for placing the greatest possible abundance of the comforts and luxuries of life at the command of every member of the community, must come home to the bosoms and business of all men; and, if properly treated, afford a matter of pleasing as well as useful speculation.

Such inquiries, in truth,' as has been observed by one of the most elegant writers on this subject,

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if not the least erring, 'cannot fail to excite the deepest interest in every ingenuous mind. The laws by which the motions of the celestial bodies are regulated, and over which man cannot exercise the slightest influence, are yet universally allowed to be noble and rational objects of study; but the laws which regulate the movements of human society,-which cause one people to advance in opulence and refinement at the same time that another is sinking into the abyss of poverty and barbarism,-have an infinitely stronger claim upon our attention, both because they relate to objects which exercise a direct influence over human happiness, and because their effects may be, and, in fact, are, continually modified by human interference. National prosperity does not depend nearly so much on advantageous situation, salubrity of climate, or fertility of soil, as on the adoption of measures fitted to excite the inventive powers of genius, and to give perseverance and activity to industry. The establishment of a wise system of public economy can compensate for every other deficiency. It can render regions naturally inhospitable, barren, and unproductive, the comfortable abodes of an elegant and refined, a crowded and wealthy, population. But where it is wanting, the best gifts of nature are of no value; and countries possessed of the greatest capacities of improvement, and abounding in all the materials necessary for the production of wealth, with difficulty furnish a miserable subsistence to hordes distinguished only by their ignorance, barbarism, and wretchedness *.

*McCulloch's Political Economy, Preface, p. 25.

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PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY DEDUCED FROM THE NATURAL LAWS OF SOCIAL WELFARE.

CHAPTER I.

Definition of the Science.-The Study of the Happiness of Societies so far as it depends on the Abundance and Distribution of their Wealth.-Its Principles capable only of moral, not mathematical proof.

POLITICAL Economy teaches the art of managing the resources of a society to the best advantage of its members. It does not, however, as has been already explained, embrace the moral and religious education, the political constitution, or the personal protection of a people, but concerns itself solely with the artificial means of enjoyment, composing the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life-things which are the result of labour and the objects of exchange; and which, when accumulated to any considerable extent, are ordinarily spoken of as wealth.

Hence it has been usually designated as the study of the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.' This definition is, however, incomplete, and has perhaps led both to a false estimate of the objects of the science, and an erroneous method of pursuing it, by seeming to restrict inquiry to the means of increasing the gross amount of national wealth, without regard to its diffusion, or to the influence of different modes of production and distribution

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on national happiness. Again, it has been called the science of the happiness of states;' but this would extend it over too wide a field. Its true subject of inquiry is, we think, the happiness of societies so far as it depends on the abundance and distribution of their wealth.

The principles of Political Economy must obviously be deduced from axioms relative to the conduct and feelings of mankind under particular circumstances, framed upon general and extensive observation. But neither the feelings nor the conduct of a being like man, endowed with mental volition, and infinitely-varying degrees of sensibility, can, with anything like truth, be assumed

as uniform and constant under the same circumstances. Hence the highest degree of certainty which can belong to the principles of Political Economy will amount only to moral probability, and must fall far short of the accuracy that characterizes the laws of the physical sciences. This consideration should have prevented the attempts which have been made by many writers on Political Economy to attribute the force of mathematical demonstration to its conclusions. The fashion just now among this class of inquirers is to designate their favourite study as Political Mathematics; but it would obviously be just as reasonable to give the name of Ethical Mathematics' to the sister science of morals. The rules of economical policy are to be ascertained only by studying the same variable course of human action, and with a reference to the same indefinite end-the happiness of the species-as the rules of morality. Far from partaking of the character

of an exact science, like the mathematics, which deals in the qualities of abstract and imaginary entities, it has not even the fixity of any of the natural sciences to whose study the mathematics are usually applied; the facts of which it takes cognizance consisting only of such variable, vague, and uncertain essences as compose human pains and pleasures, dislikes and preferences,—

'Hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, tears, and smiles.'

Still, though the nature of the subject precludes any approach to mathematical certainty, the general laws of human action and human happiness are to be ascertained with a correctness amply sufficient for the formation of general rules.Though the conduct of any individual man cannot, with complete confidence, be predicted from a knowledge of the circumstances surrounding him, yet that of the generality of men-of the great masses of mankind-may be determined beforehand with all but absolute certainty; and the object of the political economist, like that of the moralist, being to act upon the masses, this knowledge is sufficient for his purpose, and will enable him to declare with confidence the combination of circumstances necessary to bring about any desired result within the range of his science.