described, it is yet possible that we may be imperfectly acquainted with that combination of circumstances whereby the effect is modified; and that, if these circumstances were fully before us, this apparent exception would turn out an additional illustration of the very truth which it was brought to invalidate.

If these observations be just, instead of appealing to political arithmetic as a check on the conclusions of political economy, it would often be more reasonable to have recourse to political economy as a check on the extravagancies of political arithmetic. Nor will this assertion appear paradoxical to those who consider, that the object of the political arithmetician is too frequently to record apparent exceptions to rules sanctioned by the general experience of mankind; and, consequently, that in cases where there is an obvious or a demonstrative incompatibility between the alleged exception and the general principle, the fair logical inference is not against the truth of the latter, but against the possibility of the former.

It has long been an established opinion among the most judicious and enlightened philosophers-that, as the desire of bettering our condition appears equally from a careful review of the motives which habitually influence our own conduct, and from a general survey of the history of our species, to be the masterspring of human industry, the labour of slaves never can be so productive as that of freemen. Not many years have elapsed since it was customary to stigmatize this reasoning as visionary and metaphysical; and to oppose to it that species of evidence to which we were often reminded that all theories must bend;--the evidence of experimental calculations, furnished by intelligent and credible observers on the other side of the Atlantic. An accurate examination of the fact has shewn how wide of the truth these calculations were;-but, independently of any such detection of their fallacy, might it not have been justly affirmed, that the argument from experience was decidedly against their credibility;-the facts appealed to resting solely upon the good sense and good faith of individual witnesses; while the opposite argument, drawn

from the principle of the human frame, was supported by the united voice of all nations and ages?

If we examine the leading principles which run through Mr. Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, we shall find, that all of them are general facts or general results, analogous to that which has been just mentioned. Of this kind, for instance, are the following propositions-from which a very large proportion of his characteristical doctrines follow, as necessary and almost manifest corollaries: That what we call the Political Order, is much less the effect of human contrivance than is commonly imagined: That every man is a better judge of his own interest than any legislator can be for him; and that this regard to private interest (or, in other words, this desire of bettering our condition) may be safely trusted to as a principle of action universal among men in its operation;—a principle stronger, indeed, in some than in others, but constant in its habitual influence upon all: That, where the rights of individuals are completely protected by the magistrate, there is a strong tendency in human affairs, arising from what we are apt to consider as the selfish passions of our nature, to a progressive and rapid improvement in the state of society: That this tendency to improvement in human affairs is often so very powerful, as to correct the inconveniencies threatened by the errors of the statesman: And that, therefore, the reasonable presumption is in favour of every measure which is calculated to afford to its farther development, a scope still freer than what it at present enjoys; or, which amounts very nearly to the same thing, in favour of as great a liberty in the employment of industry, of capital, and of talents, as is consistent with the security of property, and of the other rights of our fellow-citizens. The premises, it is perfectly obvious, from which these conclusions are deduced, are neither hypothetical assumptions, nor metaphysical abstractions. They are practical maxims of good sense, approved by the experience of men in all ages of the world; and of which, if we wish for any additional confirmations, we have only to retire within our own bosoms, or to open our eyes on what is passing around us.

From these considerations it would appear, that in politics, as well as in many of the other sciences, the loudest advocates for experience are the least entitled to appeal to its authority in favour of their dogmas; and that the charge of a presumptuous confidence in human wisdom and foresight, which they are perpetually urging against political philosophers, may, with far greater justice, be retorted on themselves. An additional illustration of this is presented by the strikingly contrasted effects of statistical and of philosophical studies on the intellectual habits in general;-the former invariably encouraging a predilection for restraints and checks, and all the other technical combinations of an antiquated and scholastic policy ;—the latter, by inspiring, on the one hand, a distrust of the human powers, when they attempt to embrace in detail, interests at once so complicated and so momentous; and, on the other, a religious attention to the designs of Nature, as displayed in the general laws which regulate her economy; leading, no less irresistibly, to a gradual and progressive simplification of the political mechanism. It is, indeed, the never failing result of all sound philosophy, to humble, more and more, the pride of science before that Wisdom which is infinite and divine;-whereas, the farther back we carry our researches into those ages, the institutions of which have been credulously regarded as monuments of the superiority of unsophisticated good sense, over the false refinements of modern arrogance, we are the more struck with the numberless insults offered to the most obvious suggestions of nature and of reason. We may remark this, not only in the moral depravity of rude tribes, but in the universal disposition which they discover to disfigure and distort the bodies of their infants;-in one case, new-modelling the form of the eyelids;-in a second, lengthening the ears;-in a third, checking the growth of the feet;-in a fourth, by mechanical pressures applied to the head, attacking the seat of thought and intelligence. To allow the human form to attain, in perfection, its fair proportions, is one of the latest improvements of civilized society; and the case is perfectly analogous in those sciences which have for their object to assist nature in the cure of

diseases; in the development and improvement of the intellectual faculties; in the correction of bad morals; and in the regulations of political economy.

SECTION VI.OF THE SPECULATION CONCERNING FINAL CAUSES.

[SUBSECTION] 1.-Opinion of Lord Bacon on the subject.—Final Causes rejected by Descartes, and by the majority of French Philosophers. -Recognised as legitimate objects of research by Newton.-Tacitly acknowledged by all as a useful logical Guide, even in Sciences which have no immediate relation to Theology.

The study of Final Causes may be considered in two different points of view: first, as subservient to the evidences of natural religion; and, secondly, as a guide and auxiliary in the investigation of physical laws. Of these views it is the latter alone which is immediately connected with the principles of the inductive logic; and it is to this, accordingly, that I shall chiefly direct my attention in the following observations. I shall not, however, adhere so scrupulously to a strict arrangement, as to avoid all reference to the former, where the train of my reflections may naturally lead to it. The truth is, that the two speculations will, on examination, be found much more nearly allied, than might at first sight be apprehended.

I before observed, that the phrase Final Cause was first introduced by Aristotle, and that the extension thus given to the notion of causation contributed powerfully to divert the inquiries of his followers from the proper objects of physical science. In reading the strictures of Bacon on this mode of philosophizing, it is necessary always to bear in mind that they have a particular reference to the theories of the schoolmen; and, if they should sometimes appear to be expressed in terms too unqualified, due allowances ought to be made for the undistinguishing zeal of a reformer, in attacking prejudices consecrated by long and undisturbed prescription. "Causarum finalium inquisitio sterilis est, et tanqaum Virgo Deo conse

crata, nihil parit." Had a similar remark occurred in any philosophical work of the eighteenth century, it might, perhaps, have been fairly suspected to savour of the school of Epicurus; although, even in such a case, the quaintness and levity of the conceit would probably have inclined a cautious and candid reader to interpret the author's meaning with an indulgent latitude. On the present occasion, however, Bacon is his own best commentator; and I shall therefore quote, in a faithful though abridged translation, the preparatory passage by which this allusion is introduced.

"The second part of metaphysics is the investigation of final causes, which I object to, not as a speculation which ought to be neglected, but as one which has, in general, been very improperly regarded as a branch of physics. If this were merely a fault of arrangement, I should not be disposed to lay great stress upon it, for arrangement is useful chiefly as a help to perspicuity, and does not affect the substantial matter of science: But, in this instance, a disregard of method has occasioned the most fatal consequences to philosophy; inasmuch as the consideration of final causes in physics has supplanted and banished the study of physical causes; the fancy amusing itself with illusory explanations derived from the former, and misleading the curiosity from a steady prosecution of the latter." After illustrating this remark by various examples, Bacon adds: "I would not, however, be understood by these observations, to insinuate that the final causes just mentioned may not be founded in truth, and in a metaphysical view, extremely worthy of attention; but only, that when such disquisitions invade and overrun the appropriate province of physics, they are likely to lay waste and ruin that department of knowledge." The passage concludes with these words: "And so much concerning metaphysics, the part of which relating to final causes, I do not deny, has been often enlarged upon in physical, as well as in metaphysical treatises. But while, in the latter of these, it is treated of with propriety, in the former it is altogether misplaced; and that, not merely because it violates the rules of a logical order, but because