together different from what has ever existed in this world, there would be no necessity for the restraints of Law or for the science of Government. In such a state of things, possibly, there might be no such thing as property, no such transaction as an exchange of the products of labour. Otherwise, the subject matter of political economy, which is simply the knowledge of the laws of the social phenomena, would still have existed and have deserved attention; just as the structure and functions of the human system would have claimed admiration, had there been no disease. This, the learned Prelate would readily admit; for, in a subsequent passage, he expresses his opinion, that, if the time should ever arrive, when the structure of human society, and all the phenomena 'connected with it, shall be as well understood as Anatomy and 'Physiology, it will be regarded as exhibiting even more striking 'marks of Divine Wisdom.'

To wish, then, that there were no such thing as Political Economy, would be to wish that the most entire ignorance prevailed with regard to the true principles by which the interchanges of commerce, the combinations of industry, the division of labour, should be regulated, so as to promote individual or national welfare; or else, to wish that all these were known intuitively, instinctively, and that human society exhibited the unerring operation of such laws as govern the republic of the ants or the monarchy of the bees. But the wish is vain. We have only to choose between political economy and political disorder-between knowledge and ignorance. We are at present in the uncomfortable position of being about half way between both; and from this half-knowledge, leading to erroneous views and erroneous treatment, has accrued the aggravation of many evils which it was sought to cure. But to impute to Science, the evils occasioned by the want of it, is a very absurd, though a very common mistake.

Bonaparte was a great enemy to Political Economy: "he detested the name,' says Dr. Whately; and his hatred cost him dear.

When he endeavoured by all possible means to destroy the commerce of the Continent with this country,-means which brought on ultimately the war which ended in his overthrow,-there is no doubt he believed himself to be not only injuring us, but consulting the best interests of his own dominions. Indeed, the two ideas were with him inseparable; for, all that he had himself acquired having been at the expense of others, he could not understand how we could gain except by their loss. Yet, all the while, he was in the habit of saying that Political Economy, if an empire were of granite, would crumble it to pieces. That erroneous Political Economy may do so, he evinced by the experiment he himself tried: but to the last, he was not aware that he had been in fact practising such a system-had been prac

tising political economy, in the same sense in which a man is said to be practising medicine, unskilfully, who through ignorance prescribes to his patient a poisonous dose.' pp. 96, 97.

The most difficult questions in Political Economy, the learned Prelate remarks, are every day discussed among us, with unhesitating confidence, not merely by empty pretenders to Science, but by persons avowedly ignorant of the subject, and boasting of their contempt for knowledge; persons neither having, nor pretending to have, nor wishing for, any fixed principles by which ' to regulate their judgement on each point.

'Questions concerning taxation, tithes, the national debt, the poorlaws the wages which labourers earn, or ought to earn,-the comparative advantages of different modes of charity, and numberless others belonging to Political Economy,-and many of them among the most difficult, and in which there is the greatest diversity of opinion,-are debated perpetually, not merely at public meetings, but in the course of conversation, and decisions of them boldly pronounced, by many who utterly disclaim having turned their attention to Political Economy. The right management of public affairs in respect of these and such like points, is commonly acknowledged to call for men of both powerful and well cultivated mind; and yet, if every man of common sense is competent to form an opinion, at the first glance, on such points, without either having made them the subject of regular study, or conceiving that any such is requisite, it would follow that the art of government (as far at least as regards that extensive and multifarious department of it, pertaining to National Wealth) must be the easiest of all arts ;-easier than even the common handicraft trades, in which no one will knowingly employ a man who has not been regularly taught. And the remark of the Chancellor Oxenstiern to his son, Quàm parvâ sapientiâ regitur mundus," must be understood to apply not only to what is, but to what ought to be, the state of things.

Many of you probably have met with the story of some gentleman, (I suppose it is usually fathered on a native of a neighbouring island,) who, on being asked whether he could play on the violin, made answer, that he really did not know whether he could or not, because he had never tried. There is at least more modesty in this expression of doubt, than those shew, who, having never tried to learn the very rudiments of Political Economy, are yet quite sure of their competence to discuss its most difficult questions.

You may perhaps wonder how it is, that men should conceal from themselves and from each other so glaring an absurdity. I believe it is generally in this way: they profess and intend to keep clear of all questions of Political Economy; and imagine themselves to have done so, by having kept clear of the names. The subjects which constitute the proper and sole province of the science, they do not scruple to submit to extemporaneous discussion, provided they but avoid the title by which that science is commonly designated.' pp. 84-86.

How much the nation has suffered from this presumptuous, unteachable ignorance in those depositaries of the collective wisdom who glory in being of the old school, it would be easy to prove, but difficult to calculate. These old-school politicians have never discovered, however, any disposition to quarrel with the theories of the new school economists, when they fell in with their own interests. When Mr. Ricardo demonstrated, that rent is no component part of price, because the market-price of grain produced from high-rented, good land, and from low-rented, inferior land, is the same, the precious fallacy was welcomed as the decision of an oracle. Yet, by the same reasoning it might be proved, that profits are not a component part of price; since the price of corn is the same in the market, whether produced from land that yields a profit to the farmer, or from land on which all the profits of cultivation are absorbed by the expenses. And if neither rent nor profits determine price, neither, according to Mr. M'Culloch, do wages; for, in his examination before a Committee of the House of Commons, being asked whether he considered that, when wages rise, the price of commodities will increase, he replied: I do not think that a real rise of wages has any effect whatever, or but a very imperceptible one, on the price of com'modities. What is it then, the learned Philosopher was asked, that does affect prices? Answer: An increase or diminution of 'the quantity of labour necessary to the production of the com'modity.' How admirably this explains the fact, that the immense saving of agricultural labour by means of machinery, and the improved husbandry of large farms, of which we heard so much thirty years ago, was coeval with the reign of high prices and high profits too!

It is far from our intention, in the present article, to attempt an enumeration, much less any discussion of the various questions which divide the old and modern schools. Our object is, to illustrate the sovereign and urgent necessity of acquiring right views and clear opinions upon matters of universal and every day interest. We wish that the compliment paid to us by the American Professor were better founded. In England and Scotland', says Dr. Cooper, no well informed gentleman is permitted to be ignorant of the labours of Adam Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo, any more than of Shakspeare, Milton, or Pope.' In his profound admiration of the discoveries of Ricardo and Malthus, we must profess that we do not sympathize. Their writings have tended to lead the public far away from the true path of inquiry, and to convert a science resting on observation, historic fact, and practical evidence, into a scholastic debate respecting the mere technicalities of expression, or a hideous chain of paradoxes at apparent war with religion and humanity.

Hitherto, indeed, little ground has been afforded for the ex