ample, in an empire of the East, a sanctuary could be found which, rendered respectable by the ancient religion of the people, might ensure safety to those who should bring thither their observations of any kind, and that from thence printed papers should issue, which, under a certain seal, might be equally respected, and which in their daily appearance, should examine and freely discuss the conduct of the Cadis, the Bashaws, the Vizier, the Divan, and the Sultan himself,-that would introduce immediately some degree of liberty."*

It is much to be regretted that Mr. Fox had not lent this argument the support of his talents and eloquence, but at the time he wrote, it was too little attended to by our best Whig writers; and, indeed, since the period of his death, the influence of the Press, in consequence of the diffusion of knowledge among the lower orders in every part of the island, and the astonishing multiplication of pamphlets and of periodical prints, has increased to a degree of which, twenty years ago, the most sanguine imagination could not have formed a conception. While this organ of public opinion and of the public will, shall remain unrestrained, the friends of liberty need entertain no serious apprehensions about the fate of our happy constitution. At least, any hazard to which it may be exposed can arise only from some incorrigible defect in the morals and public spirit of the people, which renders them no longer able or worthy to enjoy its blessings.

The following remarks of a profound and eloquent philosopher† will exhaust all that I wish farther to observe on this head. The passage is long, but is so important and so appropriate to my present purpose, that I am unwilling to weaken its effect by attempting to abridge it.

"It is not in mere laws that we are to look for the securities of justice, but in the powers by which these laws have been obtained, and without whose constant support they must fall into

* [Constitution, &c., Book II. chap. predecessor in the chair of Moral Phixii.] losophy, in whose Essay on the History of Civil Society the passage is found ;-Part III., sect. vi.]

†[Dr. Adam Ferguson, Mr. Stewart's

disuse. Statutes serve to record the rights of a people, and speak the intention of parties to defend what the letter of the law has expressed; but without the vigour to maintain what is acknowledged as a right, the mere record, or the feeble intention, is of little avail.

"A populace roused by oppression, or an order of men possessed of a temporary advantage, have obtained many charters, concessions, and stipulations in favour of their claims; but where no adequate preparation was made to preserve them, the written articles were often forgotten, together with the occasion on which they were framed.

"The history of England, and of every free country, abounds with the example of statutes enacted when the people or their representatives assembled, but never executed when the crown or the executive was left to itself. The most equitable laws on paper are consistent with the utmost despotism in administration. Even the form of trial by juries in England had its authority in law, while the proceedings of the courts were arbitrary and oppressive.

"We must admire as the key-stone of civil liberty, the statute which forces the secrets of every prison to be revealed, the cause of every commitment to be declared, and the person of the accused to be produced, that he may claim his enlargement or his trial, within a limited time. No wiser form was ever opposed to the abuses of power. But it requires a fabric no less than the whole political constitution of Great Britain, a spirit no less than the refractory and turbulent zeal of this fortunate people, to secure its effects."*

[From the previous Introduction it thus appears, that we are warranted in dividing the following Lectures on Political Economy into two Parts:-to wit, 1°, into a part comprising the matters usually referred to Political Economy proper; and 2°, into a part comprising the Theory of Government and Forms of Administration, that is,

Politics proper. In its sequel, the Introduction further enumerates the subordinate constituents of the First Part: to wit, 1°, Population,-2°, National Wealth,-3°, The Poor,-4°, Education: and these we may consider as so many Books into which this Part is distributed.--Of the Second Part, this Introduction takes no account.]

CHAPTER II*

[OF THE CONTENTS AND DISTRIBUTION OF POLITICAL ECONOMY PROPER,—OR Of part first.]

In the last chapter I endeavoured to convey a general idea of the nature of those disquisitions which I comprehend under the title of Political Economy, and to which I have in this Dissertation restricted the meaning of Political Philosophy. In point of fact, the subjects of Population and of National Wealth have of late appropriated the title of Political Economy almost exclusively to themselves; but I flatter myself that the reasons I have assigned for enlarging the province of this science will be found satisfactory.

That the science of Political Economy, in the common acceptation of the phrase, is of modern origin, is universally admitted; and that the same observation is applicable to the other subjects to which I propose to extend the same title, will appear in the course of the following remarks. Indeed, upon all of them many of the conclusions which now very generally unite the suffrages of speculative men, stand in direct opposition to the maxims of ancient policy. It seems, therefore, naturally to occur as an object of preliminary inquiry, what are the peculiarities in the circumstances of Modern Europe which have given birth to this new science, and which have imposed on statesmen the necessity of searching for other lights than what are to be collected from the institutions of Ancient Greece

* [Miss Stewart notes upon her transcript,--"All after this is old."-If hereby she means, that the process of accommodating the Lectures to the Dis

sertation ceases with the first Chapter, this is manifestly incorrect; as is apparent from the earlier portion, at least, of the following chapter.]

and Rome? In considering this question, I shall have occasion to point out the natural connexion by which the different branches of Political Economy are united into one department of knowledge, and the easy transitions by which the consideration of any one of them leads to that of all the others. The remarks which I have to offer under this head will serve, at the same time, to explain, why in this part of my Dissertation so many of my observations are rather of a prospective, than of a historical or retrospective nature. This view of the subject I found to be unavoidable in treating of a science which, though it has suddenly burst into preternatural maturity, is still in point of years only in a state of infancy.

[POPULATION.]

I. Among the various objects of Political Economy, one of the most important and interesting has been always understood to be the augmentation of the numbers of the people; and accordingly, I propose to begin the course with an examination of the principal questions to which this subject has given rise.* It is a subject on which much attention has been bestowed both by ancient and by modern legislators, but the relative place which it occupies in the ancient and modern systems of Political Economy, will be found to be essentially different.

Of this difference the most powerful, though not the only cause, is the civil and domestic liberty now enjoyed, in this part of Europe, by the industrious orders of the community, contrasted with that slavery which entered into the constitutions of those states which, in the ancient world, were understood to have accomplished, in the most effectual manner, the great ends of government. In consequence of this mighty change produced by the dissolution of the Feudal system, the care of the statesman (in as far as population is concerned) is necessarily transferred from the higher classes of the people, to a description of men whose numbers in the Free States (as they were called) of Antiquity, were recruited, as they are now

[This latter clause is deleted in the earlier copy, and omitted by Miss Stewart.]

in the West India Islands,* by importations from abroad. It is this description of men which forms the basis of that political fabric, which Sir William Temple has so finely compared to a pyramid; and it is on their numbers, combined with their character and habits, that the stability of the superstructure depends. Their numbers, however, it is evident, can in the actual state of things be kept up only by such political arrangements as furnish them with the means of rearing families; and it is into the question concerning the comparative expediency of the various arrangements proposed for that purpose, that the problem of population ultimately resolves. It is well known the efforts of Augustus and of the other statesmen of Rome to discourage celibacy, had little or no reference to this class of the community, but were calculated exclusively to keep up the race of citizens, and more especially of the order of nobility.

In consequence of the place which the subject of population necessarily occupies in the systems of modern statesmen, it will be found to be more or less connected with every other article of Political Economy; and accordingly, the most enlightened writers who have of late treated of population, have been led under this general title to discuss a variety of questions, to which it may appear, on a superficial view, to bear a very remote relation; such, for example, is the question with respect to the relative claims of Agriculture and of Manufactures to the attention of the statesman, with a number of other incidental inquiries connected with these different modes of industry. Nothing, however, under this head appears more deserving of notice, than the striking contrast between ancient and modern schemes of policy, considered in their effects on national manners, and on the progressive improvement of mankind; the former checking or altering the natural course of things by means of agrarian laws, and of other restrictive and violent regulations, calculated chiefly to keep up and to multiply the breed of soldiers; the latter (in those countries, at least, where

* [Miss Stewart, in her transcript, notes: This must be altered to suit

1823. My father has evidently overlooked it."]