ments, I would assert that the progress of national prosperity, the consolidation of public order, and a higher degree of civilization, are closely connected with the study of political economy. Methods to acquire riches are necessarily methods of wisdom and good conduct. If dissolute individuals rarely grow rich, the mal-administration of governments must necessarily impoverish the people. Were the consequences of their faults as evident as those of individual errors; could the effects of public mal-administration be as accurately ascertained as those of private misconduct; there is every reason to suppose that public calamities would be more unfrequent and less disastrous. The depositaries of the fortune of nations would no longer sacrifice it to the delusions of vanity, to the deceitful promises of ambition, to the captivating splendour of a frivolous and transitory grandeur: or if they should happen to be misled by the violence of passion, their errors would be of short duration. Like Louis XII. and Francis I. of France, who, by the parsimony of the latter part of their reign, atoned for the prodigality and profusion of their younger years; princes, ever so little ambitious of true glory and desirous of the love of their people, would stop at a considerable distance from the precipice which threatens to engulph them together with public wealth.

Under the impression that I may perhaps accelerate that fortunate period by exhibiting, comparing, and contrasting the various systems of which the science of political economy is at present composed; I shall discuss their respective advantages and inconveniencies, and adopt that theory which, in a moral, political, civil, and economical respect, appears entitled to the

preference. The task, I know, is not easy, and little flattering to self-love. The merit of originality will rarely be mine. It would indeed be difficult to say any thing on this subject which has not been said already; but my satisfaction will be great, if I should remove the innumerable difficulties which I encountered when inclination led me to a science to which my previous studies and ordinary occupations had kept me a stranger.

Above all, I shall deem myself happy if I have avoided the inconvenience into which all the writers on this subject appear to have fallen. Their plans are generally defective. None has chosen one in which he could treat of every branch of the science in its natural order. None has used the analytical method which connects the different parts of science, and combines them into a whole. I hope I shall at least approximate that desired perfection, by investigating successively, in as many separate books, the various systems concerning,

I. The sources of wealth, and

II. Their divers ramifications, such as labour, capitals, the circulation of commodities or commerce, and the revenue or consumption; and particularly by stating in distinct chapters the various theories or opinions, and the controversies to which they have given birth, in every branch of the science.

This division appears to embrace the science in its general bearings, in its principal parts, and in its most minute details. It commands attention without fatiguing the mind; allows every separate portion to be examined without losing sight of the whole; and

forms a picture which a person of the least discernment may readily contemplate in its full extent without being bewildered by the multitude of the details.

But is wealth of sufficient importance, utility, or benefit, to individuals or nations, to become the object of a science, to engage the attention of enlightened minds, and to require particular rules of conduct for public and private management? Is not that rather true which Plato said, that "gold and "virtue are two opposite weights in a balance, one "of which cannot rise unless the other sinks ?"* Does not wealth deserve the stigma which so many moralists, politicians, and religious sectaries, have affixed to it? And would it not be better to teach men the precious advantage of an honourable mediocrity, than to entice them to the fatal and deplorable road to riches?

Though sufficiently resolved by both the eagerness with which all nations press forward on the road to wealth, and the important part which wealth performs in all public and private transactions, this superannuated problem appears yet entitled to a serious inquiry. I have discussed it in the Introduction to my work. A science ought indeed to be proved to be useful, before it is taught; and it is only because the utility of political economy seemed evident to me, both in a moral and political point of view, that I have investigated whatever I thought worthy to be considered as pertaining to the science, and calculated to simplify its study, to accelerate its improvement, and to insure its success.

* Travels of Anacharsis. Engl. transl. vol. iv. c. 55. p. 363.

ON THE VARIOUS SYSTEMS

OF

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

INTRODUCTION.

On the Nature of Wealth.

POLITICAL sciences afford,few subjects of meditation more extensive, more complicated, more instructive, and more productive of important consequences than the problem of the moral and political advantages and inconveniences of Wealth; a subject which has been so frequently discussed, and so variously resolved in every treatise on morals and politics.

When we consider how little, in this respect, men have been anxious to make their opinions agree with their practice, their principles with their conduct, and their morality with their actions; the solution of the problem becomes still more difficult: men appear to have prescribed duties for themselves merely for the purpose of transgressing them, or, at least, to have imagined that to transgress them was allowable as often as it might prove useful. Let it not be supposed, however, that this inconsistency is peculiar to

some individuals, sòme classes, or corporations, certain times and certain countries; it is common to all men, to all nations, and all times. Though despised by the wise, condemned by religious tenets, accused by moralists and publicists of the perversity of individuals, the depravity of manners, the decline of nations, and the fall of empires, Wealth is yet every where the object of the ambition of individuals and nations; the cause of their quarrels and contentions, and but too often the reward of violence, of fraud and injustice, and of the infraction of all laws human and divine. Every where poverty, though praised, commended, and ranked among the virtues most honourable to humanity, is regarded as a misfortune, sometimes as a disgrace, and almost always as a symptom of vice, or of an inferiority of either physical or intellectual faculties.

To reconcile this singular contradiction, to develope, its causes, and decide between the passions and the instructors of mankind, is certainly no easy task. It ought, however, to be less difficult, now that political economy indicates pure and salutary sources of wealth, the abundance of which may be increased by means conformable to reason, justice, and morality; equally beneficial to the rich and poor, and as lawful as honourable in their application. Yet, by a strange fatality, this precious discovery has not cured public opinion of its prejudice against riches; and to write in behalf of wealth, is still as rash, as it is rare to see poverty honoured in a drawing-room.

If political economy has hitherto been unable to make men relinquish their erroneous notions concern