ends least to be desired."

Custom and Education.)

(Bacon's Essay on

Mr.

But it is time to bring this chapter to a close, lest, under colour of a treatise on the elements of political economy, I be accused of coming down upon my readers with a general treatise of ethics. If the preceding observations apply to politics in general, they are especially true of political economy-the most important, because the fundamental, branch of all politics. The writers on this science, particularly of that part of it specifically treated in this work, have eminently discussed the objects of their attention as if they were distinct from moral considerations. Malthus, indeed, forms an honourable exception to this observation, by his care in tracing all his political conclusions on to their moral consequences, and has thereby submitted to his readers' consideration the whole question as to the expediency of adopting or rejecting his hypothesis. But by far the greater number of economists seem to have supposed that a bare proof of the general political expediency of their conclusions would lead to their universal admission and successful operation-a supposition contrary to the experience of all ages and nations, when applied to any thing so variable and uncertain as the judgment of men upon the application or effects of the best reasoned principles of political economy. The books, therefore, though by no means useless for the practical purposes for which they were intended, have had this mischievous tendency-that, being elementary parts of the education of youth of the higher orders, the fountains of political knowledge and legislative practice have been poisoned at their source;

and the great and leading principles, which should regulate both have been overlooked. Philosophers and legislators are brought up to consider the bare, and at the best uncertain, principles of political economy as sufficient to guide their conduct in promoting the welfare of mankind. The subject in this contracted and insulated view being in itself abstruse, and not capable of reference to any fixed or undeniable principles, is peculiarly the department of controversy. The science is divided, if we may thus express it, into so many different schools, each dogmatically adhering to opposite opinions, all equally convinced of the justness of their own conclusions, but no one in any great degree successful in improving the condition of society. The practical statesman having observed successive trials of each system, and finding none capable of attaining its professed object, becomes gradually indifferent to all, and disposed merely to have recourse to temporary expedients as difficulties arise, instead of anticipating them by a comprehensive view of remote causes and their consequences.

It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the debilitating effects of such a system of government on the commonwealth of a country, or upon its degrading effects on the habits and dispositions of the people. It is sure to engender general discontent, a dissatisfaction with the laws and the government, and a dereliction of all manly and self-denying principles. Surely then if we consider how perfectly innocent and safe is all reform that proceeds only upon the system of strengthening the spirit of the laws, by adapting them to a sound system of morals, it may be worth while to see what can be done for society upon that principle. Seeing

that the effects of disjoining morals from politics have hitherto been very unpropitious, let us at length begin to try the effect of their combined force.

For this purpose I submit it again, with great humility, to the consideration of those whom it may concern, whether an improvement in the system of education may not be here suggested. If a scheme of political economy were taught, in which the principles of the science should never be contemplated as distinct from sound morals and religion, which constitute the real criterion of their truth and practical utility, a new set of views and sentiments would in time become habitual, and new elements of vigour would be diffused throughout the decaying fabric of society. That they would amount to a beneficial improvement in the condition of mankind will perhaps be the less disputed, if we consider that the result promises to be rather the attainment of that which all good men and enlightened statesmen have in vain endeavoured to accomplish, than the introduction of any unknown or doubtful ingredient into the political system. And the attempt may with more readiness be made, because, supposing it to fail of its whole object, it can only, as far as it does. succeed, lead to a practical enlargement of public happiness, and of the moral and political force of the people which makes the experiment.

If such a school were established, I would write over the professor's chair" Goodness, of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin. Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits of no excess but

error; neither can angel or man come in danger by it."

I think the argumentative nature of the science would guard the practice of the virtue from running into error or enthusiasm, while a constant contemplation of the virtue would guard the practice of the science from degenerating into worldlimindedness; and both together would tend to form the useful and accomplished citizen of a free country-the real but practical Christian.

CHAPTER IX.

Brief Recapitulation of the Third Book.

IN the first chapter of this book I have endea voured to show, as a general axiom, that there is no certain standard for political conduct except moral truth, nor any certain rule for the discovery of moral truth but a reference to the revealed will of God. Hence it followed as a natural conclusion that whatever is consistent with this last must be politically expedient, and that whatever is prohibited by it must be politically mischievous. I also attempted to prove that not only the discovery of what is expedient in political practice, but also the power and the means of adhering to it in political agents, are to be drawn from the same source; for that all other sanctions, whether of argument, of interest, or of any other description, are too precarious and too little imperative upon the minds and wills of men to secure their perseverance in a straight

course.

Having advanced these propositions as general truths in the first chapter, I endeavoured in those which immediately follow to show the specific application of them to some particular and controverted points of practice connected with this treatise. And first, in chapters two, three, and four, I prosecuted an inquiry into the nature and extent of the duty of charity. In the first of those chapters an attempt was made to prove that the first and most unbounded exercise of that part of true and rational charity