counteracted by a law of an opposite tendency.

'It

has been postponed (to say the least) by the habitual antagonism of various causes." I am most anxious not to misrepresent Mr. Rickards, but it appears to me that the only possible inference to be drawn from this language is, that he refuses to admit the existence of a law or tendency, unless the operation of this law be perfectly free from all obstructing or counteracting influences; in short, that he regards the mutual counteraction of opposing forces as an amusing but unsubstantial fiction of philosophers.

It is scarcely necessary to say that such views go directly to impugn the whole received system of inductive philosophy. If, for example, such objections are to be listened to, how is the first law of motion to be established? The objector might say, "When and where has such a law been found in operation? certainly it does not hold good in England.". So far from its being true that a projectile once set in motion will proceed for ever in the same direction with unimpaired velocity, we know that the best minié rifle will not send a ball more than a couple of miles, and that it is almost immediately bent out of its direct course into one nearly resembling a parabola. "Does this law of motion only operate in an abnormal state of human affairs?" If the physical philosopher were to explain that the natural tendency of the law was habitually counteracted" by the antagonizing force of gravity, he would be met by the retort, that "this mode of accounting for the admitted aberrations of

the supposed law presented to the mind still greater difficulties." The law of motion, according to the physical philosopher, is counteracted or suspended by an agency which is in habitual antagonism, and this agency is, in brief phrase, the law of gravitation. Are then the only exemplifications of this law to be found in countries in which the law of gravitation does not exist?

It is, I say, scarcely necessary to insist that such a line of reasoning is wholly inconsistent with the received logic of the inductive sciences; and, if admitted, the structure must fall. The diagonal of a parallelogram must no longer stand for the resultant of the forces represented by the sides. The facts of the ascent of a balloon through the air, of the rise of the mercury in the Torricellian tube, must be considered as a "refutation" of the law of gravity; the gyrations of a boomerang as a disproof of the first law of motion. The neutral salt, just because it is neutral, no longer contains the acid. Friction has no existence and no effect, because it does not bring the vehicle to a stop. The advance of a ship against wind and tide is a proof that there is no wind or tide. The progress of the world in civilization is a proof that there are no passions in human nature and no laws in the physical world which tend to impede it. In short, the notion of "habitual antagonisms" is to be at once exploded. The attempt to resolve complex uniformities into simple principles-that is to say, "the interpretation of nature"-is to be abandoned, and we are hence

forward to content ourselves with the rough statistical results.

According to the views here indicated of the character and method of the science, Political Economy is plainly identical with the statistics of wealth and population, and this probably is the idea which is popularly entertained with respect to it. If this view, however, is to be accepted, its pretensions as a science, as a means of analyzing and explaining the causes and laws of which the facts presented by statistical records are but the result, must be given up. We may indeed give to the empiric generalizations which are to be found at the bottom of our statistical tables, and which are "founded on a plurality of instances to the same effect," the sounding title of "laws of our social system"; but if such empiric generalizations are to be regarded as ultimate facts, if every attempt at further analysis is to be met by ridicule of the idea of causes being in "habitual antagonism," and by simple re-assertion of the complex fact to be explained, then, however we may persist in retaining the forms and phrases of science, the scientific character of the study is gone; and Political Economy has no longer any claim to be admitted amongst those departments of knowledge of which the business is, not only to observe, but to interpret nature.

It appears to me, however, that there is nothing in the phenomena of wealth which takes them out of the category of facts in explanation of which the method of analysis and deductive reasoning may be applied.

I have endeavoured to show that, while on the one hand, we labour under much disadvantage, as compared with those who investigate physical nature, in being precluded from experiment, and in having to deal with facts of an extremely complex and fluctuating character; on the other hand, we possess peculiar advantages in being able to derive our premises either directly from our consciousness, or from physical facts easily ascertainable, instead of being obliged to elicit them by long courses of inductive reasoning. It has been by following the method indicated in this view of the problems of wealth, that such truths as Political Economy has yet brought to light have been established; and by steadily prosecuting our inquiries in the same direction by the same road, I feel very confident that most of the difficulties which now beset economic questions may be overcome, and that still more important truths may be discovered.

APPENDIX A.

IF, not confining myself to economists of established position and reputation, I were to include every writer on economic questions, there is not a single doctrine within the range of the science that could be said to be undisputed. A late writer, e.g., Mr. Macleod, in a work entitled, "The Theory and Practice of Banking," proposes to make a complete tabula rasa of Political Economy (which he considers as "almost a branch of mechanics;"-" all sciences," he tells us, being "questions of force and motion,") and to reconstruct it, taking as its basis certain notions of credit and capital, which he claims to be the first to have evolved, and his title to the discovery of which will probably pass unchallenged. This writer thus delivers himself :-" We do not hesitate to say that there is not a single writer on Political Economy who has given a correct account of them [the laws of wealth], and more especially what has been written lately is the result of the most extraordinary misconception of the nature of the thing, the most profound ignorance of the details of business, clothed in language so palpably self-contradictory and inaccurate, as to excite nothing but surprise." [Vol. 2, Introduction, p. 58.] . "THE TIME HAS COME WHEN ALL POLITICAL ECONOMY MUST BE RE-WRITTEN. Every error in thought and language, which confused and retarded all the other inductive sciences, now deforms and obscures monetary science. There is hardly an expression in common use among writers on the subject which is not totally erroneous," [p. 80.]

The weapons by which Mr. Macleod proposes to demolish the present edifice of the science would seem to be vituperative epithets. Here are a few examples of his method. Ricardo's theory of rent he brands as a "prodigious delusion." Mr. Mill's nomenclature implies "the most ludicrous misconception," &c. Of the doctrine that cost of production regulates value, he says, that "no more stupendous philosophical blunder ever infected the principles of any science." In the next sentence it is called a "tremendous fallacy," and further on a "pestilent heresy." Mr. Tooke's distinction between currency and capital exhibits "a profound