OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, BY FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH A NOTICE OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE AUTHOR, BY PATRICK JAMES STIRLING, F. R. S. E. 66 AUTHOR OF "THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRADE," THE GOLD DISCOVERIES AND THEIR PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES," ETC. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1860. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. THE first ten chapters of the Harmonies Économiques were all that appeared in the lifetime of the gifted author, or that had the benefit of his finishing touch. It was Bastiat's intention, had he lived, to recast the work, and to give it a wider and more comprehensive scope, embracing in his design not only the principles of Political Economy, but their applications to Social Philosophy. In the editions which have been published since his death, his friends have endeavoured, as far as possible, to fulfil his intentions in this respect, by additions carefully and judiciously selected from notes found among the author's papers,-notes written during his last illness, and necessarily imperfect. These additions were intended to be included in the present translation; but whether they are really calculated to enhance the value of the work as originally projected, has been doubted by some of the ablest critics of Bastiat. As a work on Political Economy, at all events, the portion which he gave to the world before his death develops sufficiently his original views and opinions; and it is perhaps doing no more than justice to his great reputation to introduce the Harmonies Économiques to the English reader-in the first instance |