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THE

PRINCIPLES

OF

POLITICAL ECONOMY:

WITH SOME INQUIRIES RESPECTING THEIR APPLICATION, AND A
SKETCH OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE SCIENCE.

BY J. R. M'CULLOCH, Esq.,

MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.

"Non enim me cuiquam mancipavi, nullius nomen fero; multum magnorum virorum judicio
credo, aliquid et meo vindico. Nam illi quoque, non inventa, sed quærenda nobis
reliquerunt."-SENECA.

THE FOURTH EDITION.

CORRECTED, ENLARGED, AND IMPROVED.

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, EDINBURGH;
AND LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, LONDON.

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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

THE present edition of this work has been prepared on the plan explained in the annexed preface. It has been carefully revised; and while we have endeavoured to set its theoretical doctrines in the clearest point of view, our main object has been still better to elucidate the practical operation of the principles of the science, and to show how they are liable to be influenced by the action of secondary and contingent circumstances. Numerous additions have been made to the chapter which treats of the circumstances that determine the common and average rate of wages; partly because of the magnitude and importance of the class dependent on wages, and partly because of the prevalence of doctrines regarding the employment of labour which appear to be alike false and dangerous. And without pretending to anything like completeness in these respects, we venture to think that there are but few really important economical questions which are not touched upon, more or less fully, in this volume.1

We have made no material change in any principle or doctrine advanced in the later editions of

1 We except from this remark those having reference to taxation, which we have made the subject of a separate work.

this treatise not that we should have had the smallest hesitation in doing so, had we been satisfied that such change was required; but we have seen nothing to lead us to any such conclusion. In some instances we have varied the exposition a little, and have occasionally introduced new illustrations, and modified some of the less important inferences; but the leading doctrines developed in the last two editions continue unaltered in this.

A very complete and elaborate index is now added to the work.

LONDON, January 1849.

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PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

THE first edition of this work, which appeared in 1825, was principally a reprint of the article on Political Economy in the Supplement to the "Encyclopædia Britannica," edited by the late Mr Macvey Napier. That article was necessarily, from the limited space within which it had to be compressed, confined to a statement of the fundamental principles of the science, prefaced by a short sketch of its history, and admitted of but few illustrations of the practical working of different systems and measures. If this were a defect in the original essay, it was but slightly amended on its first republication in a separate volume. But, on further reflection, we were led to believe that the work would gain in utility and interest, and that the distinguishing doctrines of the science would, at the same time, be better understood, if more attention were paid to practical considerations, and it were shown how the interests of society were affected, as well by the neglect as by the application of its theories. Hence the second edition of the work.

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