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VIEW

OF THE

PROGRESS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

IN EUROPE

SINCE THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

LONDON:

SPOTTISWOODE and SHAW, New-street-Square.

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PREFACE.

HC51 T97

THE regulations of the professorship of Political Economy impose upon the Professor the duty of publishing some portion of the Lectures delivered in each year, and as the nature of the present course would hardly allow me to select a separate portion for publication without risking an appearance of inexcusable incompleteness in the treatment of the subject, I have ventured to publish an entire course, being at the same time the last, which I am permitted by the tenure of my office to submit to the attention of those who feel an interest in the science. My object on the present occasion has been to exhibit Political Economy teaching its most important truths by example, and so to show, that its leading doctrines are the conclusions of an enlarged experience, and are not, as many persons suppose, mere deductions from arbitrary premises skilfully assumed. The course of such an inquiry has unavoidably led to the discussion of many popular principles, which have been from time to time arrayed against those conclusions, and of which the fallacy has been repeatedly demonstrated by some disastrous experiment. At the same time, it has been thought, that the elucidation of those fallacies by facts might serve to recommend the opposite truths more strongly to practical minds, which are indis

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