have been made, down to a very late period, to investigate its sources; and that the study of this science is not even yet considered as essential in a comprehensive system of education. A variety of circumstances might be mentioned which have contributed to its unmerited neglect; but the institution of domestic slavery in the ancient world, and the darkness of the period when the plan of education in the universities of modern Europe was first formed, seem to have had the greatest influence.

The citizens of Greece and Rome considered it

degrading to engage in those occupations which form the principal business of the inhabitants of modern Europe. Instead of endeavouring to enrich themselves by their own exertions, they trusted to the reluctant labour of slaves, or to subsidies extorted from conquered countries. In some Grecian states, the citizens were prohibited from engaging in either manufactures or commerce; and though this prohibition did not exist in Athens and Rome, these employments were, notwithstanding, regarded by their citizens as unworthy of freemen, and were, in consequence, carried on only by slaves, or by the very dregs of the people. Even Cicero, who had mastered all the philosophy of the ancient world, and raised himself above many of the prejudices of his age and country, does not scruple to affirm, that there can be nothing ingenuous in a workshop; that commerce, when conducted on a small scale, is mean and despicable; and when most extended, barely tolerable

-non admodum vituperanda!1 Agriculture, indeed, was treated with more respect. Some of the most distinguished characters in the earlier ages of Roman history had been actively engaged in rural affairs; but, despite their example, the cultivation of the soil, in the flourishing period of the Republic, and under the Emperors, was mostly carried on by slaves, belonging to the landlord, and employed on his account. The mass of Roman citizens either engaged in the military service, or derived a precarious and dependent subsistence from the supplies of corn furnished by the conquered provinces. In such a society the relations subsisting in modern Europe between landlords and tenants, masters and servants, were nearly unknown; and the ancients were, in consequence, all but entire strangers to those interesting and important questions arising out of the rise and fall of rents and wages, which form so important a branch of economical science. The philosophy

"Illiberales autem et sordidi questus mercenariorum, omniumque quorum operæ, non quorum artes emuntur. Est enim illis ipsa merces auctoramentum servitutis. Sordidi etiam putandi, qui mercantur à mercatoribus quod statim vendant, nihil enim proficiunt, nisi admodum mentiantur! Opificesque omnes in sordidâ arte versantur, nec enim quidquam ingenuum potest habere officina. * Mercatura autem, si tenuis est, sordida putanda est; sin autem magna et copiosa, multa undique apportans, multisque sine vanitate impertiens, non est admodum vituperanda."-De Officiis, lib. i. sect. 42.

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2 "Rei militaris virtus præstat cæteris omnibus; hæc populo Romano, hæc huic urbi æternam gloriam peperit."-CICERO pro Murena.

of antiquity was also extremely unfavourable to the cultivation of Political Economy. The luxurious or more refined mode of living of the rich was regarded by the ancient moralists as an evil of the first magnitude. They considered it as subversive of those warlike virtues which were the principal objects of their admiration; and they, therefore, denounced the passion for accumulating wealth as fraught with the most injurious consequences. It was impossible that this science could become an object of attention to minds imbued with such prejudices; or that it could be studied by those who contemned its objects, and vilified the labour by which wealth is produced.

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At the establishment of our universities, the clergy being almost the exclusive possessors of the little knowledge then in existence, their peculiar feelings and pursuits naturally had a marked influence over the plans of education they were employed frame. Grammar, rhetoric, logic, school divinity, and civil law, comprised the whole course of study. To have appointed professors to explain the principles of commerce, and the means by which labour might be rendered most efficient, would have been considered as at once superfluous and degrading to the dignity of science. The ancient prejudices against commerce, manufactures, and luxury, retained a powerful influence in the middle ages. None then

"Paulatim," says Tacitus, speaking of the effects of the increasing wealth of the Romans, "discessum ad delinamenta victorum, balnea, et conviviorum elegantiam, idque apud imperitos humanitas vocatur."-Annal. lib. ii.

possessed any clear ideas in regard to the true sources of national wealth, happiness, and prosperity. The intercourse among states was extremely limited, and was maintained rather by marauding incursions and piratical expeditions in search of plunder, than by a commerce founded on the gratification of real and reciprocal wants.

These circumstances sufficiently account for the late rise of the science, and the little attention paid to it down to a very recent period. And since it has become an object of more general attention and inquiry, the differences which have subsisted among the more eminent of its professors have proved exceedingly unfavourable to its progress, and have generated a disposition to distrust its best established conclusions.

It is clear, however, that those who distrust the conclusions of Political Economy, because of the variety of systems that have been advanced to explain the phenomena about which it is conversant, might on the same ground distrust the conclusions of almost every other science. The discrepancy between the various systems that have successively been sanctioned by the ablest physicians, chemists, natural philosophers, and moralists, is quite as great as the discrepancy between those advanced by the ablest economists. But who would therefore conclude, that medicine, chemistry, natural philosophy, and morals, rest on no solid foundation, or that they are incapable of being formed into systems of wellestablished and consentaneous truths? We do not

refuse our assent to the demonstrations of Newton and Laplace, because they subverted the hypotheses of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahé, and Descartes; and why should we refuse our assent to the demonstrations of Smith and Ricardo, because they have subverted the false theories that were previously advanced respecting the sources and the distribution of wealth? Political Economy has not been exempted from the fate common to the other sciences. None of them has been instantaneously carried to perfection; more or less of error has always insinuated itself into the speculations of their earliest cultivators. But the errors with which this science was formerly infected are now fast disappearing; and a few observations will suffice to show, that it really admits of as much certainty in its conclusions as any science founded on fact and experiment can possibly do.

The principles on which the production and accumulation of wealth and the progress of civilization depend, are not the offspring of legislative enactments. Man must exert himself to produce wealth, because he cannot exist without it; and the desire implanted in the breast of every individual, of rising in the world and improving his condition, impels him to save and accumulate. The principles which form the basis of this science make, therefore, a part of the original constitution of man, and of the physical world; and their operation may, like that of the mechanical principles, be traced by the aid of observation and analysis. There is, however, a material