of which are not precisely similar. Without principles deduced from analytical reasoning, experience is a useless and a blind guide.'

Every one who has had occasion to compare the discordant statements of the mass of common observers, with respect to the practical bearing and real influence of any measure affecting the public economy, must be convinced that Dr. Cullen's reasoning is still more applicable to political and economical science than to medicine. Circumstances which altogether escape the notice of ordinary observers, often exercise a powerful influence over national prosperity; and those again which strike them as most important, are often comparatively insignificant. The condition, too, of nations is affected by so many circumstances, that without the greatest skill and caution, joined to a searching and refined analysis, and a familiar acquaintance with scientific principles, it is, in most cases, quite impossible to discriminate between cause and effect, and to avoid ascribing results to one set of causes that have been occasioned by some other set. No wonder, therefore, when such is the difficulty of observing, that "the number of false facts afloat in the world, should infinitely exceed that of the false theories."2 And after all, how carefully soever an isolated fact may be observed, it can never, for the reasons already stated, form a foundation for a theorem either in the moral or political sciences. Those, indeed, who bring forward

1 Cullen's MS. Lectures.

2 A remark of Dr. Cullen.

theories resting on so narrow a basis, are almost invariably empirics, whose vanity or interest prompts them to set up conclusions drawn from their own limited range of observation, in opposition to those that have been sanctioned by the general experience of mankind.

But although we are not to reject a received principle because of the apparent opposition of a few results, with the particular circumstances of which we are unacquainted, we should place no confidence in its solidity unless it have been deduced from a very comprehensive and careful induction. The economist will not arrive at any thing like a true knowledge of the laws regulating the production, accumulation, distribution, and consumption of wealth, if he do not draw his materials from a very wide surface. He should study man in every different situation; he should have recourse to the history of society, arts, commerce, and civilization; to the works of legislators, philosophers, and travellers; to every thing, in short, that can throw light on the causes which accelerate or retard the progress of nations: he should mark the changes which have taken place in the fortunes and condition of the human race in different regions and ages of the world; he should trace the rise, progress, and decline of industry; and, above all, he should carefully analyze and compare the effects of different institutions and regulations, and discriminate the various circumstances wherein an advancing and declining society differ from each other. These investigations

disclose the real causes of national opulence and refinement, and of poverty and degradation; and provided they are sufficiently comprehensive, and that the circumstances under which observed events have taken place, correspond in the more essential respects with those under which it is meant to apply the experience deduced from them, they furnish the statesman with the means of devising a scheme of administration calculated to ensure the continued advancement of the society.

But at the same time it must be acknowledged, that however extensive our investigations, the experience to which we are at present able to appeal, appears to be insufficient for the satisfactory solution of some of the more difficult practical problems involved in the application of the science. The state of society in antiquity, when the bulk of the labouring classes consisted of slaves, and its state in the middle ages, and down almost to our own times, was extremely different from its present state; so that the lessons derived from past experience, the only sure ground on which to build in such matters, are, unfortunately, but little applicable to the new order of things. With respect, indeed, to the mere production of wealth, and to what may be called the strictly scientific parts of the science, there is now but little, if any, room for doubt or hesitation. But it is otherwise with many practical questions in which the public prosperity is deeply interested. Some of these will be noticed in other parts of this work; and at present we shall content ourselves with merely referring, by

way of illustration, to such questions as those respecting the consequences of the excessive growth of manufactures in particular countries; the practice of equally dividing the fixed property belonging to individuals, on their demise, among their different children, as compared with the practices of primogeniture and entail; the interference with parental authority, in regulating the labour and education of children; the principle and administration of the laws for the support of the poor, and of those for the establishment of public works, &c. These are all questions of vast importance, in regard to which we are at this moment, perhaps, without the means of coming to any conclusions on which it would be altogether safe to rely. We must, it is true, despite our imperfect means of information, legislate upon some or all of these matters; and should, of course, adopt such measures as may, on a careful consideration of the circumstances, seem, on the whole, most likely to secure the object in view. But we should think, that but few who reflect, though it were only cursorily, on the novelty, (for they are but of yesterday,) and consequently the difficulty as well as importance of these and similar questions, will be inclined to adopt a dogmatical tone, or to pronounce confidently in regard to the results of any measures, however well considered, that may at present be proposed with respect to them.

But, notwithstanding the uncertainty with which they must sometimes be mixed up, such inquiries cannot fail to excite the deepest interest in every

ingenuous mind. The laws by which the motions of the celestial bodies are regulated, and over which man cannot exercise the smallest influence, are yet universally allowed to be noble and rational objects of study. But the laws which regulate the movements of human society-which cause one people to advance in opulence and refinement, at the same time that another is sinking into the abyss of poverty and barbarism-have an infinitely stronger claim on our attention; both because they relate to objects which exercise a direct influence over human happiness, and because their effects may be, and in fact are, continually modified by human interference. National prosperity does not depend nearly so much on advantageous situation, salubrity of climate, or fertility of soil, as on the adoption of measures, fitted to stimulate the genius of the inhabitants, and to give perseverance and activity to industry. The establishment of a wise system of public economy compensates for almost every other deficiency; and has rendered regions naturally inhospitable and unproductive, the comfortable abodes of a refined, a crowded, and a wealthy population: but where it is wanting, the best gifts of nature are of little value; and countries possessed of the greatest capacities of improvement, and abounding in all the materials necessary for the production of wealth, with difficulty furnish a miserable subsistence to hordes distinguished only by their barbarism and wretchedness.

Those who reflect on the variety and extent of