III. The third and last division of the science of politics is that which includes all questions as to the rights and duties of independent states, or as to all that is right and wrong in their intercourse and treatment of one another, and which is well enough designated and understood by the title of "International Law."

These three divisions comprise the whole body of the science of politics; which is manifestly therefore the science of natural or real right in regard to property, and to personal as well as national security and liberty:-by natural or real right being understood, such modes of conduct and relations to persons and property as can be demonstrated to be consistent with the general good of mankind, and the best form of civil society, or with "those general principles which," as has been observed by a writer of the highest class and authority," ought to run through and be the foundation of the laws of all nations."+

It will be observed from what has been now stated, that political science takes cognizance of that class of rights and duties only which fall to be guaranteed or regulated by institutional law and force,—that is to say, the observance of which must be compelled, when necessary, by the whole force of the society-excluding altogether from its view or jurisdiction that other and perhaps still more numerous class which are discretionary; or which, although they may be not less imperative than the former in point of moral obligation, must yet be left to the free will and judgment, or conscience, of the obligant, as not being of that peculiar and determinate character which should render them fit to be enforced by compulsatory law.

• Dr Smith.

+ Theory of Moral Sentiments, part 7, sec. 4, at the end.

With regard to the first and third branches of Political Science, (taking them in the order in which they are set down above,) we are to have nothing to do with them in the following treatise; and I have only mentioned them here for the purpose of laying them expressly and distinctly aside, and of circumscribing, by that means, the more perfectly our field of inquiry,* which is to be entirely and strictly confined to the second division above-mentioned, viz. Political Economy or Political Justice.

Political Economy has, by most late writers, been described as the science which investigates the "Laws"+ which regulate the production and distribution (to which

It appears to me to be essential to the improvement and perfection of the different branches of Political and Moral Science, to know their precise nature, extent, and limits,―their genealogy or affinities, so to speak,—and the place which they occupy in the field of human knowledge; and always to treat them after this manner, and to keep in view those affinities, might greatly facilitate the work of one day combining and exhibiting them as one connected, consentaneous, and complete whole.

There is another rule which I will here notice as of the utmost importance, and indeed altogether indispensable to any improvement in the moral sciences, and that is to treat them always with a reference to that great end for which alone all human science is or ought to be cultivated, namely, the furthering of the happiness of the world, or of mankind. Nothing is so well calculated to keep us from falling into errors, or to bring us back into the right path, when we have wandered from it, as to have this great end constantly in sight, and to make constant reference to it when difficulties occur. This is the golden rule for philosophizing, in this department, above all others.

+ Meaning, of course, the natural laws, which are observed to regulate the production and distribution of wealth under the system of the division of labour, and of barter, or exchange, and where the right to accumulate as well as to freely produce and exchange property (which is an essential part of the system of the division of labour) is guaranteed and maintained to every individual by the united force of the whole society or government.

some persons have added, very needlessly in my opinion, the consumption) of wealth. But there is another and a far more important and more interesting subject, upon which the investigation of the laws which regulate the production and distribution of wealth is calculated to throw a new and clear light, and which it is now full time should be introduced and shown forth as one of the chief objects of the science of Political Economy,-namely, upon the natural grounds of right to it. For as the right to wealth or transferable property is acquired solely from the manner in which it is produced and exchanged, or distributed, under the system of the division of labour; that system does in fact consign it, as it were, to its proper owners; or what comes to the same thing, the natural laws which regulate barter or exchange under that system, (where men are allowed to act freely under them, without any undue or unnecessary constraint or restrictions,) cause it to fall necessarily into the hands of those who have the proper or natural right to it. Yet this most interesting and most important object of Political Economy has been entirely overlooked by preceding writers; and although it has necessarily happened that the whole drift of their reasonings, and all the arguments employed by them, (where they have not deviated altogether into paradox and absurdity,) have always had a tendency, more or less apparent, to illustrate the question of right to property, they have never once mentioned that question

*

* It may indeed seem very obvious that the science of the production and distribution of wealth or property-the common definition of Political Economy-can be nothing else but the science of what has been called the rights of property. If you explain correctly how property is produced, and how it is properly or justly distributed, you must of necessity show the natural grounds of right to it; that is, you must show who it is that, according to the natural and equitable laws of distribution, should possess and enjoy it—that is, in other words, who has the right to it.

as forming any part of their subject, and far less have they ever thought of treating it, directly or expressly, as a leading point in their inquiries.

Nor ought this perhaps to be considered as altogether so surprising a circumstance as at first sight it may appear to be; for it often happens in the infancy of the different sciences, that all their usefulness, and all the subjects on which they are destined to throw light, do not discover themselves at once, and frequently not until a considerable progress has been made in them. Still, however, it will be admitted that the want of a distinct perception of the chief and ultimate object of our inquiries must form a serious obstruction to our successful prosecution of them; and it is probably much owing to this circumstance, that so little advance or improvement has been made in the science of Political Economy since the time of Dr Smith, notwithstanding the greatly increased attention which the subject has attracted of late years, and the immense volume of disquisition that has been published upon it.*

It is true, that many of the questions in Political Economy have received a more ample discussion, and some of its soundest doctrines a fuller and more complete demonstration and development; but no real or considerable advance or improvement, or any thing deserving the name of discovery, has been made in the science since the period mentioned in the text. On the contrary, the new theories which are so much in vogue at present, appear to me to rest on a far too slender and insufficient foundation of fact and argument to be accounted such; instead of advancing the science, they seem rather to have thrown it back, and have given to the present inquiries respecting it a totally erroneous and unprofitable bent; and of this perhaps it may be deemed no unequivocal indication or evidence, that the late supposed improvements, instead of reconciling contrary opinions, and throwing a clear light upon its more abstruse questions, have totally overclouded and involved them in a thicker darkness, and have intro duced many new points of difference which did not before exist,

If, indeed, we go back to the period when Dr Smith wrote, and to the state in which he found the science, it will not appear at all extraordinary that the view of it here explained should not have been taken, or rather should not have been brought conspicuously or expressly forward by him; for, having the cue now given, it will not be difficult to discover that all his disquisitions, and the whole drift and tendency of his arguments, as has been already hinted, point more or less obviously and unequivocally to this object. But it was not then necessary to extend the view so far, or perhaps even possible to treat the subject with advantage, in the manner here proposed, until many preliminary topics and extensive questions were previously discussed and settled. After the publication of the "Wealth of Nations," however, this view of the subject was brought comparatively near; and had Dr Smith lived to proceed farther in that great work, the design of which he has recorded at the conclusion of his "Theory of Moral Sentiments,"* or rather, had he found the science of political economy in the advanced state in which he left it, and come to the farther consideration of the subject with unexhausted vigour, it is not to be doubted but that the view here given would have opened upon him, and that he would have carried his inquiries to a degree of perfection which would have left little now to wish for or to add. But be this as it may, it seems to me now to be absolutely necessary to the further progress of the science, that it should be treated in this manner; that it should be well understood, and explicitly set down in the front of the discussion, that the great object of political economy is to point out and demonstrate the natural grounds of right upon which the great laws of property are or ought

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