Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by E. PESHINE SMITH, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Northern District of New York. STEREOTYPED B▲ J. ● N, PHILADELPHIA. R. CRAIGHEAD, PRINTER, 53 VESEY-ST., N. Y. PREFACE. In the following pages the writer has made the attempt to construct a skeleton of Political Economy upon the basis of purely physical laws, and thus to obtain for its conclusions that absolute certainty which belongs to the positive sciences. The casual association of its teaching with moral philosophy, is the circumstance to which is to be attributed that metaphysical bias, manifested by almost all Economical writers, in their method of investigation, and which has conducted them to such vague, hypothetical, and unsatisfactory results. It has, indeed, been made matter of set purpose to confine its examination of the laws of the production of the objects which constitute wealth, to "such of them as are laws of the human mind;" as may be seen by consulting the Essay of Mr. J. S. Mill "On the Definition of Political Economy, and the method of Investigation proper to it." The issue, nevertheless, has been, that grossly material estimation of man, which disregards all that is truly human in his nature, and has brought upon Political Economy, thus worked out, the name of the Dismal Science. Mr. Henry C. Carey led the way, in the better method, by his conclusive refutation of the theory of Ricardo in regard to the occupation of land, which, for more than forty years, has been dominant with the English Economists. This fiction was an inference as to a physical fact, from "laws of the human mind," and was for that long period accepted as a fact, without a single Economist, before Mr. Carey, thinking it worth while to test its accuracy by direct observation. Mr. Carey, by showing that the fact is directly the reverse of the hypothesis of Ricardo, and by establishing the consequences which flow from it, restored harmony to what was before a mass of discordances, and rendered it possible, for the first time, to construct a science out of what was, at best, but a mere collection of empirical rules. In addition to the special acknowledgments made to that gentleman in the following pages, it is proper to say, that the author is so thoroughly sensible that he owes whatever his own study of the subject may have effected, to his having been put upon the path and furnished with the clue, in the writings of Mr. Carey, as to be quite indisposed to make pretensions on the score of originality, which, as against others, he might maintain. Upon this point, however, he is reasonably indifferent. The object of preparing this Manual was, to present to his countrymen in a compact form, the principles of what he thinks may justly be called the American System of Political Economy, not less on the ground of its origin, than its signal agreement with our social and political organization. It was desirable to exhibit what might be distinctive, in connection with the general doctrines in which Economists on both sides of the Atlantic agree, in such a manner as to give an outline of the science, adapted to popular reading or to elementary instruction. This imposed upon the writer all the brevity that is consistent with a clear demonstration of the leading principles. He trusts, however, that they have been sufficiently elucidated to afford important aid in the solution of many of the problems, the direct discussion of which he was compelled to forego, with much else that might have given interest to the work; and, that, while a teacher would find room for abundant illustration, any individual of mature years, who may read it without such aid, will meet with no more severe demand upon his reflective powers, than is incident to the treatment of so extensive a subject within such a compass, as to permit the hope of popular circulation. April, 1853. UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA CONTENTS. OBJECT of Political Economy-Possibility of making it a Science— Method of Investigation necessary to that End.............................. Classification of Human Functions-Laws which govern the Production of Food the Basis of Political Economy-Matter and Force indestruc- tible-The Original Sources of the Elements which combine to form Food-Distinctions between Vegetable and Animal Life - Mutual Convertibility of Vegetable and Animal Matter-Mode in which Nature renews the exhausted Fertility of Soils - Malthus's Theory of Population, founded upon the false Notion that the Consumption of Food is equivalent to its Destruction, instead of a Step in the Process of Circulation - Population made to outrun Subsistence, only by the Violation of the Laws of Vegetable Production, exem- Manner in which the Coral Island is formed, and becomes capable of sustaining Vegetable and Animal Life-How the Naked Rock of the Land Mountain is crumbled into Soil-The Formation of Vegetable Mould-Manner in which it is carried from the Summits to the Valleys in the Dead Form, and carried back up the Slopes by the Living Vegetation it supports- The Beginning of Cultivation-Its Progress from the Uplands to the Lowlands-Ricardo's Hypothesis of the Occupation of Land-Mr. Carey's Historical Refutation of it -Indirect demonstration of the Falsity of Ricardo's Theory......... 88 Human Progress measured by the Extent to which the Natural Agents are made serviceable- They give Power to Man, without requiring Food or Wages-Analysis of Motives and Laws of Barter-The Limitation of Value to the Labour necessary for the reproduction of a desired object-Value constantly falling, by the increased utiliza- tion of the Natural Agents-Definitions of Utility, Value, and Price -The Value of Human Labour constantly rising with the Improve- ment of Machinery, while that of existing Capital falls - Examina- tion of the Growth of Capital on the Relations between the Labourer and the Capitalist - The Capitalist obtains a decreasing Proportion of the Products of Labour and Capital, and the Labourer an increasing one; while both have a larger absolute Quantity— Great importance of this Law, discovered by Mr. Carey, as the Law |