the proofs of our propositions. If these be valid, the truth cannot be impugned, however it may have been reached, or in whatever language it may be exhibited.

Of the general purport of this work, it may be observed, that the object aimed at throughout is not so much to settle definitively certain points, as to establish the true method of investigating Political-economy. Whilst, therefore, all discussions on the definitions and on the marks of classification adopted in existing treatises on the subject are as much as is. possible avoided*, no further indulgence is asked for those which are introduced here than that they may be received temporarily and provisionally, as perhaps the most useful which the present state of knowledge supplies. It is indeed to be desired, and it is also, in that part of the subject at least which is connected with physiology and psychology, to be expected, that other and better marks of classi

*"How much I should prefer to say simply how things are, without troubling myself with the thousand aspects under which ignorance sees them. To explain the laws by which society prospers or decays would be to ruin virtually all sophisms at once."-Sophismes Economiques, translated.

fication will be adopted, when these branches of learning shall have been extensively applied to the elucidation of Political-economy. If there is a natural footpath through creation, by following which every object is seen to be nearly blended with that which precedes and with that which follows it, each successively exhibiting a difference so minute as to give rise to the fanciful theory of natural development, it is evident that no single one of these minute differences will serve definitively to distinguish the classes into which the limited capacity of the human intellect requires objects to be divided for its convenience. A natural system, therefore, marking each class by its general character, composed of several of the minute particulars exhibited by several of the individuals which compose the class, must ultimately supplant, as it has already supplanted in botany, every system of arbitrary classification. Whilst, however, this part of the following discussion is to be regarded as a matter of merely conventional arrangement and as necessarily ephemeral, the method of pursuing this and every other branch of philosophical inquiry possesses alike a graver import, and if

rightly established, lays claim to a more lasting reception; there are also, it is believed, collateral considerations, in consequence of which there may be attached to the method of investigating Political-economy here pursued a more than usual degree of interest. If this be the true method, -if it be right to pursue in concert the study of individual man and of aggregated societies, to observe simultaneously, and to refer to one common principle, mental phenomena felt internally, and social phenomena known through statistics,-it is not unreasonable to expect that each of these branches of philosophy will shed upon the other a light which may be compared to that which the laws of moving bodies have derived from the cognate researches of Terrestrial Dynamics and Astronomy; that the facilities for constant observation, with every advantage of proximity and opportunity, joined to the power of making experiments, which are possessed by Psychology, when brought to bear upon the problems of Political-economy, must conduce largely to a right understanding of their character; whilst the advantages possessed by Political-economy, in the enduring continuity

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of its phenomena, in their certainty placed beyond the reach of cavil, and in their exact representation by numerical expressions, when imported into the study of Psychology, must furnish a more definite language for the representation of its principles, and serve to secure for them more general acceptance. If the names of Locke, and Brown, Dugald Stewart, and Mackintosh, with others less familiarly known in this country, are justly celebrated, some part at least of the discoveries, by which their celebrity has been won, must deserve to be examined and applied by Political-economists, not presumptively, as is the case at present, if indeed they are even thus applied by those who profess to explain the wants, and feelings, and actions of social man, but connectedly and avowedly for the express purpose of elucidating this class of problems. If, on the other hand, the progress of nations in consumption, and production, and distribution, has been faithfully portrayed by the perseverance and skill devoted to statistical records, ought not this indisputable evidence of the operations of mind to be used to illustrate their obscurity? Is it unreasonable to

anticipate that Psychology may thus eventually become a demonstrated science, and that Political-economy, advancing those principles alone which are known to be true, may find their results continually tend to agree more closely with actual phenomena, as the effects of each newly-discovered principle are from time to time brought into calculation?

If it shall ever be found possible to bring to the investigation of these co-ordinate branches of philosophy the aid of pure mathematical science, in what degree their language will become more settled, their observations and experiments better directed, and the remote consequences of passing phenomena more faithfully deduced, will be most justly apprehended by those who are most conversant with the history of natural philosophy.