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INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, 
 
 Sec. fyc. 
 
 IT is impossible to address such an assembly as 
 I see before me without great diffidence and great 
 anxiety ; and I may, perhaps, plead more than the 
 usual excuse for indulging in the egotism which is 
 natural to an introductory lecture. If the science 
 of Political Economy were in the situation in 
 which, I trust, a very few years, and perhaps the 
 exertions of some of those whom I am addressing, 
 will place it ; if its objects were clearly understood, 
 its terms precisely defined, its general principles 
 universally admitted ; if it ranked in public esti- 
 mation, as then it will rank, among the first of 
 moral sciences in interest and in utility, I should 
 feel, as I now feel, great diffidence in my own 
 powers, and the necessity of relying very much on 
 
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 2 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 your candour and indulgence. But this is not the 
 situation of the science. It is, at present, in that 
 state of imperfect development, which, though 
 most attractive to the student who has made some 
 proficiency, throws the greatest difficulty in the 
 way of a beginner, and, consequently, of a teacher, 
 and offers the fairest scope to the objections of an 
 idle or an interested adversary. 
 
 When I consider how numerous those adversa- 
 ries are, and how widely diffused are the prejudices 
 which they excite and propagate, all apprehension^ 
 for myself is lost in the fear that the failures of the 
 professor may be imputed to his subject, and that 
 the vague abstractions, the details, the truisms, 
 the obscurities, and the inconsistencies which, with 
 all my care, will, I have no doubt, be found in my 
 lectures, maj rather deter those among my hearers 
 to whom the subject is new from proceeding in a 
 study which, in my hands, may appear uninterest- 
 ing, than lead them to prosecute it in the writings 
 of the great masters of the science, and by patient 
 meditation on the results of their own experience. 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 To prevent, as far as I am able, such a result, 
 I shall devote this lecture to an attempt to explain 
 the objects of Political Economy, and the inquiries 
 through which they are to be effected ; and it will, 
 I think, appear that the human faculties cannot be 
 engaged in a pursuit more useful in its result, or 
 more interesting in its progress. 
 
 If we compare the present situation of the 
 people of England with that of their predecessors 
 at the time of Caesar's invasion ; if we contrast the 
 warm and dry cottage of the present labourer, its 
 chimney and glass windows, (luxuries not enjoyed 
 by Caesar himself,) the linen and woollen clothing 
 of himself and his family, the steel, and glass and 
 earthenware with which his table is furnished, the 
 Asiatic and American ingredients of his food, and 
 above all, his safety from personal injury, and his 
 calm security that to-morrow will bring with it the 
 comforts that have been enjoyed to-day ; if, I 
 repeat, we contrast all these sources of enjoyment 
 with the dark and smoky burrows of the Brigantes, 
 or the Cantii, their clothing of skins, their food 
 
 B 2 
 

 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 confined to milk and flesh, and their constant ex- 
 posure to famine and to violence, we shall be in- 
 clined to think those who are lowest in modern 
 society richer than the chiefs of their rude prede- 
 cessors. And if we consider that the same space 
 of ground which afforded an uncertain subsistence 
 to a hundred, or probably fewer, savages, now 
 supports with ease more than a thousand labourers, 
 and, perhaps, a hundred individuals beside, each 
 consuming more commodities than the labour of a 
 whole tribe of Ancient Britons could have pro- 
 duced or purchased, we may at first be led to 
 doubt whether our ancestors enjoyed the same 
 natural advantages as ourselves ; whether their sun 
 was as warm, their soil as fertile, or their bodies 
 as strong, as our own. 
 
 But let us ^substitute distance of space for dis- 
 tance of time ; and, instead of comparing the 
 situations of the same country at different periods, 
 compare different countries at the same period, 
 and we shall find a still more striking discrepancy. 
 The inhabitant of South America enjoys a soil 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 and a climate, not superior merely to our own, but 
 combining 1 all the advantages of every climate 
 and soil possessed by the remainder of the world. 
 His vallies have all the exuberance of the tropics, 
 and his mountain-plains unite the temperature of 
 Europe to a fertility of which Europe offers no 
 example. Nature collects for him, within the 
 space of a morning's walk, the fruits and vegeta- 
 bles which she has elsewhere separated by thou- 
 sands of miles. She has given him inexhaustible 
 forests, has covered his plains with wild cattle 
 and horses, filled his mountains with mineral 
 treasures, and intersected all the eastern face of 
 his country with rivers, to which our Rhine and 
 Danube are merely brooks. But the possessor of \ 
 these riches is poor and miserable. With all 
 the materials of clothing offered to him almost 
 spontaneously, he is ill-clad ; with the most pro- 
 ductive of soils, he is ill-fed ; though we are told 
 that the labour of a week will there procure sub- 
 sistence for a year, famines are of frequent occur- 
 rence ; the hut of the Indian, and the residence of 
 
6 AN JNTRQDUCTOK\ LECTURE 
 
 the landed proprietor are alike destitute of furni- 
 ture and convenience ; and South America, help- 
 less and indigent with all her natural advantages, 
 seems to rely for support and improvement on a 
 very small portion of the surplus wealth of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 It is impossible to consider these phenomena 
 without feeling anxious to account for them ; to 
 discover whether they are occasioned by circum- 
 stances unsusceptible of investigation, or regu- 
 lation, or by causes which can be ascertained, and 
 may be within human control. To us, as Eng- 
 lishmen, it is of still deeper interest to inquire 
 whether the causes of our superiority are still in 
 operation, and whether their force is capable of 
 being increased or diminished ; whether Eng- 
 land has run her full career of wealth and improve- 
 ment, but stands safe where she is ; or, whether 
 to remain stationary is impossible, and it depends 
 on her institutions and her habits, on her govern- 
 ment, and on her people, whether she shall recede 
 
 or continue to advance. 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 7 
 
 The answer to all these questions must be 
 sought in the science which teaches in what wealth 
 consists, by what agents it is produced, and 
 according to what laws it is distributed, and 
 what are the institutions and customs by which { 
 production may be facilitated and distribution 
 regulated, so as to give the largest possible 
 amount of wealth to each individual. And this 
 science is Political Economy. 
 
 If my definition be correct, the science of Poli- 
 tical Economy may be divided into two great 
 branches, the theoretic and the practical. The 
 first, or theoretic branch, that which explains the 
 nature, production, and distribution of wealth, 
 will be found to rest on a very few general pro- 
 positions, which are the result of observation, or 
 consciousness, and which almost every man, as 
 soon as he hears them, admits, as familiar to his 
 thoughts, or at least, as included in his previous 
 knowledge. 
 
 Its conclusions are also nearly as general as its 
 premises ; those which relate to the nature and 
 
8 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 production of wealth, are universally true : and, 
 though those which relate to the distribution of 
 wealth, are liable to be affected by peculiar insti- 
 tutions of particular countries, in the cases, for 
 instance, of slavery, corn-laws, or poor-laws, the 
 natural state of things can be laid down as the 
 general rule, and the anomalies produced by par- 
 ticular disturbing causes can be afterwards ac- 
 counted for. 
 
 The practical branch of the science, that of 
 which the office is to ascertain what institutions 
 are most favourable to wealth, is a far more ardu- 
 ous study. Many of its premises, indeed, rest on 
 the same evidence as those of the first branch ; 
 for they are the conclusions of that branch : but it 
 has many which depend on induction from pheno- 
 mena, numerous, difficult of enumeration, and of 
 which the real sequence often differs widely from 
 the apparent one. The machinery of civilized 
 society is worked by so many antagonist springs ; 
 the dislike of labour, the desire for immediate en- 
 joyment, and the love of accumulation are so per- 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 9 
 
 petually counteracting one another, and they pro- 
 duce such opposite conduct, not only in different 
 individuals, but in whole masses of people, that 
 we are liable to the greatest mistakes when we en- 
 deavour to assign motives to past conduct, or to pre- 
 dict the conduct which a new motive will produce. 
 
 For instance, thfe questions, whether the poor- 
 laws have had a tendency to diminish or increase 
 the population of England ? Whether the testa- 
 mentary laws of France are favourable or unfavour- 
 able to the wealth of that country? Whether the 
 wealth of England has been increased or dimi- 
 nished by her colonies ? Whether tithes fall prin- 
 cipally on the consumer or on the landlord ? and 
 many others, of which the facts seem to lie before 
 our eyes, have been diligently and acutely inves- 
 tigated, and are still, perhaps, undecided. 
 
 And, if we are often unable to trace all the con- 
 sequences of institutions with which we have been 
 long familiar, how much more difficult must it be 
 to predict the effects of measures which are still 
 untried ! 
 
10 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 Inattention to the distinction between the practical 
 and the theoretic branches of Political Economy, 
 appears to me to have occasioned much of the 
 difference of opinion which prevails as to the cer- 
 tainty of itsxonclusions. Those who assert that 
 it approaches to the accuracy of logic or mecha- 
 nics, must either have confined their attention to 
 the theoretic branch, or have forgotten that the 
 practical branch must sometimes draw its pre- 
 mises from particular facts, respecting particular 
 climates, soils, and seasons ; and must sometimes 
 take into account the influence of every human 
 passion and appetite, under every modification of 
 government and knowledge. 
 
 On the other hand, the uncertainty which affects 
 many of the investigations of Political Economists, 
 has been rafely attributed to them all. Because 
 from probable premises they have deduced only 
 probable conclusions, it has been sometimes sup- 
 posed that probability, and that of a low degree, 
 is all they can attain. 
 
 I hope in the course of these Lectures to prove 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 
 11 
 
 the truth of my statement,, that the theoretic 
 branch of the science, that which treats of the 
 nature,, production and distribution of wealth, is 
 capable of all the certainty that can belong to any 
 science, not founded exclusively on definitions ; 
 and I hope, also, to show that many conclusions, 
 and those of the highest importance, in the practi- 
 cal branch, rest so immediately on the conclusions 
 of the theoretic branch as to possess equal cer- 
 tainty and universality. 
 
 The slight sketch which I have given of the ob- 
 jects of the science, affords me a better opportu- 
 nity than, perhaps, I shall have hereafter, of con- 
 sidering some objections that may be made, if not 
 to the study itself, at least to the rank in which 
 I have placed it. 
 
 The first is, that as the pursuit of wealth is one 
 of the humblest of human occupations, far inferior 
 to the pursuit of virtue, or of knowledge, or even 
 of reputation ; and as the possession of wealth is 
 not necessarily joined perhaps, it will be said, is 
 not conducive to happiness, a science of which the 
 
12 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 only subject is wealth, cannot claim to rank as the 
 first, or nearly the first, of the moral sciences. 
 
 My answer is, first, that the pursuit of wealth, 
 that is, the endeavour to accumulate the means of 
 future subsistence and enjoyment, is, to the mass 
 of mankind, the great source of moral improve- 
 ment. When does a labourer become sober and 
 industrious, attentive to his health and to his cha- 
 racter ? as soon as he begins to save. No insti- 
 tution could be more beneficial to the morals of the 
 lower orders, that is, to at least nine-tenths of the 
 whole body of any people, than one which should 
 increase their power and their wish to accumulate : 
 none more mischievous than one which should 
 diminish the motives and the means to save. If 
 we have institutions eminently calculated to pro- 
 duce both the benefit and the mischief, how valu- 
 able must the science be that teaches us to discri- 
 minate between them, to extend the one, and to 
 remove, or diminish, or, at least, not to extend, the 
 other ! 
 
 I answer, in the second place, that it is, perhaps, 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 13 
 
 true, that the wealth which enables one man to 
 command the labour of hundreds or of thousands, 
 such wealth as raised Chatsworth, or Fonthill, 
 may not be favourable to the happiness of its pos- 
 sessor; and, if this be so, Political Economy 
 will best teach us to avoid creating or perpetu- 
 ating institutions, which promote such inconvenient 
 agglomerations. But that diffusion of wealth 
 which alone entitles a people to be called rich ; 
 that state of society in which the productiveness 
 of labour, and the mode in which it is applied, 
 secure to the labouring classes all the necessaries 
 and some of the conveniences of life, seems to be, 
 not merely conducive, but essential both to their 
 morals and their happiness. This appears to me 
 so self-evident, that I am almost ashamed of 
 taking up your time by proving it. But, if proof 
 be wanted, we have only to consider what are the 
 effects on the human character of the opposite 
 state of society ; a state in which the mass of the 
 people is habitually confined to a bare subsistence, 
 and, consequently, exposed from time to time, 
 
14 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 from the accidents of trade, or of the seasons, to 
 absolute want. I will not dwell on the misery of 
 those on whom actual want does fall : it is too 
 painful to be steadfastly contemplated, and forms 
 only a small part of the evil. The great evil is 
 the general feeling of insecurity : the fear which 
 must beset almost every man, whose labour pro- 
 duces him only a subsistence, and who has no 
 resource against contingencies, that at some 
 period, how near he cannot tell, the want under 
 which he has seen others sink may reach himself. 
 / The principal sources of happiness are the social 
 ,, affections ; but (to use the words of a powerful 
 writer, and a very accurate observer of human 
 nature) " the man whose thoughts are perpetually 
 " harassed by the torment of immediate, or the 
 " dread of fjiture want, loses the power of bene- 
 " volent sympathy with his fellow-creatures ; 
 "loses the virtuous feeling of a desire for their 
 " pleasures, and an aversion to their pains ; 
 " rather, perhaps, hates their pleasures as ren- 
 " dering the sense of his own misery more pun- 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 15 
 
 " gent ; desires their pains, as rendering the sense 
 " of that misery the less. This is the explanation 
 " of the cruel and ferocious character which uni- 
 " formly accompanies the hardships of savage 
 " life. Another result of suffering is, that it pro- 
 " duces an extraordinary greediness for immediate 
 " gratification ; a violent propensity to seek com- 
 " pensation from any sensual indulgence which 
 " is within the reach. It is a consequence that 
 " the poorest individuals in civilized society are 
 " the most intemperate ; the least capable of 
 (f denying themselves any pleasure, however 
 " hurtful, which they can command. Hence their 
 " passion for intoxicating liquors ; and hence, 
 " because he is still more wretched, the still more 
 " furious passion for them in the savage."* 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add that such a 
 population must be grossly ignorant. The desire 
 for knowledge is one of the last results of refine- 
 ment ; it requires, in general, to have been im- 
 
 * History of British India, b. 6. c. 6. 
 
16 AS INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 planted in the mind during childhood; and it 
 is absurd to suppose that persons thus situated 
 would have the power or the will to devote much 
 to the education of their children. A further con- 
 sequence is the absence of all real religion : for 
 < 
 
 the religion of the grossly ignorant, if they have 
 any, scarcely ever amounts to more than a de- 
 basing superstition. 
 
 It is impossible that, under such circumstances, 
 there should be an effectual administration of jus- 
 tice. The law has few terrors for a man who has 
 nothing to lose. Its efficiency, too, is almost al- 
 together dependent on the support it receives from 
 the general body of the people. Among a very 
 poor, and consequently, a very ignorant people, 
 sympathy is almost always in favour of the offender : 
 his flight is favoured, his lurking-places are con- 
 cealed, the witnesses against him are intimidated, 
 and he escapes even after he has become the sub- 
 ject of prosecution : but more frequently he 
 escapes even prosecution. Outrages are com- 
 mitted in the presence of hundreds, and we are 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 17 
 
 told that not one of the perpetrators can be identi- 
 fied ; that is, though they are well known, the wit- 
 nesses conceal their knowledge. 
 
 When such is the character of the bulk of the 
 community, there can be no security for the per- 
 sons or property of any of its members. The 
 three great restraints from crime, religion, good 
 feeling, and law, have, as we have seen, little 
 force ; while the great source of crime, the passion 
 for immediate enjoyment, acquires additional 
 strength. 
 
 I do not expect to be accused of having exag- 
 gerated the wretchedness of a country in which 
 the bulk of the people are subject to the pressure 
 or the apprehension of want. But I may be told, 
 perhaps, that I have supposed an extreme case, 
 a danger to which no civilized society is exposed, 
 to provide against which is a waste of labour. */ 
 
 My answer is, first, that the miserable situation 
 which I have described has, up to the present 
 time, been that of many of the inhabitants of every 
 densely peopled country. 
 
1 8 AN. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 Mr. Mylne has shown (Life Annuities, vol. ii. 
 p. 390,) that in England any material reduction in 
 the price of wheat is almost always accompanied 
 by a decrease in the number of burials ; and that 
 any material rise in the price is generally attended 
 by a corresponding increase in the burials. This 
 proves that there must be almost always in this 
 country a considerable number of persons just 
 vibrating between the possession and the want of 
 mere food ; whom an inclination of the price, one 
 way or the other, saves or destroys. In London 
 alone, when London was far less populous than it 
 is now, Dr. Colquhoun estimated that there were 
 never Jess than 20,000 persons who rose in the 
 morning ignorant what means whether casual em- 
 ployment, pillage, or mendicity would give them 
 food for the day, or shelter for the ensuing night. 
 While I am now speaking, there are thousands 
 and tens of thousands of families of hand- weavers, 
 in Lancashire and Yorkshire, who are working 
 fourteen hours a day for what will scarcely support 
 animal existence. Arid those are, perhaps, still 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 19 
 
 more numerous who cannot obtain regular employ- 
 ment even on such terms as these,, but are eking 
 out the deficiency of their wages by the gradual 
 sale of their little stock of clothes and furniture. 
 Unless we are prepared to maintain that there can 
 be no measures by which the number of persons 
 so situated can be increased or diminished, we are, 
 at least, bound to inquire into the pretensions of 
 the science which professes to point out those 
 measures. 
 
 But it is not true that the extreme case of gene- 
 ral pauperism, which I have described, is one to 
 which no civilized society can be exposed. A large 
 portion of the British Empire has been sinking 
 into it during the last thirty years, and apparently 
 with increased rapidity. 
 
 The House of Commons' Committee, appointed 
 in the beginning of this year to consider the 
 expediency of encouraging emigration from the 
 United Kingdom, commence their Report by stat- 
 ing, as among the results of the evidence collected 
 , "That there are extensive districts in 
 
20 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 " Ireland, and districts in England and Scotland, 
 (e where the population is at the present moment 
 " redundant ; in other words, where there exists 
 " a verv considerable proportion of able-bodied 
 " and active labourers, beyond that number to 
 tf which any existing demand for labour can afford 
 " employment. That the effect of this redundancy 
 "is not only to reduce a part of this population 
 "to a great degree of destitution and misery, but 
 " also to deteriorate the general condition of the 
 " labouring classes. That by its producing a 
 " supply of labour in excess, as compared with 
 " the demand, the wages of labour are necessa- 
 " rily reduced to a minimum, which is utterly 
 " insufficient to supply that population with those 
 " means gf support and subsistence which are ne- 
 " cessary to secure a healthy and satisfactory con- 
 " dition of the community. That in England this 
 redundant population has been, in part, sup- 
 ported by a parochial rate, which, according to 
 the reports and evidence of former committees 
 specially appointed to consider the subject, 
 
 " 
 
 " 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 21 
 
 .< 
 
 threatens, in its extreme tendency, to absorb the 
 whole rental of the country. And that in Ire- 
 land, where no such parochial rate exists by 
 law, and where the redundancy is found in a still 
 greater degree, a considerable part o the popu- 
 lation is dependent for the means of support on 
 " the precarious source of charity, or is compelled 
 " to resort to habits of plunder and spoliation 
 " for the actual means of subsistence." 
 
 If we turn to the Minutes, we shall find from 
 Mr. Bodkin's evidence (p. 214) that the hope of 
 being employed by the Mendicity Society in break- 
 ing stones at six-pence or eight-pence per day, a 
 work from which English paupers absconded, pro- 
 duced such an emigration from the south of Ire- 
 land to London, that the Society were forced to 
 make a distinction between the applicants, and to 
 refuse the employment to any who had not resided 
 in this country for a certain time. We shall find 
 Mr. Becher stating (p. 193) that "almost any 
 " change of situation would be for the benefit of 
 " the lower class in Munster:" the Bishop of 
 
*~ AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 Limerick (p. 144),, that "the existing- state of 
 " things is truly frightful." Mr. Gabbitt (p. 127) 
 describes the county of Limerick as " the richest" 
 (that is, I apprehend, the most fertile) " country 
 " in the world." Yet he states that the best de- 
 scription of labourers, those best able to support a 
 family, as soon as they can amass a sum sufficient 
 to pay their passage, emigrate to America, " and 
 '* leave all their children and families behind them, 
 " a load upon the bounty of the public." What 
 must be the general misery of this country, so 
 highly favoured by nature, when the least miserable 
 part of its labouring population are eager to 
 escape from their wretchedness, not merely by an 
 eternal separation from all those connected with 
 them by nature and affection, but by leaving them 
 " a load on*the bounty of the public," that is, to 
 be supported by the charity of those who are too 
 poor to emigrate ? I am not sure whether I should 
 not infer as intense suffering from Mr. Gabbitt's 
 facts, as from the Bishop of Limerick's description 
 of a dispossessed tenantry (p. 144), " without 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 23 
 
 " house, without food, without money, starving, 
 " and almost dying in the ditches." 
 
 Happily there is no general misery in England 
 like this ; but even England, rich and prosperous, 
 and well governed as she is beyonjL any other 
 European community, is not, perhaps, quite be- 
 yond the sphere of a similar calamity. We have 
 among our institutions, and our modes of acting, 
 some which are eminently calculated to do more 
 than merely retard our advancement. 
 
 I confidently hope that we shall not long have 
 to contend with them ; but my hope is founded 
 solely on the expectation that the diffusion of sound 
 principles of Political Economy will aid our en- 
 lightened ministers with the whole strength of 
 public opinion, and enable them to conquer the 
 ignorance, prejudice, and individual mterest which 
 have always been opposed to every improvement. 
 
 There are, however, many reasoners, or rather 
 talkers and writers, who admit the importance of 
 the subject, but distrust the conclusions of the 
 science ; and profess to be guided on all questions 
 
24 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 relating to it, not by the theories of political 
 economists, but by the opinions of practical men, 
 or their own common-sense. 
 
 By practical men are meant, I suppose, those 
 who have^had experience in the matters which 
 Political Economy considers. But who has not 
 had that experience? The revenue of all men 
 must consist of rent, profit, or wages. They must 
 all exchange it for commodities or services. They 
 all know, or have equally the means of knowing, 
 for it can be discovered only by reflection, why 
 they set a high value upon some things, a low 
 one upon others, and disregards third class. 
 
 An academical body is not very commercial, but, 
 probably, there is no one present who does not 
 make twenty exchanges every week. If this ex- 
 perience is ^iiot enough to enable him to under- 
 stand how the human passions act in buying and 
 selling, he would be unable to comprehend it, 
 though his transactions equalled in number and 
 amount those of Baring or of Rothschild. It is, 
 in fact, as impossible to avoid being a practical 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 25 
 
 economist, as to avoid being a practical logician. 
 The man who, beside the daily traffic in which 
 we are all necessarily engaged, has devoted him- 
 self to any peculiar branch of trade or manufac- 
 ture,, (and such is the general character of those 
 who are called practical men,) is much more likely 
 to have his general views contracted than ex- 
 tended by it. He is apt to suppose that what he 
 thinks useful and hurtful to himself, must be use- 
 ful and hurtful to the community. Thus, the poor 
 working clothiers of Stroud attributed the public 
 distress to the introduction of machinery in the 
 manufacture of cloth, and Mr. Webb Hall calcu- 
 lated that a fall in the price of corn of 10s. a 
 quarter would be a loss to the whole country of 
 20,000,000 a year. 
 
 To those who profess to be gui(Jed solely by 
 Common-Sense, I will quote, in the first place, 
 Dr. Whately's admirable illustration of the na- 
 ture of Common-Sense, and of the absurdity of 
 trusting to it where a better guide is to be 
 found: 
 
#O AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 " By Common-Sense/' says Dr. Whateiy, " is 
 " meant, I apprehend, (when the term is used 
 " with any distinct meaning,) an exercise of the 
 " judgment unaided by any art or system of rules ; 
 4 * such as vjre must necessarily employ in number- 
 " less cases of daily occurrence ; in which, having 
 " no established principles to guide us, no line 
 " of procedure, as it were, distinctly chalked out, 
 " we must needs act on the best extemporaneous 
 44 conjectures we can form. He who is eminently 
 " skilful in doing this, is said to possess a 
 44 superior degree of Common-Sense. But that 
 44 Common-Sense is only our second-best guide 
 " that the rules of art, if judiciously framed, are 
 " always desirable when they can be had, is an 
 " assertion, for the truth of which I may appeal 
 " to the testimony of mankind in general ; which 
 " is so much the more valuable, inasmuch as it 
 " may be accounted the testimony of adversaries. 
 " For the generality have a strong predilection 
 66 in favour of Common-Sense, except in those 
 " points in which they, respectively, possess the 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 27 
 
 " knowledge of a system of rules; but in these 
 " points they deride any one who trusts to unaided 
 " Common-Sense. A sailor, e. g\, will perhaps 
 " despise the pretensions of medical men, and 
 " prefer treating a disease by Comxnon-Sense : 
 " but he would ridicule the proposal of navigating 
 " a ship by Common-Sense, without regard to the 
 " maxims of nautical art. A physician, again, 
 " will perhaps contemn Systems of Political Eco- 
 " nomy, of Logic, or Metaphysics, and insist on 
 " the superior wisdom of trusting to Common- 
 " Sense in such matters ; but he would never 
 " approve of trusting to Common-Sense in the 
 " treatment of diseases. Neither, again, would 
 " the architect recommend a reliance on Com- 
 " mon-Sense alone in building, nor the musician 
 " in music, to the neglect of tho9& systems of 
 " rules, which in their respective arts, have been 
 " deduced from scientific reasoning aided by ex- 
 " perience. And the Induction might be ex- 
 " tended to every department of practice. Since, 
 " therefore, each gives the preference to unassisted 
 <( Common -Sense, only in those cases where he 
 
28 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 " himself has nothing else to trust to, and invariably 
 " resorts to the rules of art, wherever he possesses 
 the knowledge of them, it is plain that mankind 
 universally bear their testimony, though uncon- 
 sciously a.nd often unwillingly, to the preferable- 
 " ness of systematic knowledge to conjectural 
 " judgments."* 
 
 Dr. Whately's reasoning is unanswerable ; but 
 we shall be far too favourable to most of those who 
 profess, and perhaps sincerely, to rely on com- 
 mon-sense in matters of Political Economy, if 
 we believe that they actually do so. 
 
 Political Economy was an art long before it was 
 a science ; and neither those who first practised 
 it, nor their advisers, were filled by knowledge, 
 honesty, or singleness of purpose, to desire right 
 ends, or to eoaploy proper means. 
 
 Those who first practised it in modern Europe, 
 (and our maxims of Political Economy have no 
 earlier origin,) those who first endeavoured to em- 
 ploy the powers of government in influencing the 
 
 * Preface to the Elements of Logic. 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. '29 
 
 production, distribution, and consumption of 
 wealth, were semi-barbarous sovereigns, consider- 
 ing their subjects not as a trust, but a property, 
 and desirous only to turn that property to the best 
 and readiest account. 
 
 Their advisers were landholders, merchants, 
 and manufacturers y each anxious only for his own 
 immediate gain, and caring little how the rest of 
 society might be affected by the monopoly he 
 extorted. From the mode in which these persons 
 pursued what they thought their individual inter- 
 ests, aided by national jealousy, and by the am- 
 biguities of language, and unchecked by any 
 sound principles, arose that unhappy compound 
 of theoretic and practical error, the " Mercantile 
 System." I think I may take it for granted, 
 
 IV 
 
 that all those whom I am addressing are ac- 
 quainted with the outlines of that system : and I 
 must necessarily consider it somewhat at large 
 in my next lectures. I will say no more of it, 
 therefore, in this place, than that it was founded 
 in a belief, that the wealth of a country consists 
 
30 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 solely of gold and silver, and is to be retained 
 and increased by prohibiting the exportation of 
 money, and by giving bounties on the exportation, 
 and imposing restrictions on the importation of 
 other commodities, in the hope of producing a 
 trade in which, the imports being always of less 
 Value than the exports, the balance may be paid 
 in money : a conduct, as wise as that of a trades- 
 man who should part with his goods only for 
 money ; and instead of employing their price in 
 paying his workmen's wages, or replacing his 
 stock, should keep it for ever in his till. 
 
 As is the case, however, with every long- 
 standing abuse, so many persons are immediately 
 interested in supporting particular parts of the 
 system, and the theory on which it is founded, so 
 long commanded universal assent, that ninety-nine 
 men out of a hundred imbibe it with their earliest 
 education. Terms which imply the truth of the 
 theory, and, consequently, the propriety of the 
 practice, have even become a part of our lan- 
 guage. A trade in which money is supposed to 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY 31 
 
 be received in exchange for goods, is called a 
 trade with a favourable balance ; duties imposed 
 to give monopolies to particular classes of pro- 
 ducers, are called protecting duties ; applications 
 of the public revenue, to divert capital^and labour 
 from their natural employment, are called bounties. 
 The consequence of all this is, that men who 
 fancy they are applying common-sense to ques- 
 tions of Political Economy, are often applying to 
 them only common prejudice. Instead of op- 
 posing, as they fancy, experience to theory, 
 they are opposing the theory of a barbarous age 
 to the theory and experience of an enlightened 
 one. 
 
 There never was a man of stronger common- 
 sense, a man more fitted to draw accurate conclu- 
 sions from few or doubtful premises>4han Napo- 
 leon. He had an utter horror of Political Econo- 
 my ; the principles of which, he said, if an empire 
 were built of granite, would grind it to powder. 
 On such subjects he trusted to common-sense. 
 And his common-sense was an undistinguishing 
 
3'2 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 acceptance of the whole theory of the mercantile 
 system. 
 
 It appears, from his conversations at St. Helena, 
 that he fully believed that the continent must be 
 a loser by its commerce with England, and that it 
 must be so on account of the excellence and cheap- 
 ness of English commodities. These abominable 
 qualities must, he thought, enable us, in the jar- 
 gon of the theory, to undersell the continent in its 
 own market, and ultimately produce its ruin, 
 through that unfavourable balance of trade, in 
 which, what is received is of greater value than 
 what is given. He thought that he could put an 
 end to this trade by his continental system ; with- 
 out doubt the principal object of that system was 
 to ruin England ; but he appears to have impli- 
 citly believed, that it was also a blessing to the 
 continent. The murmurs of his subjects and allies 
 he treated like the complaints of spoiled children, 
 who do not know what is for their own good, and 
 who, when experience has made them wiser, will 
 embrace from choice what they have submitted to 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 33 
 
 from necessity. There can be no doubt, I think, 
 that these opinions, and the obstinacy into which 
 they led him, were the ultimate causes of his 
 downfal. 
 
 . But can they be said to have been founded on 
 common-sense ? If Napoleon had trusted to his 
 own powerful sense, if he had not been misled by 
 a theory as wild as it is generally received, could 
 he have believed that the Continent was injured by 
 enjoying an advantageous market, and was injured 
 precisely in the proportion in which that market 
 was advantageous? 
 
 The length to which this lecture has extended 
 prevents me from dwelling on the many other pre- 
 judices which profess to derive their sanction from 
 the much-abused term " common-sense." I will 
 only suggest, as instances, the common opinion 
 that the unproductive consumption of opulent indi- 
 viduals and of governments, the mere waste of 
 armies and of courts, is beneficial to the other 
 members of society, because, to use the vague 
 and unintelligible language of common conversa- 
 
 D 
 
34 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 tion, " it promotes the circulation of money ;" 
 and the equally common error, that a fall in the 
 price of subsistence, arising from its abundance, 
 is injurious to the manufacturing classes, because 
 
 it diminishes the market for their commodities. 
 
 
 
 These opinions, setting aside their error, are so 
 paradoxical, that I cannot conceive a man with a 
 mind so constituted as to admit them unhesita- 
 tingly if they were presented to him when perfectly 
 unbiassed. But they are favourable to the in- 
 terests, or to the supposed interests, of the most 
 influential members of every community. They 
 have been so long repeated, in so many shapes, 
 and on so many occasions, that they have become 
 <f familiar in our ears as household words ;" and 
 there is not a more common mistake than to sup- 
 pose, that because a proposition is trite it must be 
 true. 
 
 In the early part of this lecture I stated that the 
 theoretic branch of Political Economy that which 
 explains the nature, production, and distribution 
 of wealth would be found to rest on a few general 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 35 
 
 propositions, the result of observation, or of con- 
 sciousness. The propositions to which I alluded 
 are these : 
 
 Firstly. That wealth consists of all those things., 
 and of those things only, which are transferable ; 
 which are limited in quantity ; and which, directly 
 or indirectly, produce pleasure or prevent pain : or, 
 to use an equivalent expression, which are suscep- 
 tible of exchange ; (including under exchange, 
 hire, as well as absolute purchase;) or, to use a 
 third equivalent expression, which have value. 
 
 Secondly. That every person is desirous to 
 obtain, with as little sacrifice as possible, as much 
 as possible of the articles of wealth. 
 
 Thirdly. That the powers of labour, and of the 
 other instruments which produce wealth, may be 
 indefinitely increased by using their v products as 
 the means of further production. 
 
 Fourthly. That, agricultural skill remaining the 
 same, additional labour employed on the land 
 within a given district, produces a less propor- 
 tionate return. And, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 Fifthly. That the population of a given district 
 is limited only by moral or physical evil, or by 
 deficiency in the means of obtaining those articles 
 of wealth, or, in other words, those necessaries, 
 decencies, and luxuries, which the habits of the 
 individuals of each class of the inhabitants of that 
 district lead them to require. 
 
 The second of these propositions is a matter of 
 consciousness ; the others are matter of observa- 
 vation. I shall devote my next lectures, and pro- 
 bably the whole of the present and the next year's 
 coarse, to the illustration (for it can scarcely be 
 said to require proof) of the second proposition, 
 and to the proof and illustration of the others ; 
 and in my subsequent reasonings, I shall assume 
 them all as data. 
 
 If these , ^premises are true, I shall be right- 
 while I argue from them correctly : that I shall 
 always succeed in doing so, on so abstract a sub- 
 ject, where the relations are so various, and the 
 nomenclature is so defective, of course is not to 
 be hoped ; but happily I address an audience too 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 37 
 
 acute to suffer my errors to pass undetected, and 
 too friendly not to inform me of them. 
 
 I shall endeavour, in all my discussions, and 
 particularly in the introductory ones, to make use 
 of as few terms as possible which, from their 
 vagueness or their technicality, require explana- 
 tion, without previously defining them. The rea- 
 sonings in Political Economy are, however, so 
 mutually dependent, that it is seldom possible to 
 define one term without introducing into the de- 
 finition others equally obscure. The best course 
 in a written treatise is that adopted by M. Say, 
 who has affixed to his valuable work on Political 
 Economy a list of definitions. But it is impos- 
 sible to imitate his example in viva voce lectures : 
 for such a list is, in fact, an epitome of the theo- 
 retical branch of the science, which tfee attention 
 of no listener could follow, as the beginning must 
 be unintelligible without the end. Dr. Whately's 
 kindness in permitting me to append to his logic 
 a collection of economical definitions, has a little 
 alleviated this difficulty. That work is probably 
 
38 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 in the hands of the greater part of my hearers ; 
 and, as most people begin reading a book by 
 the Appendix, I think I may take it for granted 
 that they have looked through the definitions 
 in question. I almost regret now, that I did not 
 suggest in each place the definition which ap- 
 peared to me the most convenient. In its pre- 
 sent state, however, that collection will enable 
 even those who are unacquainted with the outline 
 of the science to form a general notion of the 
 meaning of its principal terms, when I am forced, 
 as must sometimes be the case, to use them with- 
 out previous explanation. 
 
 Another difficulty, arising from the same source, 
 is the necessity which will frequently arise of 
 arguing from premises which have been simply 
 assumed, as' if they have been conceded. Thus, 
 the whole reasoning of my next lectures will 
 assume "that every person is desirous to ob- 
 " tain, with as little sacrifice as possible, as 
 " much as possible of the articles of wealth." 
 I shall endeavour to avoid doing this tacitly, ex- 
 
ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 39 
 
 cept where, as is perhaps the case with the pro- 
 position I have just stated, the assumed premise 
 is self-evident. But expressly or tacitly, I shall 
 be forced to do it continually. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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