If he could not discover and show truth, -spiritual and moral truth, the source of human elevation, he could, and that with facility, propound error, and commend and recommend human degradation. This was done by him, by assimilating and connecting the faculties and actions of man with the faculties and courses incidental in common animal life. The chapter from which I have selected the passage consists, almost wholly, of an attempt to persuade men that the animal instincts by which they are incited, and by which they ought to be incited, are the same in kind and in character as those by which the dog and other animals are instinctively incited. Again I maintain that neither Adam Smith, David Hume, Dugald Stewart, Bentham, Ricardo, M'Culloch, nor the whole school of modern Political Economists, have had any foundation for the declaration that no further account can be given than that poor, miserable, and erroneous account which they have given, of the principle under which man originally entered upon, and continued, mutual and general association, or united labour, and an exchange of the productions of labour so directed and united. If, instead of suppressing and rejecting all the evidence contained in that Book, in which the Divine will, law, government, and truth, are revealed, and religion communicated, these writers had yielded themselves to a faithful acceptation of the evidence, doctrines, law, and principles, there contained, they would have discovered that the main social principle now under consideration, and which Adam Smith, in his eagerness to assume a false hypothesis, or a first premiss that would suit the unjust desires of men in general, was induced to throw into the dark region of doubt, and so to stifle,-is in that Book substantially and clearly delivered, and its sustaining and enduring character upheld and confirmed throughout the whole course of the revealed instruction and truth. The founder of our modern and prevailing system of Political Economy was constrained, by the character of the subject-matter of which he had undertaken to treat, to introduce upon his discussion-table the very commencement that was made by human labour on the sphere of the earth, involving the issuing courses by which it was ordained that man should acquire his means of living, and by which he should improve these means, and make a steady advancement in the application of his labour. The very first proposition of the holy writings involves the same subject-matter. By a little - yes a very little faithful consideration and interpretation of the matter there communicated, we may discern that the terrible rebellion which man committed against his Creator's lawthat law involving the beneficial disposition or just economy of all things was that of rejecting the established and delivered law of appropriation and enjoyment,-a law enjoining on the free and intrusted actor, abstinence, self-denial, self-sacrifice, in order that selfishness, self-love, or covetousness and lust, the destroying spirit and power, might be excluded, and those social courses fulfilled which are just and right. Unhappily for themselves and for their posterity, our first parents resolved not only on holding, but on enjoying, all the things of the earth freely, that is, to the extent of the knowledge and power to which they could attain; or, simply in accordance with the desires, individual desires felt for these things, and the opportunities that might be presented of acquiring them; and so obedience to law was rejected, and the adoption of desire, pleasure, and lust, or action and enjoyment unqualified by sacrifice or duty, that is, not involving the interest and welfare of another creature, being preferred and accepted, the truth, goodness, or just economy, of the sphere of action and enjoyment were deserted and abandoned. The matter of the world was seen then, as it is seen now, to be beautiful, -- captivating, most enjoyable. The actors on the sphere permitted themselves to be enticed and influenced by what they saw, and so to be led by sight. They resolved on disregarding and rejecting the solemn warning that had been given them against adopting their own knowledge as a law; and with it the injunction of abstinence, — abstinence involving the rule of moderate, duty-fraught, and salutary action. They preferred free appropriation, FREE enjoyment, that love of all the material things, and that eager acquisition of them, which amounted to lust. It is this identical bad principle, together with its bad issuing courses, that our school of modern Political Economists advocate, and place before the eyes and minds of men, as the true principle and course. They appeal to, and call forth, self-love, affixing their sanction to its operation. Thus they put self-gratification, or pleasure, in the place of social action or duty. It is a custom, commonly adopted, to raise an objection against, and to prevent, every attempt to connect religious truth with the subject under consideration. It is thought, and asserted, that the principles of social action now under discussion, are so obscurely alluded to and explained in the holy writings, that sufficient light cannot be derived from them for affording a solution of the great problem. It is objected also, that such is the disturbed, confused, and distracted state in which men have placed religious truth; that so many human parties, all antagonistic of each other, are raised respecting it; that so much acrimony of feeling is entertained on the subject of religion; that it would be in the highest degree impolitic and unwise to attempt to form a junction of the two subjects. Now, what is proved by all this? Anything touching the subject? No! nothing. Respecting the first objection, or that of the obscure character of the holy writings, this vanishes before those who DESIRE to see and acknowledge principle or general truth. But, "none are so blind as they who won't see." Respecting the second objection, there is proved by it the vast amount of infidelity that prevails, and which is called by the sacred name of religion. But nothing whatever is proved by it that affects the subject itself. In conformity with the objections now noticed, it will be declared, that the introduction of the moral law within the science of Political Economy, will not meet with general approbation and assent, because by it there is shown and prescribed to free agents the manner in which they ought to use the freedom, the faculties, the power, and the opportunities with which they are entrusted. As I have before remarked, to exclude all that due and correct treatment of the subject which the introduction of the high and noble moral law involves, has been, unhappily, the common inclination evinced by writers on Political Economy. Hence has arisen the defective character of the evidence that has been adduced by them; the weakness and the incongruity that pervade the whole chain of their reasoning, or, as it ought to be called — their mere sciolistic attempts at reasoning; the confused, confusing, contradictory, and false and pernicious results at which they have arrived. CHAP. III. View of the subject corroborated by Locke's treatment of it. This great writer is shown to have discerned and advanced the primary material proposition regarding the power and operation of labour; but not to have discerned the true principle or cause of value involved in the exchange of productions. - Locke refers to a passage of Hooker's in which this writer, in his work on “Ecclesiastical Polity," makes an important allusion to the True Social Principle. — Aggregate value, and not aggregate production, the main characteristic of the science. By the simple elementary matter which I have adduced, arranged, and explained, comprehending, as it does, the causes in which all property, property within a sphere of society, or matter possessing exchangeable value, must have originated, and from which it must ever continue to be derived, it is shown that the true or essential character of value or property is not to be acquired or constituted without the combination of moral with material agency. The important characteristic which is thus manifested in the social acquisitions of man, arises from that special agency with which the constitution of man is invested by its Creator, and by which his condition on earth is ever to be surrounded; for the nature of man, instead of being only or simply that of animal instinct, and, as such, confined to the low and narrow sphere of his individual corporeal wants and enjoyments, is made communicative, sympathetic, cooperative, and distributive. By the expansive social principle thus made inherent in his constitution, he is induced to unite his own efforts and interests with the efforts and interests of other individuals like himself, and so to form a combination of effort and a |