against the abuse of language, faculties, and power; and it has only to be regretted that Lord Bacon did not make a more extended application of this particular knowledge to the facts of human society and civilisation.

It may fairly be declared, that the main effort, and the chief glory, of the age in which we live, consists of, and is derived from, those social courses by which the impediment raised by a difference of language, with all its consequences, shall be levelled and destroyed. In place of adopting any of that sound practical faith by which the truth of the immense subject is to be attained, almost all persons deliver opinions and decisions in which no faith is exhibited excepting that which is derived from a low and contracted selflove. Will any man, then, on advocating the propriety, the policy, and the general utility and advantage of destroying all the barriers which a difference of language raises against the social intercommunication of nations, be able to maintain that the barriers are no longer necessary, because the ambition of man is no longer of a bad, unsocial, and destructive character; but, on the contrary, that all the barriers should be destroyed, and the intercommunications be made perfectly free, because the desires and the ambition of man are now become perfectly pure, just, social, and true? Where, I ask, is the evidence to be derived that would be necessary for sustaining this great argument? Let him examine, as I have had to examine, and let him do it even more largely, the extensive volume of evidence and of reasoning that is supplied by our literature of Political Economy, and then say if the principles and courses there enunciated and advocated are issues of a pure, honourable, and just ambition. Or, let him go into the marts of exchange of every nation of the world, and after examination made there, then say if the dealings of man with man are influenced by that principle of

mutual and general love from which just action can alone

emanate.

Against the doctrine which I have just advanced, respecting the salutary natural obstacle which is presented by a diversity of language, the advocates of free thought and of free action may be expected to raise their voices in the utmost degree, in order to express their abhorrence of the argument. They will declare that, if this doctrine should be received and practically worked, no intercourse whatever would subsist between the people of the different nations of the world; that all would be dull, sterile, selfish, and unsocial; that, instead of the activity, the beauty, and the useful and admirable results which civilised life now presents, the human condition would present a spectacle of barbarism. Of this kind are the commonly and quickly raised exclamations of all the excited followers of the school of free philosophy.

But I ask them to pause a moment, to consider — and, if they can, to reflect duly—and afterwards to acknowledge the erroneous nature of their objections and views. Have I not shown the HOW WE MAY, as well as the HOW WE MAY NOT; the WHY WE MAY, as well as the WHY WE MAY NOT? Have I not rested my whole argument on the great law of degree or proportion? And does not this law declare that, whilst the use of every material is permitted, the abuse alone is prohibited? Thus, to eat is good, wholesome, and necessary; but to eat to excess, or to be a glutton, is bad, unwholesome, and vicious. So, to drink is likewise necessary, good, and unblamable; but to drink unnecessarily, to drink to excess, and to be a drunkard, is bad, destructive of health, and sinful. The same rule is applicable to all the propensities, desires, or passions, by which the human soul is influenced.

It is not proposed that these shall be extinguished, but only that they shall be controlled and directed, or so regu

lated that they shall be made to fulfil their office, their high and honourable office, which is that of so working their Creator's law, as that, by their means, the beams of the Creator's love, bounty, and providence shall have their due expansion, which is that of illumining sufficiently the dwellings of all men, thus rendering national as well as international intercourse and commerce beneficial to mankind by the principle of due co-operation, instead of destructive by the principle of undue and unjust competition.

Here, again the pseudo-scientific men will exclaim against the course of going so far back into the obscure history of the human race, as that which the holy writings present, for the discovery and derivation of social commercial principle and evidence. They will exclaim against every attempt to enter upon an investigation of the "abstract principle." They will assert that the principles of religion are of a character so mysterious and distracting, that great danger attends the attempt of entering upon this sphere of evidence and of knowledge, and that it is far better-seeing the distracted and confused condition in which the feelings and minds of men are upon the subject of religion-to avoid all special inquiry into it, or connection with it, and to derive our principles of Social and Political Economy from other and distinct sources.

I maintain, here, that the course just alluded to- and this is the course hitherto pursued involves nothing less than a sacrifice of the whole truth of the subject. I will show this by a reference to the course adopted by the father of our prevailing system,-Adam Smith. This writer selected the subject upon which he intended to treat. His Thesis, then, was before him. Now, to work out a Thesis correctly or scientifically, the worker must have a Hypo-thesis, a first premiss, whereon to commence or build. It is from this that

he must draw his power of deriving his first induction, and afterwards his corollaries or issuing inductions. Adam Smith, as was indeed inevitable, discovered this necessity; a necessity to which all reasoners are bound, but he did not fulfil the obligations presented by it. In that passage of his which I adduced last that where he had to commence his thesis by laying down a solid and correct hypothesis, or first premiss, whereon to raise his work or the superstructure of his reasoning he had to deal with the principle on which the association of man with man, by means of a division of labour and an exchange of productions acquired under this division of labour, is founded. This was the first compound proposition that he had to discover, to prove, and to lay down. By his own admission, we learn that he could not discover the LAW of the case, or the terms of his proposition so as to arrange them duly and construct an accurate definition. In this dilemma of weakness he was under the necessity of neglecting to lay down the groundwork of his thesis. He made his escape, as I have before shown, by throwing his subject into confusion, for he declared that whether this, the main truth, was to be derived from man's faculty of Reason and Speech, no clear account could, in his opinion, be given. Having accomplished this convenient evasion of the main point or truth of his subject, he next proceeded to enter upon his subject at a very advanced point, assuming many hypotheses, and these at random. The following axiom is known to every correct reasoner or true logician :- "Every deduction made from a false hypothesis, however correctly made, is false." This presents the condition of Adam Smith's reasonings and system Confusion at the beginning beginning confusion at the middle confusion at the ending, that is, throughout the whole course. Truth by chance, and in a small degree; error by certainty, and in a large degree. And yet, notwithstanding

this weak and bad condition of things, the body of men who have been attracted by Adam Smith's writings, and have composed a school of Political Economy founded on them, will be heard to raise a great outcry against any proposal of introducing into our system of Political Economy, principle and evidence that may be brought from revealed truth or the religion delivered in the Bible.

Not only writers on Political Economy, but men in general, though, of course, there are noble exceptions, avert their minds from a consideration of the law on which I have laid so much stress, and are engaged in constant rebellion against it, because by it their actions would be directed, their energies controlled, their enjoyments restrained, their daily pleasures or sensual indulgences curtailed, and their acquisition and expenditure of property, or their social engagements presented to them in a defined shape. But however they may oppose it by an abundance of untenable and equivocating objections, and by arguments derived from the deeply-seated subtleties which are ever at the command of selfishness; or, however they may reject it from private practice, and from national laws, nevertheless it is all-powerful, ever present, perpetually in operation, and eternal. In defiance of all opposition it will accomplish, with the utmost ease, and with unerring exactness, that which has been ordained to be within its sphere. The infraction of this law by statesmen and by legislators may be denominated, as it often is denominated, an exercise of great human foresight and a remarkable exhibition of political expediency and compromising wisdom, but the evolvement of circumstances will controvert the assumption, for, together with the pleasing and gratifying facts which human civilisation so abundantly presents, and which are so earnestly desired and so eagerly enjoyed, there will grow up, as there ever have grown up, facts of a character en