Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. 197 



were universally and strictly true, the results, as above stated., 

 would be exactly, and in all cases, verified : I may add, that if 

 we had reached such a point in the progress of this science— if 

 it were reduced to a few certain principles, and to a long train 

 of deductions from these— (a form which it appears to have been 

 the object of Mr. Ricardo and his followers to give to it—) the 

 mathematical method would be the one proper for its treatment, 

 being the most certain, the shortest, and, with a little prepara- 

 tion, the simplest. Mathematics is the logic of quantity, and will 

 necessarily, sooner or later, become the instrument of all sciences 

 where quantity is the subject treated, and deductive reasoning the 

 process employed. 



I am however well aware, that the pretensions of Political 

 Economy to such a scientific character, are as yet entirely inca- 

 pable of being supported. Any attempt to make this subject at 

 present a branch of Mathematics, could only lead to a neglect 

 or perversion of facts, and to a course of trifling speculations, 

 barren distinctions, and useless logomachies. " Collocatio ejus 

 inter mathematica" as Bacon says of another science, " hunc 

 ipsum defectum et alios similes peperit; quia a phenomenis pre- 

 mature discessum est." And these defects may be incurred, even 

 though common verbal reasoning be substituted for mathematics, 

 if the course adopted be that of assuming principles and defini- 

 tions, and making these the origin of a system. The most pro- 

 fitable and philosophical speculations of Political Economy are 

 however of a different kind : they are those which are employed 

 not in reasoning from principles, but to them : in extracting from 

 a wide and patient survey of facts the laws according to which 

 circumstances and conditions determine the progress of wealth, 

 and the fortunes of men. Such laws will necessarily at first, and 



