THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Vol. I.] APRIL, 1828. [No. 4. 



ABSENTEEISM, AND THE EDINBUUGH REVIEW. 



Of 0,11 su])jects or sciences, ancient or modern, which an essayist by 

 trade now-a-days can take up for discussion, political economy deci- 

 dedly is one of the most profitable. There is an opinion abroad, that 

 it is a very important science, and that is one advantage ; and then all 

 the world agrees that it is a science we know very little about, and that 

 is another. It does not much matter which side a man takes, upon any 

 question connected with it, for he may easily be paradoxical upon all, 

 and there is no danger of his being conclusive upon any ; moreover, he 

 may ^vi-ite as lengthily as he pleases, and as dully — ^both invaluable pri- 

 vileges, and very rare ones ; for to be long is necessary to pcrspicuous- 

 ness, and to be dry is the very nature of the subject; — then, when he 

 bewilders himself twenty times in a page, it does no harm — for it will 

 be hard if he does not bewilder his readers at the same moment, who 

 owe it to their own understandings to conclude him profound when they 

 cannot find out what he means ; — and, more particularly, as the very 

 foundation of political economj', and the groundwork of all that can be 

 said upon it, may be taken to lie in the simple fact — that every thing 

 in nature is not as it seems to be, the essayist has this peculiar good 

 fortune, that the accustomed course of judgment, in his case, is 

 reversed ; and that the reader is never so fully convinced that he is 

 transparently and unanswerably right, as when reason and perception 

 seem to be defied in every sentence that he utters. 



• Now, under this last advantage, it is not very surprising (as human 

 nature, proverbially, can seldom " enjoy a courtesj', without riding 

 on the back of it") that political economists, habitually convincing 

 the world by patent, that it understands absolutely nothing of its own 

 affairs or of what is passing within it, should now and then be 

 seduced, step by step, into conclusions, the magnificence of which their 

 premises had not exactly contemplated. It is a difficulty in the science, 

 and one at which unpractised artists have been startled, when they 

 found that they had accidentally proved — not black to be white, because 

 that would be legitimate and quite maintainable — but black to be white 

 and also black, within the limits of the same page. And, perhaps, one 



M. M. Nexv Series,— YoL. I. No. 4. 2 X 



