2 INTRODUCTION, PROGRESS, AND 



while at other times again almost no advance 

 was made. During the last two centuries, 

 from the science of labour being better under- 

 stood in some parts of the kingdom than in 

 others, the march of improvement has been 

 much more diversified than at any previous 

 period. In England and the greater "part of 

 Scotland, civilisation has proceeded at an ac- 

 celerated speed, while in some parts of Ireland 

 and the Highlands of Scotland matters have 

 rather gone in a retrograde way. At present, 

 industry is not in a healthy state in any province 

 of the kingdom. 



Political economists have differed widely in 

 opinion, and, in endeavouring to erect their 

 several theories, have adopted different branches 

 of industry as the basis on which to build them. 

 Some have adopted the agricultural some the 

 manufacturing and some the commercial; but 

 the impropriety of thus laying the all but entire 

 stress upon one element is daily becoming more 

 apparent. Those several branches of national 

 industry are visibly but the subdivision of labour 

 applied to the soil and its productions, in order 

 to render them both beneficial to man. 



In agriculture, for instance, the farmer cul- 



