PREFACE. ix 



gether by common ties in a far closer manner, in the 

 times which it has been my fortune to study, than 

 it is now. The feudal system of the Middle Ages 

 was one of mutual interests, its theory of property 

 involved far more exacting duties than modern rights 

 ever acknowledge, or remember, or perhaps know. 



Nor is the bearing of such facts as will be found 

 recorded in these two volumes without its meaning on 

 those maxims of political economy, the adoption of 

 which is already general, and the practice of which 

 is destined at no remote period to become the chief 

 function of wise government. All economists profess 

 that the illustration of facts is quite as important in 

 the method of their science as the discussion or eluci- 

 dation of principles. In my opinion it is even more 

 important, because these facts form the basis for 

 economical inductions. Very few authors, however, 

 have combined exact reasoning with plentiful illus- 

 tration ; very few, however much they have professed 

 to defer to experience, have undergone the drudgery 

 of patient observation. Adam Smith and Tooke are 

 eminent exceptions. 



If, during the course of history, mankind has re- 

 mained the same, at least as regards those impulses 

 and sentiments which economists accept, that inter- 

 pretation of facts will be the most safe which is 

 confined to the simplest examples of unobstructed 

 exchange. In the Middle Ages, on the whole, govern- 

 ments had not developed to any marked extent that 

 protective system, that perpetual interference with 



