8 



been exhumed from the debris of some ancient ruin, 

 a century before the birth of Adam Smith, they 

 would not have been received as Gospels. I use 

 the word progressive advisedly, because it must not 

 be forgotten that propositions in Economic Science, 

 unlike those in Ph} T sical Science, will not admit of 

 being- solved within limits bounded by the abstract 

 principles of the Science itself, and that if any 

 attempt be made to apply principles, without due 

 regard to the circumstances and conditions, social, 

 political, educational, &c., of the nation concerned, 

 it will end in the total absence of any result what- 

 ever, or such a failure, as will be more likely to 

 bring discredit than anything- else, on those prin- 

 ciples it is sought to vindicate and uphold.* 



If then, it be admitted that the principles of 

 Political Economy, as understood and recognized 

 in Great Britain at the present time, would not have 

 been applicable in their full integrity to the circum- 

 stances of Great Britain in the ' days of ignorance/ 

 it will, naturally, I may say, follow, that to look for 

 happy results from conclusions, based on the un- 

 qualified application of these principles to circum- 

 stances as existing in the days of British feudalism, 



* I am very much afraid that it is to a somewhat similar 

 cause, this Country is partly indebted for the destruction of 

 the Indigo trade in Bengal, for the present very lamentable 

 condition of the Tea Trade in Assam and Cachar ; and for the 

 death by starvation of a large number of the million of human 

 beings who pi-rished miserably in Orissa last year : January, 



