11 



of metaphysics, dialectics, or physics. Nor is there 

 anything- new in all this. Yet are these remarks not 

 irrelevant. For, any person who reads the discus- 

 sions being 1 carried on in every public journal in Great 

 Britain, cannot fail to perceive that the great Na- 

 tional question which now troubles England, is dis- 

 cussed by almost all, if not by all persons concerned, 

 as if it admitted of being- decided on economical 

 premises alone. The time may come when it will be 

 possible to do this. Some people of volatile imagi- 

 nations, disregarding- organic differences in the bony 

 structure of birds and beasts, still cling 1 to the hope 

 that we may yet fly. Countless skilful mechanics, 

 indeed, have constructed wing-s so cunning-ly de- 

 signed, that in their dreams they have soared beyond 

 even their own imaginations. But, like the artist of 

 the ' Happy Valley' who ' waved his pinions awhile 

 to g-ather air, then leaped from his stand, and in an 

 instant dropped into the lake,' all have similarly come 

 to grief. And such no doubt, to the end of time, 

 will be the fate of all, who by a misapplication of the 

 abstract principles of Political Economy to the pur- 

 poses of purely speculative reasoning-, attempt to 

 solve questions, essentially practical in their nature, 

 and inseparably bound up with the social condition, 

 and progress of the human race. 



