OF THE SCIENCE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 23 
ean be obtained or applied. Ifa man takes the first course he may 
possibly be right, since there can be no pretensions to infallibility, 
and arguments that have any appearance in their favour should be 
weighed and their character fully tested, but if he is led to oppose 
the united opinions of the very able men who have been the founders 
and chief teachers of political economy in the important cases in which 
they are almost agreed, the presumption is greatly against him. If 
he takes the second course, I submit that he plainly manifests igno- 
rance of human nature and social history to such a degree, as scarcely 
to be worthy of any attention. All history derives its interest and 
value from its exhibiting the common tendencies and dispositions of 
human nature, acting under varying circumstances and modified by 
the genius and education of the individual. The rejection of prevail- 
ing tendencies and generally operative motives would make the whole 
a mass of confusion, from which we could learn nothing, and which 
would cease to interest us,—and even the fiercest opponents of the 
conclusions of political economy have their own opposing theories, 
which they believe to be drawn from experience. The question is 
not, therefore, as to the existence of useful principles, but as to how 
they are to be sought, and where they are found. Now, what the 
political economist asks is, not that his special views shall be received 
as constituting a science, but that all the facts bearing on every 
doubtful question may be collected, compared and harmonised, so as 
to yield a consistent result—he proposes extended observation—pos- 
sibly in some cases, experiment,—as the means of arriving at truth, 
and employing these under the guidance of reason, and with regard 
to well-ascertained common principles of human nature, he cannot 
despair of ultimate success, though misapprehensions or interested 
perversions of facts may cause obscurity for atime. There is another 
point of view from which it may be useful to regard the subject be- 
fore we conclude. We often hear certain objections made to the 
science in general, or to some of its supposed results, which those 
who bring them forward seem to consider as sufficient to excuse their 
bestowing any further attention on the subject, and I would not pass 
these by without some notice. A favourite objection is that the 
political economist is a theorist, and that practical men are the pro- 
per judges on the questions upon which he undertakes to decide. I 
might answer that some of the most eminent political economists 
‘haye been men extensively engaged in mercantile and monetary 
