corn. — Political Econortirj. • III) 



rattvelv short space of lime be urged on until it shall 

 be cheeked by a deficiency of cultivable land alone* 

 However incomplete this attempt may be found 

 to be, still it \a presumed that even a European political 

 economist might be glad to view the degree in winch 

 his principles are likely to apply in the diversified 

 regions of India beyond the Ganges, and especially to 

 any one of these, the population of which enjoys the 

 benefits of Uritisti law and proit .rt ion, adhering at 

 the Same time to its own peculiar customs, relig ions, 

 and rights of inheritance, 



Amidst flie mass of conflicting opinbnsand systems 

 which have been advanced with the view of unravelling 

 the intricate web of human a flairs in the advanced 

 stages of society, we have yet some plain and original 

 principles on which the mind, by reverting, can rep«.,-v 

 as If on the massive base of a splendid superstructure. 

 Had the science of political economy dated its birth 

 from the period when mankind first relinquished the 

 crook and the bow for the plough or the spade, we 

 should not perhaps at this day have often been 

 wand* l ii g in the mazes of speculation, or been con- 

 demned frequently to doubt or n jeet reasonings which, 

 how ever apparently impressed with the stamp of truth, 

 have not been tested by experience- 



But instead of (his, it began like the science of geo* 

 logy, by broad assumptions which could not l>e easily 

 refuted or proved to the letter, because they were not 

 the fruits of induction from undoubted data, furnished 

 hy experience. And it bus onl\ been In the most 

 painful investigation of comparatively recent effects 

 that the present age has been able to elicit some 

 sparks of truth/ 



When we revert to the first stage of society, we 

 find mankind existing chiefly as hunters, or shep- 

 herds. Neither of these conditions Mas favorable to 



