Our University has, at length, established a professorship of political economy, and we are glad of it ;—it gratifies us also to perceive that the individual, chosen to fill the chair, is well calculated to do credit to the judgment of those by whom he has been selected. Mr. Longfield possesses a sound and vigorous understanding, and a tone of thought at the same time cautious, original, and independent. He has shown himself competent not only to understand and elucidate whatever has been written by the ablest men who have heretofore treated of the science of political economy, but to take up the subject in the spirit of an investigator, by whom its fundamental principles may be more clearly ascertained, and its boundaries extended; and we must say, that the lectures before us, afford ground for expecting that, in that department of learning at least, our University will soon be freed from the reproach of being regarded as "the silent sister." Political economy may be briefly defined as the science of exchanges. It presupposes a state of society. It presupposes humane and social intercourse. It presupposes that every one has something which he does not want, but as it may be the means of procuring for him something which he does want; and the causes which determine the various exchanges which thus take place, may be said to be the laws which regulate the creation, VOL. III. accumulation, distribution, and consumption of those products of nature or of art, which are considered as constituting national wealth. To ascertain these causes, therefore, is the chief business of the political economist. Mr. Longfield's first lecture is occupied in removing the objections to the study of this science. There are few who can now object to the study of political economy upon the ground that wealth is an evil. If there be any who could so far stultify themselves, they are well replied to by being told, that, even upon their hypothesis, the science is still important, inasmuch as it may teach them to eschew riches. Any argument which might be derived from the corrupting nature of wealth, Mr. Longfield very properly answers by observing "that though the wealth of an individual may be expended in procuring vicious luxuries, yet that of a rich nation as distinguished from a poor nation, will be found to consist in the great mass of its inhabitants being comfortably and wholesomely fed, lodged, and clothed, and well rewarded for their industry. If otherwise, that wealth must be wrongly distributed; the cause and cure of which wrong distribution come also within the province of the political economist to investigate." But, if they are few who undervalue political economy, from an indifference respecting the matters about which it treats, they are still fewer who are entitled so to do from 3 K as any notion of its abstruseness. "On the contrary," observes the professor, "most men think themselves competent to discuss all its doctrines, and to argue on all questions connected with the wages of labour, and the effect of taxes, rents, national debts, tithes, and poor-laws. By those men political economy is not despised or rejected an abstruse uninteresting study, difficult of comprehension, and occupied with subjects of no public or general utility. They do not condemn it as employed about unimportant subjects, or matters beyond the reach of the human mind to investigate; but, they hold the study of political economy, as a science, useless, because they think they feel themselves competent to discuss all its branches ex-tempore, as they arise in casual conversation. With proud humility they admit, that they are not political economists. They even think it a mark of their independent spirit, that they are not guided by the opinion of writers, whom, in fact, they have never read, and that they dare to dissent from doctrine, which in reality, they never studied, and which they do not understand. These people will not study political economy because they say that without any study mere common sense is sufficient to shew them the absurdity of free trade, the necessity of bounties and restrictions on our commerce, to encourage and protect our manufactures, and of corn laws to promote our agricultural interests, and to enable the nation to support the taxes necessary to pay the national debt. Other questions connected with our foreign and domestic, our commercial and colonial policy are disposed of with equal facility; and the different theories thus defended, are generally, by the way of recommendation, announced, to be opposed to the doctrine of the political economists. Of course, this is often done, not from any dislike to the science, but from a wish to conciliate the populace, by promising to point out to them an easy path to wisdom, without the necessity of previous study and learning; sometimes it is done to secure the sympathy of those who are conscious of not possessing the knowledge which the speaker disclaims, and who may, therefore, be gratified at learning it decried as useless. For example: I remember reading a speech of an orator much admired for his eloquence, in which he advocated poor laws, partly on the ground that this were opposed to the conclusions of algebra and political economy." With this class of persons Mr. Longfield justly observes that he can have very little to do. They are a race of superficial dogmatists of whom it may be truly said, "that they cannot teach, and will not learn." That the science which they would fain depreciate, is important in their opinion, appears from the incessant interest which they take in the subject matters of which it treats; while their understandings resemble inland streams which are perpetually moving towards the sea; but the flow of which causes a bar by which access to the great receptacle of water is impeded, and which can only be sur mounted by vessels of small burden. Indeed the only serious objections to the science of political economy, resolve themselves into objections against its use, from its abuse. Instead of being cultivated as a means, it has been looked upon as an end. Instead of being employed as a subordinate instrument, it has been regarded as an ultimate object. The mere acquisition of wealth has been considered as the only thing which should influence the decisions of the statesman. Every thing, in the eyes of some political economists, resolves itself into a consideration of pounds, shillings, and pence. Man, according to their notions, should be defined a money making animal. They not only mistake the means for the end; but, what is still worse, they are frequently disposed to sacrifice what ought to be the end, to the means, and "propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas." Such are the men who have brought a reproach upon political economy, which has rendered it, in the eyes of many, a distasteful and suspicious science; a science at war with the best interests of religion and humanity, and a severe addiction to the principles of which, cannot be encou raged without inducing a relaxation of moral obligations. These are serious imputations; and those by whom they have been occasioned have at least as much to answer for as those by whom they are enter tained. There are, at least, one hundred who can feel, for one who can think; and when naked, abstract principles are brought to bear against present interests, it cannot be expected that the former should immediately prevail, without giving rise to a considerable amount of opposition on the part of those who may apprehend injury from their operation. It may be absolutely true, that all trade should be left to find its own level; but, if various interests have been created and nourished up in the country, by means of bounties and protecting duties, the sudden abandonment of the old system must be felt by many as a great evil; and we can very easily imagine cases in which the country at large would not be compensated for the change even by the fullest enjoyment of the promised advantages. For man is more than a money-making animal, and human societies are something better than mere instruments for the accumulation of wealth; which must, to our minds, always be dearly purchased by any, even the slightest, sacrifice of religion or humanity. This, we regret to say, is a distinction which has not been sufficiently attended to by those advocates of political economy who are most anxious that its principles should prevail; and we are sorry for it, chiefly because of our value for the science, the progress of which has thus been seriously obstructed. But its more reasonable cultivators may rest satisfied with the advances that it has already made. How would Adam Smith, if he could revisit earth again, be surprised to see the change which his great work has already wrought in the whole system of our foreign and domestic trade! Truly he would marvel at the great things which he has himself been instrumental in accomplishing; and, in what has been already effected, he would see the certain promise of future improvements by which his fondest wishes must be ultimately realized. We believe it would not be rash to affirm, that the abstract principles of political economy have already been admitted to operate in these countries to fully as great an extent as the well-being of the community at present, all things considered, admits of their operation. And we, at least, are well content that the changes which are predestined to take place should come about so gradually as that while all may be benefitted, none may be injured. That this science was unknown to the ancients is not surprising. The causes are many and obvious by which such considerations as now engage the attention of political economists, must have been precluded. "One of these," Mr. Longfield observes, "and perhaps the most important in its remote effects upon political economy, is the difference in the manners of carrying on wars now and in former times, and the different results that are produced by them. In some of the most celebrated wars of ancient times, the result was, that the vanquished party was destroyed, and the victorious one enriched. Now the result of war is, that all parties continue to exist, and all are impoverished, debts are contracted, and taxes must be imposed, and a particular importance is given to that branch of political economy which teaches how to impose those burdens so as least to impair the wealth of the country, or to interfere with the subsistence or comforts of the population." He also observes, that "the state of slavery in which the majority of the population of ancient countries was kept, was of itself a sufficient hindrance to the investigation of all questions relating to population, and the circumstances which determine the wages of labour. These questions, which are of the highest importance in modern political economy, could never have arisen if the mass of the poorer inhabitants were not free. Slaves, like domestic animals, where every individual has an owner, who has the profits of his work, and is at the expense of his subsistence, can never exist in greater numbers than are required. Their labour must always be worth more than the price of their support. Thus when we discuss the different questions of political economy, we shall find that most of them are of such a nature that they could not have arisen in ancient times, and we shall see at the same time the advantages that must arise from a complete and general comprehension of them." The peculiar circumstances of society in the feudal times, may be said to have given rise to what has been called the mercantile system. The barons, from interested motives, became the patrons of trade and manufactures; and va more rious privileges and immunities were from time to time either purchased by, or conferred upon trading communities, by which they were protected from the rapacity of their lordly superiors, who might, in this their state of semi-barbarism, have been tempted on various occasions by their necessities, to cut down the tree for the purpose of getting at the fruit. The peculiar corporate advantages which such bodies enjoyed, should, therefore, always be considered, in connection with the circumstances in which they were acquired, and it will, we think, be found, that they were calculated rather to assist than to obstruct the early struggles of trading industry;--a enlightened system of political economy being, in fact, only calculated for the meridian of society, when the law becomes the expression of the national will, and equal protection is extended to all classes of the community. Corporate immunities, in the feudal ages, were to trade, what the bark is to the tree, or the prickly hedge to the young plantation. But, corporations having once been framed, jealous regulations, tending to monopoly, could not fail to be the consequence. Every little body would naturally consider how its own advantages might best be secured; and as this advantage was frequently contradistinguished to the advantage of the nation at large, its attainment could not fail to be frequently prejudicial to the best interests of the social system. The great error of the mercantile system was the notion, that the wealth of a nation consisted in the quantity of the precious metals which it contained. This error infects the writings of all those who have treated of commerce, antecedently to Child, North, and Locke, in England, and Gourney and Quesney, in France. The whole commercial world was, in a manner, regulated by it; and the object of every nation seemed to be, not to increase its diposable commodities, but to increase its gold and silver. Our intercourse with the east it was, which first led to the detection of this error. The large quantities of the precious metals which we found it necessary to export, in pursuit of our commercial objects, alarmed those who looked upon their abundance at home as the only criterion of national wealth; and a controversy arose, by which some important truths were elucidated, and such an impression was made on the legislature that, in 1663, the statute prohibiting the exportation of bullion was formally repealed. Various writers now arose, by whom sound principles upon the subject of trade and commerce were maintained. Mr. Mun clearly showed that a favourable ballance of trade could not be produced by restrictive regulations; and Sir Dudley North, in 1691, published the fullest developement that had till then been made, of an enlightened system of political economy. We are here tempted to notice what appears to us a striking and characteristic distinction between the French and the English, in the advances which they respectively made in this interesting science. The British writers, from close and steady reflection and patient investigation, were led, slowly, and almost reluctantly, to adopt one by one, the various truths, as they were presented to them in the course of their enquiries. The French writers, on the other hand, exhibited the same revolutionary feeling upon that, as they have on other subjects, and passed, as it were by a kind of rebound, from extreme errors of one kind, to extreme errors of another. While with us the principles were in that gradual progress of developement, which has led to the enlightened system of political economy which at present prevails, and while Locke, and Hume, and Harris, were the heralds, as it were, of Smith's great work on the wealth of nations; in France the doctrine of "the economists" became the rage, and was, for a season, received with acclamations by that mercurial people, to whom any thing recommended by novelty and paradox will for a time be acceptable, and not the less so because it may have a tendency to shake the stability of government, and sap the foundation of social order. The great principle of "the economists" was, that the earth is the source of all wealth. Their reason for so thinking, that it alone yields a rent. Of this system Quesney was the ori ginator, who was a passionate lover of the country, and felt a natural indignation at the injurious regulations to which agriculture was subjected in France. He was, therefore, not contented with merely vindicating its claim to a just consideration. He went further, and proceeded to the extent of magnifying it at the expense of foreign and domestic trade. Trade, says Quesney, can never enrich a nation, because it only consists in an exchange of equivalents! A despicable sophism; it being perfectly obvious that the same things may be of different values in different countries, what cost in one country, one day's labour, being worth in another, two. Such was the state of the science when Smith's great work appeared; and it may be truly said, that Newton's principia scarcely effected a greater revolution in astronomy, than did the Wealth of Nations in political economy. We do not think that Dr. Longfield has done justice to this extraordinary man, in the note appended to his lectures in which his name is mentioned, and the nature of his services characterised. He did not light his taper from another man's flambeau, and merely pursued a track which had been indicated by some superior mind. "The Wealth of Nations," Mr. Longfield observes, "is written with very little attention to system." In this we cannot agree with this sagacious man. The Wealth of Nations, on the contrary, appears to us to be one of the most systematic works with which we are acquainted in the moral sciences. Mr. Longfield says its want of system is one of its merits; we, on the contrary, hold, that its strict adherence to system is one of its faults. "Strong, good sense, freedom from prejudice, extensive information, and profound observation;" we entirely agree with our professor in thinking highly characteristic of the mind of Adam Smith; but these alone would never have enabled him to set the impress of his genius upon political economy, in a manner that has made the science his own, if he did not possess the generalizing power, which is the distinctive peculiarity of truly philosophic genius, and which marshals every subordinate gift and faculty into strict subserviency to the enquiry, what ever it may be, which it has resolved to pursue. He possessed no taste or capacity, Mr. Longfield says, for long or subtle trains of reasoning. If this be so, it was only because he was possessed of an intelligence by which they were in a great measure superseded, and which carried him, as it were, at a single bound, and without the intervention of the media that would be indispensable to other minds, "To seats of reason, not to be approached Smith found the science a chaos, "rudis indigestaque moles ;"--under the influence of his genius order arose; and if he did not himself accomplish every thing that remained to be accomplished for the establishment of the true theory of national advancement and decline, it must, we think, be conceded, that he indicated, in almost every particular, the direction in which enquiry should be pursued, and that little more was left for those who followed after him, than to work, after his model, in the erection of the superstructure, of which he had not only drawn the plan, but also laid the solid foundations. This we say, at the same time fully admitting the justness of some of Mr. Longfield's strictures upon the reasoning employed by Adam Smith to prove labor the only measure of value, and reserving to ourselves the privilege of dissenting from that great man,whenever our deliberate convictions lead us to adopt different conclusions: while we gratefully acknowledge our obligations to the master mind without whose aid we should still be groping in the dark, and to whose luminous treatise it is chiefly owing that we are enabled to discover his own deficiencies. If we have been led to perceive that there are spots upon the sun, we do not forget that it is by its own light they have been rendered visible. As value is a term which must frequently be employed in the science of political economy, we will first bestow a brief consideration upon it. Smith describes it as two-fold, value in use, and value in exchange. He thus distinguishes use from exchange in a manner that appears to us illogical; as exchangibility is but a mode of usefulness, or a species of utility. We are, |