John Elliott Cairnes 1874 Some Leading Principles Political Economy

( // / / /7 /// ^Jfe />-,/> ' POLITICAL ECONOMY. SOME LEADING PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY NEWLY EXPOUNDED. BY J. E. CAIKNES, M.A., EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGK, LONDON. Hori&on: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1888. PREFACE. THOUGH the following work is an attempt to recast some considerable portion of Political Economy, I should be sorry it were regarded as in any sense antagonistic in its attitude toward the science built up by the labors of Adam Smith, Malthus, Eicardo, and Mill. On the contrary, my hope is that it will — should its reasonings find acceptance — strengthen, in some sensible degree, and add consistence to that fabric. As regards those assumptions respecting human character and the physical conditions of external nature which constitute the ultimate premises of economic science, the position I have taken is identical with that of the four great writers I have named: and I have endeavored also to follow the method of combined deduction and verification by comparison with facts, which was theirs, and which is, as I believe, the only fruitful, or indeed possible method in economic inquiry. Nor do the final conclusions which I have reached differ very widely on any important points from those at which they had arrived. The points on which I have ventured to join issue with them are what, in Bacon's language, may be called th…