this science investigates; it is all the more important to do this, because the vagueness of popular conceptions has generated a vast amount of prejudice towards political economy. Hardhearted and selfish are the stereotyped epithets applied to this science. Ill-defined antipathy is sure not to rest long suspended upon a mere abstract idea; it seeks some concrete object, and therefore the epithets applied to the science are speedily transferred to those who study it, and a political economist exists vaguely in the haze of popular ignorance as a hardhearted, selfish being, who wishes to see everyone rich, but who has no sympathy with those higher qualities which ennoble the character of man. The error of this ignorant prejudice will be abundantly exposed in these pages; but we will make a few preliminary remarks upon it, in order to convince the student that the political economist is not the harsh being generally portrayed, but that he possesses that information which tells him how to improve the lot of his fellow-men. He may therefore be the most useful of all philanthropists; because a mere desire to do good without any principles of guidance is ever liable to lead to futile and misdirected effort.
Political economy is primarily concerned with wealth,Political economy is concerned with those principles which regulate the production, the distribution, and the exchange of wealth.
The first great work on political economy was called by Adam Smith 'The Wealth of Nations;' but political economy is concerned alike with individual and national wealth. Those who share the popular error above alluded to make this inquiry, Has a nation no other mission to fulfil than to become rich? and should wealth be to the individual the one absorbing aim of life? But political economy never even gives colour to the suspicion that the creation and accumulation of wealth ought to be the great object either of a nation's or of an individual's existence. The springs of life's action are numerous; society is held together by a vast aggregation of motives and sympathies. Wealth is necessary to man's existence; a great portion of human exertion is stimulated by the necessity to labour, in order to procure the commodities which maintain life. When, therefore, we endeavour to consider the phenomena connected with the production