vast mass which would be included in M. Say’s definition of riches, it may safely be affirmed that it is not composed of objects, “dont la quantité soit rigoureusement assignable, et dont l’accroissement ou le déclin soit soumis à des lois déterminées.”* One motive which seems to have induced M. Say to force into his definition of riches, “les plus nobles vertus, et les plus rare talens,”† is to enlarge and exalt the domain of political economy, which he says has been reproached with occupying itself upon worldly goods, and encouraging a spirit of avarice. But even if such a classification would give the subject more importance, this additional importance would be dearly purchased at the expense of the precision of its conclusions. The question, however, is not whether the results of useful labours may not very properly find a place in a Treatise on Political Economy, as they have done in the Inquiry of Adam Smith; but whether the specific term wealth should be so defined, as to make not only its own meaning quite indistinct, but to introduce still greater indistinctness into the terms of the science of morals.
Every moral writer, from the most ancient to the most modern, has instructed us to prefer virtue to wealth; and though it has been generally allowed that they may be united in the same person; yet it has always been supposed that they were essentially different in themselves, and that it was often necessary to place them in direct contradistinction one to the other.
If, however, virtue be wealth, how are we to interpret all those moral admonitions which instruct us to underrate the latter in comparison with the former? What is the meaning of not setting our hearts upon riches, if virtue be riches? What do we intend to express when we say of a person of our acquaintance, that he is a very virtuous and excellent man, but poor. The commonest terms used in moral discussions will become quite uncertain without constant circumlocutions, and the meanings of virtue, morals, rich and
