Excerpt from Political Economy Against all needless restrictions on trade, -it is the same book still. Excrescences have been cut ofi, crudities ripened, and the whole fibre made tougher and more com pact, but the continuity of life has been constantly conserved. I had taught Political Economy in this Institution for ten or twelve years without ever forming any purpose to try my hand at a treatise on the subject. I had used for my teachers and guides the English writers, particularly Adam Smith, Ricardo, Senior, and Mill; and familiarized myself also with the American writers, particularly careylway land, Bowen, and Bascom. Almost from the outset of my studies, however, and increasingly as the years went by, I kept asking myself, What is Political Economy about? Within what precise field do its inquiries lie? Is it pos sible clearly and simply to circumscribe that field? I could see no solid reason why economical discussions should be confined to tangible commodities, and not include as well personal services rendered for pay, and also credits of all kinds. I could not gain from the general terms used by the writers a firm conception of the science as including these three classes of things. The word Wealth, which figured so largely in all the books, gave no satisfaction in this regard, for this best of reasons, that I never could gain with all my strivings a clear and generalized conception of just what that word covered. I found besides, that 'no two of the writers had the same notion of the meaning of that word, and that no one of them all had given an adequate and self-consistent definition of it. I talked this matter over repeatedly with Professor Bascom, at that time my colleague and always my friend, and suggested to him a way of egress from the difficulty; and my mind had almost. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.