that a science on this subject should be constructed out of the common experience of nations for common use, or out of the experience of one nation for the use of another. It is a subject on which generalizations are, as Mr. Mill justly observes, even "abstractedly impossible." It is only in the line of the experience of one nation that the rigid principles of such a science can be applied, and for that nation only. All beyond this field is a region of empirical laws, as before shown; and of that precise category of empirical laws, which are utterly incapable of being reduced to a science.

While, therefore, we do not claim to have formed a science on this subject, having had other work to do, we trust it will be allowed, that we have demonstrated the want of it, in establishing the fact that all pretensions of this kind hitherto put forward, are without foundation. If we have been so fortunate as to indicate the path, and open the door to the field where alone can be found the elements of this science, it will, perhaps, be of some account in the future efforts of those who may find it convenient to undertake the task of reducing it to form.

It can not be denied, that some study and close thinking are required for the use and application of the canons of induction, above cited, to so intricate and complicated a subject as that of public economy. Fortunately, this is not necessary to be able to appreciate the argument that is based upon them. The facts and reasoning may be perfectly apprehended by one who may never have heard of these rules, and who may have but little or no acquaintance with the processes of scientific induction. He who is instructed by experience and observation, is capable of reasoning as correctly as he who is instructed by science, and often does so with more unerring certainty of a true result. Experience never leads to error, and science itself is verified by experience. The canons cited above grow out of experience, and enforce respect and credit only as they are conformed to it. A man may be totally ignorant of the canons, when his experience, or the experience of others verified by facts, leads him to the same result. When science accords with experience, it settles all controversy. Science is for those who occupy the higher, and who are capable of penetrating into the more profound, regions of human scrutiny, while experience is for the common walks of life.

As there is in fact but one great argument in this work, composed of various branches of what is commonly called argumentation, each one of which in itself is an argument on some one point,

or in some one line, to its own restricted purpose, it will be obvious that the canons above cited are intended chiefly to verify the results of the reasoning on the main question between Free Trade and Protection. Though common judgment is for the most part appealed to, and it is hoped may be relied on, to produce conviction, in view of the facts presented, and of the reasoning built upon them, there is always a class of minds whose habits are addicted to scientific investigation, and which may be gratified in finding that an effort of this kind has not been made without regard to what are deemed scientific principles. It is fair to conclude, that they who are capable of appreciating these principles, will also be sensible that, as the science applies to a great field and vast amount of facts, and to a protracted period of history, the great question presented is not a simple problem, nor extremely easy of solution. It is in fact a system in the highest and most comprehensive sense of the term. No one ever became master of geometry, chemistry, astronomy, or of any of the established sciences, without some pains, without application, hardly without vigorous and protracted effort. But the absolute sciences, if such a distinction may be made, are incomparably more easy than a contingent one, such as that of public economy. Every stage of reasoning in the former is under the guidance of immutable laws, and it is not easy to get out of the way; whereas, the propositions of public economy which may be most. important and vital to any and whatever nation, are undoubtedly contingent on a variety of facts, the bearings and relations of which may require the profoundest attention and the severest scrutiny, to be well understood for practical purposes.

4. Another of the new points made in this work, or of the new positions taken we are not particular to mention them in the order in which they may be found-is, that labor is capital, and the parent of all other capital. We do not mean that this is a new idea, or that it is a proposition that requires proof. But it has never before been introduced into a system of public economy as an essential element. We put it first of all; we make it fundamental. As such, it pervades the entire system, without which, established in its own proper position, any system of public economy, as will be found, would be radically, fundamentally defective. We profess, that we could not begin to write on this subject, in any hope of doing justice to it, and of coming out right, without first determining the true position of labor in public economy, not only as capital, but as the parent of all other capital. It may, in

deed, be said that the technicalities of science are in some respects and in some degree arbitrary; but a misnomer in science, which for ever represents one of its chief and fundamental elements, not only in a false position, but in a position which puts every other element out of place, will for ever be fatal to the proper adjustment and right view of its parts. Such, we think, has been the necessary consequence of the exclusion by economists from the list of capitals that which is the parent of all, and which more properly deserves the name alone, than that its mere products should have superseded it in the nomenclature of art. There is a reason to be deplored in this malpractice, a moral cause, we fear, which aimed for ever to exclude labor from its rights. It reversed the order of nature, and transferred the cause to the place of the effect. It is not capital, in the common, or in what the economists have made the technical sense of the term, that was designed to employ labor, and in this condescension to enslave it; but it is labor which in nature occupies the first place, and which was designed to be the employer of its own creations. It is virtually so always. That which is commonly called capital, can do nothing, is worth nothing, without labor. Labor is not only its parent, but its efficient and vivifying power. But, in the nomenclature of the economists, labor has been thrust from its true position, and as a consequence robbed of its rights.

5. That protective duties, in the United States, are not taxes, and that a protective system rescues the country from an enormous system of foreign taxation, are both new points, in a system of public economy, though not new ideas-and points of great, of vital importance, considered at large, in their place. The rule or principle of graduating Protection, also presents a showing that has never before been made, in works of this kind, as arising out of the difference in the joint cost of money and labor in this country and in those with which we trade.

6. A very important point is made in this work, materially affecting the general argument, in a consideration of the different states of society in the United States and in Europe, which, so far as we know, has never been duly weighed as an element of public economy. Conjoined with this, is the subject of education, as a point which, in the peculiar aspects of American society, is deemed of great importance, and an element that has never had its proper position in the consideration of this subject.

7. Another of the new points made in this work, is the founda

tion of the value of money. Every theory of a monetary system is almost necessarily a castle in the air, independent of this discovery, and of the knowledge that flows from it, as a guide, as a principle. It is true, indeed, that practical men, who take experience and observation as their guide, may be right on this subject, for legislation or for financial and commercial purposes, as is often the case on other subjects, without knowing why they are so. But, in the construction of the theory of a monetary system, and in the elucidation of its parts, it is scarcely possible to avoid errors, which may be very serious in their consequences, so long as the true and only secure foundation of such a system, is not understood, nor even discovered. In all the isolated and empirical propositions, as to which the Free-Trade economists are right on this subject, they are so by the accidental sway of their good sense, in spite of the difficulties in which they are involved for want of a foundation to stand upon, and in spite of the defects and baseless condition of their theory, on which they are perpetually falling back, to float at random in the clouds, a prey to every wind. Practical men are generally right, though they do not know why. When a foundation is laid in nature for man to stand upon, they often go to work there without understanding the reasons of its firmness. That is a good bridge that carries people safely over. Accordingly, it has long been seen, by practical men, that no currency can be secure and permanent, which is not based on the precious metals; but it was not necessary, for practical purposes, since they were right so far, on this stage of causes, really but an effect of antecedent causes, that they should know what those antecedents were; that they should understand the real foundation of the value of gold and silver, in the form of money. To them, practically, it was no matter. But for a theorist, essaying to construct a monetary system, to be incorporated in a system of public economy, as one of its fundamental and most important branches, on which the most momentous results in the legislation of a state, of a nation, depend; for such a pretender to sit down to this task, without knowing anything of the real foundation of the value of money, is not simply presumptuous, audacious; but alas for the nation that is doomed to follow in the path of his precepts! Such, precisely, and no better, on this point, have been the qualifications of the Free-Trade economists. Not one of them has ever understood the foundation of the value of money. If they did, they would certainly have stated it; and if they had seen and stated it, they must have fol

lowed its leadings, and would have spared the world, not only the errors they have promulgated, but their consequences.

8. Akin to this new point, or new position, as to the foundation of the value of money, is another we have made and urged, in regard to the distinction between money as a subject and as the instrument of trade. This naturally grows out of the foundation of its value, and would scarcely be discerned, except in that connexion; though it is not impossible that it should be. This, too, for all practical purposes of the commercial world, has been acted upon, ever since a common currency was established. Nobody can find a time when it was not acted upon. It is, therefore, remarkable, even marvellous, that a truth so simple, so plain, so practical, and therefore so important, should never have been recognised by the economists, as a distinct and vital element in a monetary system, and consequently in a system of public economy: It was the more important, that it should be recognised, because, for lack of it, a most momentous error has been introduced into all the systems of the Free-Trade economists, beginning with Adam Smith, and running down through the entire school. It is apparently the principal hinge, certainly one of the chief, on which their doctrine of Free Trade is made to turn. Not making this

distinction, they assume that money is only a commodity in trade, and that it occupies the same position with all other commodities for which it is exchanged; and consequently, that, for the greatest wealth of parties and nations, engaged in trade, the more they trade the better, whatever commodity they part with, be it money or anything else. This doctrine is even pushed, or naturally runs, to the extreme, that the more a party buys the better, as buying is only one side of trading, and necessarily implies that of selling. They aver, that selling money is precisely the same, in public economy, as selling corn, calico, or any other commodity, that is not money-money, according to them, being only a commodity, ranking in the same class theoretically and commercially, and occupying the same position. According to this doctrine, when a party, being a nation or other, has parted in trade with all its cash, it is so much richer, and all the better for it; as it retains an equivalent. It will be seen, that this distinction is vital to a system of public economy; and that the doctrine above indicated, which fails to recognise it, and which confounds the two things put asunder by it, forcing them, or one of them, into a false position,