PREFACE. THIS Preface is no piece of formality, seeing I have an apology to make. Many writers possess some pretext for severely blaming their predecessors, and thereby secure to themselves a hearing. I have no such pretext. The works of John Stuart Mill, greatest of Economists, Adam Smith not excepted, of Chevalier, of Roscher, and of many others who might fitly be named in their company, are, each in his way, admirable; and I here freely acknowledge the very great obligations which I owed to them in preparing this little book. Many writers are able to boast that they have set forth their science as it will always be. I can make no such boast, for while I write Political Economy changes. My apology for essaying, in these circumstances, such a task as is implied in the title "A Survey of Political Economy," rests on the possibility of this modest work turning attention to others more exhaustive, on the absence of any book conceived on the same plan, and on an intense desire, which is not of yesterday, to see Political Economy divested of many fallacies, not the less false because sometimes harsh and degrading. The following pages are based on a series of articles which I contributed to the Scotsman newspaper. J. M. AUGUST 22, 1871. |