OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. MDCCCXLIV. PREFACE. THAT the reader may not seek in this little work any thing other or more than was designed, I will briefly state its primary object. Political Economy does not advance. Since the revolution effected in that science by Ricardo, (1817,) upon the whole it has been stationary. But why? It has always been my own conviction that the reason lies, not in any material defect of facts, (except as to the single question of money,) but in the laxity of some amongst the distinctions which are elementary to the science. For example, that one desperate enormity of vicious logic, which takes place in the ordinary application to price of the relation between supply and demand, has ruined more arguments dispersed through |
