PREFACE. 
Xy 
a superiority above Adam Smith, as a profound 
and original thinker, can be inferred from their 
respective works. To raise the science from 
the condition in which it was found by the lat- 
ter, to that state of dignity and importance in 
which it appeared in the Wealth of Nations, 
seems to an ordinary view to have required a 
far more comprehensive mind, and oreater 
powers of skilful disquisition, than to discover 
and to follow out to their consequences the ori- 
ginal truths, few or many, which distinguish the 
pages of the Principles of Political Economy and 
Taxation. The praise, too, of dexterity in unra- 
velling difficult questions is surely misapplied. 
The obscurity which is almost universally felt, 
and felt even by readers accustomed to close- 
ness of reasoning, and not sparing of vigorous 
attention, in many of Mr. Ricardo’s discussions, 
incontestably proves, even on the supposition of 
their perfect accuracy, a want of skill in the ma.