PREFACE. 
XXV 
premises to the conclusion, and flinching from 
no consequences at which it arrives, forms a sort 
of experimentum crucis, by which the truth or 
falsity of the principles maintained will be ren- 
dered manifest, and is the very kind of exposi- 
tion which an examiner of their correctness 
would desire. 
It was in fact the clear, able, and uncompro- 
mising manner in which the author of the Dia- 
logues explained the principles of Mr. Ricardo, 
together with the startling and (the present 
writer must be permitted to say) the extrava- 
gant consequences to which he pushed them, 
that first suggested the following treatise, the 
author of which takes this opportunity of ex- 
pressing his regret (a regret shared by many 
others), that discussions so valuable for either 
confirming or disproving the doctrines which they 
enforced, should not have been conducted to their 
proper and their promised termination.