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.