POLITICAL ECONOMY AND SCIENCE.

PREFACE.

What is Political Economy ? Isitascience? Isita
zomplete science in itself? Is it a sub-science or a part
of science ? Is it a merely arbitrary systemized collection
 of disorderly or unauthorized opinions, relating to a
particular class of subjects? Is it an off-shoot of Metaphysics:
 a sort of Positivism? If it belongs to Science,
what is its place and relation in respect to General
Science? Has it any direct and practical value as acquired
 knowledge ? Is it of indirect use as an intellectual
 exercise ?
Now if we suppose a man educated only in the most
rudimentary sense, eager to acquire knowledge, and ready
to devote himself to the acquisition of some one or more
of the Divisions of Knowledge, the foregoing are some of
the questions which might not unnaturally or impertinently
 suggest themselves to him in regard to some of
those Divisions now classed in the strictest sense as belonging
 to Science, preliminary to his making choice of
the particular subject of his studies.
But the peculiarity in this case is that these questions,
‘n regard to this collection of subjects (political economy),
are not confined to the scientifically uneducated or par-