PREFACE,

tially educated, but are asked by men of scientific educa-~
tion, and by men who have devoted their lives especially
to the acquisition and cultivation of this particular Division
 or supposed division) of Knowledge. And these
juestions, asked by the men who should be themselves
the most eminently qualified to answer them correctly
md with certainty, are not answered by them with
ananimity and accord, but, on thecontrary, each eminent
writer and teacher on the subject gives an answer quite
at variance with the various answers given by other
supposed authorities. All appear to agree that there is
a Division of Knowledge fo-which the snhjects brought
together under the title of ‘political economy’ ought to belong
 as a part of Science, but that what is now included
and taught under that title does not belong, or only partially
 belongs, to science, because the system on which the
subjects are arranged is bad, and the philosophy applied
to it unsound. Agreement, however, does not go beyond
agreeing to reject all the systems which have been provosed
 as scientific. That is to say, each one has his own
system which he advocates and which differs, more or less
assentially, from that of each of the other writers on the
subject. Such a state of matters does not prove that no
actual department of Science has this particular descripsion
 of knowledge for its proper and legitimate subject :
nor does it prove that (so-called) Political Economy is
merely a part of Metaphysics, or that its subjects are
such as cannot be systematically combined as useful and
valuable knowledge; but it does prove that these subjects
are at present in a metaphysical and disorderly condition ;
that they have not as yet been scientifically arranged, and