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INTRODUCTION.

the economic world, the facts we find existing are the
results of causes, between which and them the connection is
constant and invariable. It is, then, the constant relations
sxhibited in economic phenomena that we have in view,
when we speak of the laws of the phenomena of wealth;
and in the exposition of these laws consists the science of
Political Economy. If you ask me wherein lies the utility
of such an exposition of economic laws, I answer, in prerisely
 the same circumstance which constitutes the utility
of all scientific knowledge. It teaches us the conditions of
our power in relation to the facts of economic existence, the
means by which, in the domain of material well-being, to
attain our ends. Itis by such knowledge that man becomes.
the minister and interpreter of Nature, and learns to control
Nature by obeying her.”
We will observe in the first place that this is a part of
a careful summary of his own conclusions, after Professor
Cairnes has considered and reviewed the works of his
predecessors. As the answer to the question in the foregoing.
 . “ What are the phenomena of wealth?” We
nave. .“ Simply the facts of wealth: such facts as production,
 exchange, price.” Now to call these things
facts’ is a misnomer which if it does not result from a.
sonfusion, is sure to result in a confusion, of ideas. There
s a sense in which production might be, not incorrectly,
verhaps, called a natural fact: When the seeds of a
vegetable are put into the ground under favourable cricumstances
 they grow and the plants collectively proluce
 a quantity of seed greater than was sown. This
ncrease in quantity may be called a natural fact of prouction;
 but this is evidently quite a different sense
from that in which the professor here uses the expression.