PREFACE.

and freed from every tinge of feeling and asseciation
 *.

To judge from his writings, Mr. Ricardo
possessed little of this faculty ; little consciousness
 of the nature of the operations in which
he excelled, and little familiarity with the analysis
 of terms. His was a sort of natural vigour
of reasoning, exerting itself without the advantages
 of discipline, without much acquaint-*

 The author feels a pleasure in paying this passing
tribute to the talents of a philosopher, who has taken
a giant-stride in the science to which he devoted himself,
 and who will be hereafter considered as one of the
most remarkable men of a period prolific in great names.
The reputation of writings like his, far in advance of the
age in which they appear, making no appeals to the senses,
and having no obvious connection with the immediate and
palpable affairs of life, is necessarily of slow growth, but
it will flourish when hundreds of names, which fill more of
the public ear, have passed to that oblivion which certainly
awaits them.