The Character and Logical Method of Political EconomyHarper & brothers, 1875 - 235 pages |
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actual Adam Smith admit advance ascertained Astronomy capital capital ex causes and laws ceteris paribus character circumstances complex conclusions consequence consider cost course cultivation deductive deductive reasoning definition depends discovery distribution of wealth doctrine duction economic law economic rent economic science economist effect ence exist explain expression facts farmer force gold human nature hypothesis hypothetical ical important increase inductive industry influence inquiry investigation labor land landlord laws of mind lecture litical Economy logical Malthus Malthusian means ment mental method nomena nomenclature nomic object operation ordinary profits phenomena of wealth phenomenon physical sciences Political Econ Political Economy population portion positive positive science practical premises present principles problem progress proof quantity question raised reasoning regard result Ricardo Rickards sense silver social soil speculation subject-matter SUMER supply surplus value tendency theory of rent tion true truth ultimate wages writer
Popular passages
Page 156 - The cause to which I allude is the constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it.
Page 227 - This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.
Page 85 - The economist starts with a knowledge of ultimate causes. lie is already, at the outset of his enterprise, in the position which the physicist only attains after ages of laborious research.
Page 57 - How far should moral and religious considerations be admitted as coming within the purview of Political Economy ? 1 and the doctrine now under exposition enables us to supply the answer. Moral and religious considerations are to be taken account of by the economist precisely in so far as they are found in fact to affect the conduct of men in the pursuit of wealth.
Page 232 - When we look at the history of the emission-theory of light, we see exactly what we may consider as the natural course of things in the career of a false theory. Such a theory may, to a certain extent, explain the phenomena which it was at first contrived to meet ; but every new class of facts requires a new supposition, — an addition to the machinery : and as observation goes on, these incoherent appendages accumulate, till they overwhelm and upset the original frame-work.
Page 172 - The principal object of VOL. I. B the present essay is to examine the effects of one great cause intimately united with the very nature of man...
Page 227 - Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, 6 it belongs not to our present subject to inquire.
Page 59 - The conclusions of each, therefore, when applied to facts, can only be said to be true in the absence of disturbing causes / which. is, in other words, to say that they are true on the hypothesis that the premises include all the causes affecting the result.
Page 38 - ... present theories of industrial remuneration presuppose a division of those capacities between distinct persons. Obviously, our existing theories must fail to elucidate a state of things different from that contemplated in their elaboration. We have thus need of...
Page 44 - What he reserves to himself, is to explain the laws of mind under which the owner of the soil allows his pastures to be laid waste, and the minerals which they cover to be abstracted ; under which the capitalist employs in sinking shafts, and piercing galleries, funds which might be devoted to his own immediate enjoyment ; under which the miner encounters the .toils and the dangers of his hazardous and laborious occupation ; and the laws, also laws of mind, which decide in what proportions the produce...