The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Editorial Note
• I.: Biographical Sketch
• II.: Early Economic Writings: 1804-1808
• An Essay of the Impolicy of a Bounty On the Exportation of Grain
• Introduction
• Essay On the Corn Laws
• Chap. I: Of the History of the Corn Laws
• Chap. II: Influence of the Principle of Population Upon the Corn Trade
• Chap. III: Effects of the Bounty On the Rent of Land
• Chap. IV: Effects of the Bounty On the Profits of the Farmer
• Chap. V: Effects of the Bounty On the Value of Silver
• Chap. VI: Exportation
• Chap. VII: Importation
• Chap. VIII: Landlords, Farmers, and Corn-dealers
• Postscript to Essay On Impolicy
• Commerce Defended.
• Introduction
• Chapter I: On the Security Or Insecurity of the British Commerce
• Chapter II: On Land, As a Source of Wealth
• Chapter III: Of the Definition of the Terms Wealth and Prosperity
• Chapter IV: Of Manufactures
• Chapter V: Commerce
• Chapter VI: Consumption
• Chapter VII: Of the National Debt
• Chapter VIII: General Reflections
• Smith On Money and Exchange
• III.: James Mill and David Ricardo
• Elements of Political Economy,
• Preface
• Preface (to the 2nd Edn.)
• Introduction the Subject—its Limits—and Division
• Chapter I: Production
• Chapter II: Distribution
• Chapter III: Interchange
• Chapter IV: Consumption
• Mill On Scope and Method
• Whether Political Economy Is Useful London Review, Jan. 1836, Vol. Ii, Pp. 553–572.
• V.: James Mill and India
• Book Ii of the Hindus
• Chapter I: Chronology and Ancient History of the Hindus
• Chapter II: Classification and Distribution of the People
• Chapter III: The Form of Government
• Chapter IV: The Laws
• Chapter V: The Taxes
• Bibliography

PREFACE

There are few things of which I have occasion to advertize the reader, before he enters upon the perusal of the following work. My object has been to compose a school-book of Political Economy, to detach the essential principles of the science from all extraneous topics, to state the propositions clearly and in their logical order, and to subjoin its demonstration to each. I am, myself, persuaded, that nothing more is necessary for understanding every part of the book, than to read it with attention; such attention as persons of either sex, of ordinary understanding, are capable of bestowing.

They who are commencing the study ought to proceed slowly, and to familiarize themselves with the new combinations of ideas, as they are successively presented to them. If they proceed to a subsequent proposition before they are sufficiently imbued with the first, they will of course experience a difficulty, only because they have not present to their memory the truth which is calculated to remove it. If they who begin the study of mathematics were to content themselves with merely reading and assenting to the demonstrations, they would soon arrive at doctrines, which they would be unable to comprehend, solely because they had not, by frequent repetition, established in their minds those previous propositions, on which the evidence of the subsequent ones depends.

In a work of this description I have thought it advisable not to quote any authorities, because I am anxious that the learner should fix his mind upon the doctrine and its evidence, without any extraneous consideration. I cannot fear an imputation of plagiarism, because I profess to have made no discovery; and those men who have contributed to the progress of the science need no testimony of mine to establish their fame.