see how the Church, as one of its manifold elements, can be made to ennoble and purify it. Setting out from an acknowledged fact, the subject will, from its commencement, carry along with it a greater air of reality. It will first branch off into psychological analysis, and pass onwards to wide philosophical views, blended with the results of Scriptural and Historical Christianity; and will then descend again to a nearer view of the actual face of the religious world, its churches, and its sects, its Christian and philanthropic associations, the constitution and usages of the particular religious body, to whose wants the whole course of instruction has a more immediate reference its dangers, difficulties, responsibilities and prospects the obligations of public worship and Christian ordinances, and the influence of personal example and activity in the general furtherance of the religious life. Led through such a course by an experienced instructor, young men would not find themselves completely at sea when they stepped out of the Academy into the world. They would be conscious of a mediating influence between the abstract propositions of science and the concrete demands of practice. They would bring with them some previous sense of their position in the world; and if on all controverted points they could not be expected to have made up their minds, they would, at least, stand secure for a time on provisional ground, and without relinquishing their mental freedom, link themselves in the bonds of cheerful duty with the great world of human action and sympathy.

ART. II.-ENGLAND'S WEAK POINT.

Political Economy and the Philosophy of Government; a Series of Essays selected from the works of M. de Sismondi; with an Historical Notice of his Life and Writings, by M. Mignet. London: John Chapman, Newgate Street, 1847.

AN American from the United States cannot live many weeks in this country and hear our free sentiments, without learning the alarm and disgust with which we view the slavery upheld by their Southern citizens: and we generally regard it as wholesome to those vain-glorious republicans to become aware of the opinion which pervades all Europe on this subject. We fear it must be retorted, that over the whole civilized world, wherever the opulence and strength of England is admired and envied, reproach and scorn is cast upon us, not only for the misery of Ireland (which must not here be touched), but on account of the degradation of the British poor, in town and country. In vain do we plead this and that excuse. When the fruit is bad, the foreigner pronounces condemnation, without troubling himself to ascertain what blights the tree this labour he generally casts upon us; and to us assuredly it belongs. Sometimes the reproof comes upon us from hearts so pure and minds so calm, that if we could but learn wisdom from them it would be a most choice privilege. At any rate, when such men speak, their words deserve to be well pondered, and the more so, because they do not gratify our self-complacency. Even when they

wholly fail of suggesting a remedy, we must not infer that we are exculpated from devising one ourselves, if they have faithfully pointed out the public evil.

Such are a few of the self-reproving thoughts which an Englishman may feel on perusing many of the pages of Sismondi; a writer of first-rate merit in history and politics, and one whose sympathy with the poor and discernment of the true good of men and of nations must give weight to all his moral convictions concerning the right and wrong of our results. On some of these we intend particu

larly to dwell. In political economy, however, as understood by English writers, we are unable to feel any respect for his writings and this part of the subject we are forced to dismiss before proceeding to the other. Our science he is pleased to name chrematistics, (or, as he misspells it, chresmatistique,) a term which in Aristotle means, "the art of money-getting." Although the word economy has long borne in English the sense of parsimony or frugality, and the Greek notion of "the moral government of a house" is no part of its popular acceptation, the author is angry with our Economists for not including Politics in their science. His Economy is, in fact, identical with the science of Human Government; for it is, he says, a providing for the happiness of man in society. Yet surely the "chrematistics" have as much right to treat of wealth, as he of man's social welfare. It would be as fair to complain of a mathematician or chemist for not aiding us towards Virtue, as to declaim against a political economist who has plainly announced the scope of his treatise, because it does not lead a nation towards Happiness.

When and where the Economist has a right to rule in Politics, is often a delicate question of practical statesmanship nor is a better example needed, than a Ten Hours Bill, where (rightly or wrongly) the interests of morality are alleged on one side, and pecuniary claims on the other. But there are extreme and clear cases as to which there is no doubt. If a well-meant political measure is discerned by the Economist to act fatally against the pecuniary rights of whole classes and in its rebound to injure all, he here is able to speak with the solemn voice of a moralist and a legislator, although his immediate function is to pronounce concerning Wealth, and not concerning Virtue or Happiness.

As we have commenced by expressing a total disrespect for Sismondi's Political Economy, it is incumbent on us to state some reasons; but it would be tedious and very unprofitable to refute in detail the endless fallacies and absurdities which entangle every page which he writes on the subject. Although a few parts of his argument refer to France, in which the Government fosters manufactures by monopoly, he generally has England in view in his criticisms, and frequently notes that we are the most eminent

example of all that he is stating. The false facts concerning us on which he proceeds, are a perfect curiosity; exceeding in ingenious blunders our most ignorant and fanatical Protectionists. He assumes as certain truth, that a manufacturer who desires to undersell his neighbours has power (with that intent) to lower the rent which he pays to his landlord, the interest of his borrowed capital and the wages of his workmen: that by this process the wages have been beaten down to the lowest sum which will support human life; that they keep sinking with the cheapening of food, clothes and other necessaries,-with the increase of capital and with the improvements of machinery : that skill in the workman is needless, and unskilfulness does not affect the value of the fabric: that the master suffers during a strike so much less than the men, that the men have no chance of making a fair bargain with him: that workmen are gradually giving place to steam-engines, which threaten to supersede human beings entirely that our complicated machinery is principally devoted to produce delicate fabrics which the poor cannot wear: that we habitually produce more than persons desire to consume, if they had the means: that there is a glut of food, as well as of manufactures, and that the landlords' rent is perpetually sinking, from the system of large farms and over-production; that the actual consumption of food in England is immensely decreasing, from the inability of the poor to purchase: that to the doctrine and persuasion of our Economists, we must ascribe the introduction of large farms, large capital and improved machinery. We need hardly add, that every one of these supposed facts is false, and most of them monstrously false. But his mistakes as to the theories of those whom he is opposing, are equally flagrant. To take two eminent examples, which may seem enough to prove that he had never read the original works of Ricardo and Malthus: he treats all our Economists, (mentioning these two several times by name,) as teaching that Rent is one of the elements which determine the price of an article (p. 171); and in another passage he affects to give the definitions of Rent as enunciated by these two writers; but is so vague or erroneous, that his translator is forced to correct him in a note (p. 160). He further

undertakes to refute Malthus's doctrine of population, but so entirely mistakes it, as himself to do nothing but restate Malthus's own conclusions (p. 230); which are,that not only is there an ultimate and distant limit to the possible multiplication of human beings on the earth; but there is at every time a pressure of population against food, unless each individual exercises a prudential restraint on himself, so as not to marry until he has a reasonable prospect of being able to support a family. Sismondi so often repeats this, that we look upon it as a moral certainty that he had not even cursorily turned the pages of the author whom he is depreciating. And here indeed is one preliminary absurdity; that while engaged in a science which (he says) is to establish what ought to be,-such as his fundamental proposition, "Income ought to increase with Capital," he supposes himself to be in collision with our science, which professedly teaches only what is. For all the corollaries of our Economists concerning happiness, whether right or wrong, are undoubtedly mere offshoots and unessential to their science.

We shall only add, that his practical recommendations (when he condescends to give them) are generally of so visionary a nature, as to imply a total ignorance of the concerns which he is criticizing. Every tiro in our Economy knows that wages rise, in consequence of the desire to find employment for new capital. Sismondi deprecates this process, and dreads too much capital. Capital, says he, is a good thing; but there may be too much capital; if that, and not the demand for consumption, excites production (p. 243). So, the manufacturer is first to learn whether people want more or cheaper calico, before he makes it! as if there were any way of ascertaining the public need, except by sending the article into the market, with the price affixed. In order (it seems) to lessen the dangerous growth of capital, he admires the Egyptian invention of building "pyramids, which could not be sold in the market" (p. 177); and this he describes as "taking something from the rich to pay wages to the poor." In the same spirit he wishes government, when work is slack, to employ the poor in public works, unproductive or productive, indifferently (p. 221). Lastly, he arrives at the conCHRISTIAN TEACHER.-No. 37.

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