Two Lectures on Political Economy; Delivered at Clinton Hall, Before the Mercantile Library Association of the City of New York, on the 23d and 30th O (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1832 Excerpt: ... Cicero recommends diligence and parsimony, and refers to the "Economics"of Xenophon, a work, which, he informs us, he himself had translated into Latin. But though he speaks of wealth in his "Offices," and classes it among those things, which are to be understood as conducing to utility, he regards a knowledge of the functions of capital as the appropriate business of the practical money dealer, whom he terms, somewhat ironically, optimus vir. If we examine other Latin moralists, we find advice, which, like the doctrines of the Cynics, would perpetuate poverty and barbarism. " If you would become rich," says Seneca, " do not increase your possessions, but diminish your desires." If our science was not cultivated among the Greeks and Romans, we are not to look for any treatises of Political Economy in the middle ages. The object then seems not to have been to make advances in knowledge, but rather to forget all that centuries had effected, and to yield up the world a prey to superstition and the sword. The feudal system, which generally prevailed, at the dawn of modern civilization, was peculiarly adapted to a course of restrictive regulations. Not only were there almost incessant wars between neighboring kingdoms, but the contests among lords, . owing a nominal allegiance to the same sovereign, were of a scarcely less sanguinary character. If we consider the relations, which have generally subsisted between England and France, from the very establishment of those monarchies, we may form some idea of the state of Europe, when almost every two contiguous baronies belonged to rival chieftains. The oppression of the barons, and the desire of the kings to create a power in the state, which might be a counterpoise to that of the nobles, gave rise to walled towns, ...