The Friend Of The Present Order Of

The First Business Of Philosophy Is To Account For Things As They Are; And Till Our Theories Will Do This, They Ought Not To Be The Ground Of Any Practical Conclusion.

The Employment Of The Poor In Roads And Public Works, And A Tendency Among Landlords And Persons Of Property To Build, To Improve And Beautify Their Grounds, And To Employ Workmen And Menial Servants, Are The Means Most Within Our Power And Most Directly Calculated To Remedy The Evils Arising From That Disturbance In The Balance Of Produce And Consumption.

Population Trends Have Always Provoked Doom-fraught Oracles, Because Their Popular Interpreters Suppose That Every New Series Will Be Infinitely Sustained; Yet, Beyond The Short Term, Expectations Based On Them Are Never Fulfilled.

If I Saw A Glass Of Wine Repeatedly Presented To A Man, And He Took No Notice Of It, I Should Be Apt To Think That He Was Blind Or Uncivil. A Juster Philosophy Might Teach Me Rather To Think That My Eyes Deceived Me, And That The Offer Was Not Really What I Conceived It To Be.

It Has Been Said, And Perhaps With Truth, That The Conclusions Of Political Economy Partake More Of The Certainty Of The Stricter Sciences Than Those Of Most Of The Other Branches Of Human Knowledge.