Is there, then, no way of reconciling the apparent antagonism between the development of man's industrial powers, and his higher interests as a rational and accountable being? Are we to conclude that the roads that lead to wealth, to happiness, and to virtue, are necessarily divergent? and that national advancement in any one of these paths implies a departure from the others? No; not necessarily so. Such is not the doctrine taught by Sismondi, and by those who, with him, impugn the title of political economy to be considered as the great paramount rule of social existence. All that they maintain is, that there is _no necessary agreement_ between these three great springs of human action; that though the law of morality may, and obviously often does, concur with the maxims of happiness, and those again with the rules of political economy, there are nevertheless many questions on which we are at a loss to reconcile them. The learned Archbishop of Dublin has an elaborate argument in his _Introductory Lectures_, to show, on _a priori_ grounds, that the condition most favourable to the exercise of man's productive energies must also be favourable, not only to the highest development of his intellectual faculties, but also to his advancement in moral purity. Now, we venture to think that no such argument, however ingeniously conducted, can be satisfactory, simply because IT IS _a priori_. Reason and experience are at variance; and no _a priori_ deduction will help us out of the practical difficulty. We, no doubt, all naturally desire and hope--nay, believe--that at some future time, and in some way at present unknown, the perplexing contradiction will be explained. Reason affirms unhesitatingly, that the same Providence which placed so bounteous a store of the physical materials of wealth at our disposal, can never have designed that their cultivation should embitter the lives of those who labour, still less that it should endanger their moral wellbeing; and we look forward, therefore, with firm faith to a period when these paths, which to our present sight seem to lead in directions so opposite, shall all be seen to reunite and terminate in one common end. But, in the present state of our powers, that insight is yet far from being attained, and the great problem yet remains to be solved.--What do we see around us? In this country--whose physical character and the spirit of whose people seem to destine her for the very home and centre of production--are there no discordant elements in our condition? While wealth has increased among us with a rapidity unexampled in the history of the world, and the struggling energies of all men have been strained to the uttermost in the race of industry--while, under the sway of commercial Ministries, legislation has been specially, almost exclusively, directed to stimulating manufactures in every way, and removing every obstacle that could be supposed, however indirectly, to