Of all the branches of political knowledge, the most important, and the most applicable to the purposes of government, is that which considers the nature and the origin of wealth. It is true that the ultimate object of government, and indeed the ultimate object of every individual, is happiness. But we know that the means by which almost every man endeavours to increase his happiness, or, to use the common phrase, to better his condition, is by increasing his wealth. And to assist, or rather to protect him in doing this, is the great difficulty in government. All the fraud, and almost all the violence, for the prevention of which government is submitted to, arise from the attempts of mankind to deprive one another of the fruits of their respective industry and frugality. To counteract these attempts, a public revenue must be raised and expended; and, as I have already remarked, neither of these operations can be well executed or well judged of by persons ignorant of Political Economy. It may be added, that the desire for unjust gain, which, among savages, produces robbery and theft, assumes, among civilised nations, the less palpable forms of monopoly, combination, and privilege; abuses which, when of long standing, it requires much knowledge of general principles to detect or expose, and which it is still more difficult to remedy without occasioning much immediate injury to individuals. I think, therefore, that I may venture to say, that no study ever attracted, during an equal period, so much attention from so many minds, as has been bestowed, during the last sixty years, on Political Economy. I do not mean that this attention was acknowledged, or even that all those who have been framing and repeating theories respecting the modes in which wealth is created, increased, or diminished, have been aware that they were political economists. Most of them as little suspected it as M. Jourdain that he was speaking prose. But every country gentleman who has demanded protection to agriculture, every manufacturer who has deprecated free trade, every speculator who has called for paper currency, every one who has attacked, and almost every one who has defended, the measures of the minister for the time being, has drawn his principal arguments from Political Economy. At the same time, the avowed writers on this subject have been more numerous than those on any other science or art. If we look at our principal reviews, we shall find that a large portion of each number is dedicated to it. M. Say has been translated over and over, into every language in Europe. I have seen three different translations of his great work published in different parts of Spain. In the United States of America there are newspapers exclusively devoted to it, and it has professors in almost every university in Europe, and in North America.