TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Original printed spelling and grammar is generally retained. Footnotes were renumbered and relocated to the end of the book, into a new Notes section, ahead of the Index. Original small caps font is indicated «Herein Thus». Original ‹italics, thus›. The carot symbol "^" means superscript. See ENDNOTE for more details. HARMONIES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. BY FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT. TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRD EDITION OF THE FRENCH, WITH A NOTICE OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE AUTHOR, BY PATRICK JAMES STIRLING, LL.D., F.R.S.E., AUTHOR OF “THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRADE,” “THE GOLD DISCOVERIES AND THEIR PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES,” ETC. Second Edition. EDINBURGH: OLIVER AND BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY OLIVER AND BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT. TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. The favour with which the English public has received the First Edition of this translation of Bastiat’s ‹Harmonies Économiques›, published originally in separate parts, has induced me to have the whole reprinted in a cheaper and more accessible form, in the hope of giving the work a wider circulation, and rendering it more generally useful. The first ten chapters were all that appeared in the lifetime of the gifted author, or that had the benefit of his finishing touch. It was Bastiat’s intention, had he lived, to recast the work, and to give it a wider and more comprehensive scope; embracing in his design not only the principles of Political Economy, but their applications to Social Philosophy. Prior to his departure for Italy, on what he foresaw might be his last journey, he had communicated to his friends MM. de Fontenay and Paillottet a list of the new chapters in the order in which they will be found in the subjoined Notice of his Life.[1] To the same friends, in his last moments, he entrusted the manuscripts intended for the continuation of the work. The duty thus committed to them they discharged very judiciously, by arranging the new portions in the order pointed out, without altering the text, and, except in a very few instances, without additions of their own, contenting themselves with adding some explanatory notes, consisting chiefly of references to the author’s other works. [p004] Some of the chapters thus added are unfortunately mere fragments, but most of the others indicate very clearly Bastiat’s opinions on the subjects to which they relate, and several of them display a breadth, a vigour, and an originality worthy of the best days of their lamented author.