Since his return from Italy he has published at Paris a new edition of his latest production, the _Harmonies Economiques_, in which he has availed himself in so large a degree and in so discreditable a manner of the ideas of Mr. Henry C. Carey, of New Jersey, who, since he first gave to the public the essentials of M. Bastiat's performance, has himself, in a volume, entitled _The Harmony of Interests_, published some three or four months ago in Philadelphia, largely and forcibly illustrated his just and admirable doctrines. In the _Harmonies Economiques_ M. Bastiat seeks to prove that the interests of classes and individuals in society, as now constituted, are harmonious, and not antagonistic as certain schools of thinkers maintain. Commercial freedom he avers, instead of urging society toward a state of general misery, tends constantly to the progressive increase of the general abundance and well being. In sustaining this proposition M. Bastiat teaches the optimism of the socialists, and holds that injustice is not a necessary thing in human relations, that monopoly and pauperism are only temporary, and that things must come right at last. The powers of nature, the soil, vegetation, gravitation, heat, electricity, chemical forces, waters, seas, in short the globe and all the endowments with which God has enriched it, are the common property of the entire race of man, and in proportion as society advances this common property is more equally distributed and enjoyed. Capital assists men in their efforts to improve this magnificent inheritance; competition is a powerful lever with which they set in movement and render useful the gratuitous gifts of God; the social instinct leads them to make a continual exchange of services; and even now, though the powers of nature enter into these services, those who receive them pay only for the labor of their fellows, not for natural products; and the accumulation of capital constantly diminishes the rate of interest and enables the laborer to derive a greater return from his toil. M. Bastiat also gives a new definition of value, which he says is _the relation of two services exchanged_. This is all, we believe, that he _claims_ to offer as perfectly new,--the main part of his book appearing as a clearer exposition of the doctrine of Adam Smith. It will be seen that the theory of the book is infinitely superior to that of Ricardo or Malthus; it has borrowed truths from the advanced thinkers of the age; but he would be a bold critic who should affirm that it had not mingled far-reaching errors with them. * * * * *