THE ELEMENTS OF 1005 POLITICAL ECONOMY: BY FRANCIS WAYLAND, D. D., PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY, AND PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. THIRD EDITION. BOSTON: GOULD, KENDALL, `AND LINCOLN. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, by FRANCIS WAYLAND, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the District of Rhode Island. E. W. BARTLETT AND CO., PRINTERS, PREFACE. THE following work contains, in substance, the Lectures on Political Economy which have been delivered, for some years past, to the Senior Class in Brown University. When the Author's attention was first directed to the Science of Political Economy, he was struck with the simplicity of its principles, the extent of its generalizations, and the readiness with which its facts seemed capable of being brought into natural and methodical arrangement. At the same time, it appeared to him that the works on this subject, in general use, while they presented its doctrines truly, yet did not present them in such order as would be most likely to render them serviceable either to the general student, or to the practical merchant. This defect, for the sake of his pupils, he endeavored to supply. What he thus at first prepared for them, he now offers to the public. In how far he has succeeded, it must be left for others to decide. His object has been to write a book, which any one who chooses may understand. He has, therefore, labored to express the general principles in the plainest manner possible, and |