have been observed. But, unhappily, the far larger amount of matter that has to be treated of in the province of Social and Political Economy, as in so many other departments of human investigation which men designate as the province of Science, is composed of error, the offspring of Ignorance assuming to be Knowledge, whose progeny we see and feel to be illimitable.
In adducing, reasoning upon, and explaining, the character of each error, it is indispensable that the truth discovered and established should be brought to bear in every instance. This necessitates frequent repetition, which may be as irksome in perusal to the reader as it has been in construction to the writer; but this repetition could not have been avoided, for, without it, the eradication of error could not have been accomplished.
Study, and that too consisting of arduous mental labour, is the course which he has to follow who desires and aspires to attain the summit. It is with this, as with every other department of learning, namely, that when the summit is attained, a rich reward awaits him who, rising superior to the mere pleasure of easy reading and examining, has so perseveringly and faithfully laboured as to have overcome