An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy (Vol. 1 of 2) / Being an essay on the science of domestic policy in free nations. In which are particularly considered population, agriculture, trade, industry, money, coin, interest, circulation, banks, exchange, public credit, and taxes

by Sir James Steuart

Did I propose a plan of execution, I confess this supposition would be absurd; but as I mean nothing farther than the investigation of principles, it is no more so, than to suppose a point, a straight line, a circle, or an infinite, in treating of geometry.

Chap. II.

To prepare the way for treating this subject, in that order which the revolutions of the last centuries have pointed out as the most natural, I have made the distribution of my plan in the following order. Population and agriculture are the foundations of the whole. Civil and domestic liberty, introduced into Europe by the dissolution of the feudal form of government, set trade and industry on foot; these produced wealth and credit; these again debts and taxes; and all together established a perfectly new system of political oeconomy, the principles of which it is my intention to deduce and examine.

Population and agriculture, as I have said, must be the basis of the whole, in all ages of the world; and as they are so blended together in their connections and relations, as to make the separation of them quite incompatible with perspicuity and order, they have naturally been made the subject of the first book.

Chap. III.

I have shewn, that the first principle of multiplication is generation; the second is food: the one gives existence and life; the other preserves them.

The earth’s spontaneous fruits being of a determined quantity, never can feed above a determined number. Labour is a method of augmenting the productions of nature, and in proportion to the augmentation, numbers may increase. From these positions, I conclude,

Chap. IV.

That the numbers of mankind must ever have been in proportion to the produce of the earth; and this produce must constantly be in the compound ratio of the fertility of the soil, and labour of the inhabitants. Consequently, there can be no determined universal proportion over the world, between the number of those necessary for labouring the soil, and of those who may be maintained by its produce. Here I am led to examine the motives which may induce one part of a free people to labour, in order to feed the other.

This I shew to proceed from the different wants to which mankind are liable.