ENCYCLOPEDIA METROPOLITANA:

OR,

System of Unibersal Knowledge :

ON A METHODICAL PLAN

PROJECTED BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

SECOND EDITION, REVISED.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

REPRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

BY

NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR, ESQ.,

LATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON AND GLASGOW:

RICHARD GRIFFIN AND COMPANY,

PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

1854.

CONTENTS.

POLITICAL ECONOMY DEFINED AS, THE SCIENCE WHICH TREATS OF THE
NATURE, THE PRODUCTION, AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH,

NATURE OF WEALTH.

WEALTH defined, as comprehending all those things, and those things

only, which are Transferable, Limited in Supply, and directly or

indirectly productive of pleasure or preventive of pain, or, to use an

equivalent expression, which are susceptible of Exchange, or, to use a

third equivalent expression, which have Value, .

Constituents of WEALTH:

3. Transferableness,

Limitation in Supply the most important,

VALUE defined as, The quality in any thing which fits it to be given and

received in Exchange,

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defined as,

Those which

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The intrinsic causes of the Value of a commodity

give to it Utility and Limit it in Supply,

The extrinsic as, Those which Limit the Supply and occasion the Utility

of the commodities for which it is to be exchanged,

Steadiness in Value depends on the permanence of the intrinsic causes

of value,

Objections to the Definition of Wealth considered,

STATEMENT OF THE FOUR ELEMENTARY PROPOSITIONS

OF THE SCIENCE:-

1. That every man desires to obtain additional Wealth with as little

sacrifice as possible.

2. That the Population of the world, or, in other words, the number of

persons inhabiting it, is limited only by moral and physical evil, or

by fear of a deficiency of those articles of wealth which the habits

of the individuals of each class of its inhabitants lead them to

require.

3. That the Powers of Labour, and of the other Instruments which

Produce Wealth, may be indefinitely increased by using their

products as the means of further production.

4. That, agricultural skill remaining the same, additional Labour

employed on the land within a given district produces in general a

less proportionate return, or, in other words, that though, with every

increase of the labour bestowed, the aggregate return is increased,

the increase of the return is not in proportion to the increase of the

labour,

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