of the Utilitarians. The
task of a commentator or interpreter is, for various reasons, a
difficult one.

There is a certain analogy between Ricardo and a very different
writer, Bishop Butler. Each of them produced a great effect by a short
treatise, and in each case the book owed very little to the ordinary
literary graces. Ricardo's want of literary training, or his natural
difficulty of utterance, made his style still worse than Butler's;
but, like Butler, he commands our respect by his obvious sincerity and
earnestness. He is content when he has so expressed his argument that
it can be seized by an attentive reader. He is incapable of, or
indifferent to, clear and orderly exposition of principles. The logic
is there, if you will take the trouble to look for it. Perhaps we
ought to be flattered by this tacit reliance upon our patience. 'You,'
Ricardo, like Butler, seems to say to us, 'are anxious for truth: you
do not care for ornament, and may be trusted to work out the full
application of my principles.' In another respect the two are alike.
Butler's argument has impressed many readers as a demolition of his
own case. It provokes revolt instead of adhesion. Ricardo, an orthodox
economist, laid down principles which were adopted by Socialists to
upset his own assumptions. Such a God as you worship, said Butler's
opponents, is an unjust being, and therefore worse than no God. Such a
system as you describe, said Ricardo's opponents, is an embodiment of
injustice, and therefore to be radically destroyed. Admitting the
logic, the argument may be read as a _reductio ad absurdum_ in both
cases.

Ricardo has involved himself in certain special difficulties. In the
first place, he presupposes familiarity with Adam Smith. The
_Principles_ is a running comment upon some of Smith's theories, and
no attempt is made to reduce them to systematic order. He starts by
laying down propositions, the proof of which comes afterwards, and is
then rather intimated than expressly given. He adopts the terminology
which Smith had accepted from popular use,[295] and often applies it
in a special significance, which is at least liable to be
misunderstood by his readers, or forgotten by himself. It is
difficult, again, to feel sure whether some of his statements are to
be taken as positive assertions of fact, or merely as convenient
assumptions for the purposes of his argument. Ricardo himself, as
appears in his letters, was painfully aware o