and that the result of the inquiry
might lead to practical conclusions different from those of Smith.
Very able writers, among them Henry C. Carey, had espoused the side
of protection, but for some years I had not time to read their works,
and therefore reserved my judgment until more light should appear.

Thus the matter stood until an accident impelled me to look into
the subject. About 1862 or 1863 President Thomas Hill, of Harvard
University, paid a visit to Washington. I held him in very high
esteem. He was a mathematician, and had been the favorite student of
Professor Benjamin Peirce; but I did not know that he had interested
himself in political economy until, on the occasion in question, I
passed an evening with him at the house where he was a guest. Here he
told me that in a public lecture at Philadelphia, a few evenings
before, he had informed his hearers that they had amongst them one
of the greatest philosophers of the time, Henry C. Carey. He spoke
of his works in such enthusiastic terms, describing especially his
law of the tendency of mankind to be attracted towards the great
capitals or other centres of population, that I lost no time in
carefully reading Carey's "Principles of Social Science."

The result was much like a slap in the face. With every possible
predisposition to look favorably on its teachings, I was unable to
find anything in them but the prejudiced judgments of a one-sided
thinker, fond of brilliant general propositions which really had
nothing serious to rest upon either in fact or reason. The following
parody on his method occurred to me:--

The physicians say that quinine tends to cure intermittent fever.
If this be the case, then where people use most quinine, they
will have least intermittent fever. But the facts are exactly
the opposite. Along the borders of the lower Mississippi, where
people take most quinine, they suffer most from fever; therefore
the effect of quinine is the opposite of that alleged.

I earnestly wished for an opportunity to discuss the matter further
with Mr. Hill, but it was never offered.

During the early years of the civil war, when the country was flooded
with an irredeemable currency, I was so much disturbed by what
seemed to me the unwisdom of our financial policy, that I positively
envied the people who thought it all right, and therefore were free
from mental perturbation on the subject. I at length felt that I
could keep silent no l