ust men, and Perfect in the Fear of God;--and you will soon have no
more war, unless it be indeed such as is willed by Him, of whom, though
Prince of Peace, it is also written, 'In Righteousness He doth judge,
and make war.'

FOOTNOTES:

[6] I do not care to refer to the journal quoted, because the article
was unworthy of its general tone, though in order to enable the audience
to verify the quoted sentence, I left the number containing it on the
table, when I delivered this lecture. But a saying of Baron Liebig's,
quoted at the head of a leader on the same subject in the 'Daily
Telegraph' of January 11, 1866, summarily digests and presents the
maximum folly of modern thought in this respect. 'Civilization,' says
the Baron, 'is the economy of power, and English power is coal.' Not
altogether so, my chemical friend. Civilization is the making of civil
persons, which is a kind of distillation of which alembics are
incapable, and does not at all imply the turning of a small company of
gentlemen into a large company of ironmongers. And English power (what
little of it may be left), is by no means coal, but, indeed, of that
which, 'when the whole world turns to coal, then chiefly lives.'

MUNERA PULVERIS

SIX ESSAYS

ON THE ELEMENTS OF

POLITICAL ECONOMY

PREFACE.

The following pages contain, I believe, the first accurate analysis of
the laws of Political Economy which has been published in England. Many
treatises, within their scope, correct, have appeared in contradiction
of the views popularly received; but no exhaustive examination of the
subject was possible to any person unacquainted with the value of the
products of the highest industries, commonly called the "Fine Arts;" and
no one acquainted with the nature of those industries has, so far as I
know, attempted, or even approached, the task.

So that, to the date (1863) when these Essays were published, not only
the chief conditions of the production of wealth had remained unstated,
but the nature of wealth itself had never been defined. "Every one has a
notion, sufficiently correct for common purposes, of what is meant by
wealth," wrote Mr. Mill, in the outset of his treatise; and contentedly
proceeded, as if a chemist should proceed to investigate the laws of
chemistry without endeavouring to ascertain the nature of fire or water,
because every one had a notion of them, "sufficiently correct for common
purposes."

But even that apparentl