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Show , I I 10 JNTRODUCTION. then a point as \Vell as in the other instance though we may not kno'v ho\v to place it, \Vhere' the division of property is best suited to the actual circutnstances of the so"ciety, and calculated to give the best stin1ulus to production and to the increase of,vealth and population. It follo\vs clearly that no general rule can be laid down respecting the advantage to be derived from savino~, or the -division of property, \Vithout litnitations 5 a.nd exceptions; and it is particularly \Vorthy of attention that in cases of this kind, where the extremes are obvious and striking, but the most advantageous mean cannot be tnarkecl, that in the prooTess of • ~ b ·society euects may be produced by an unnoticed approxin1ation to this middle point, ,vhich are attributed to other causes, and lead to false conclusions. The tendency to premature generalization occasiops also, in some of the principal writers on politic_ al econon1y, an un,villingness to bring their theories to the test of experience. I should be the last person to 1ay an undue stress upon isolated facts or to think that a consistent theory, vvhich would account for the great mass of phenotnena observable, was immediately invalidated by a fevv discordant appearances, the reality and the bearino·s of ~vhich, there might .n?t have been an oppo~tuntty of fully examtntng. But certainly no theory can have any pret'ension to be accepted as correct, which is inconsistent with <reneral • b expenence. Such inconsistency appears to me at once a full and sufficient reason for its rejection. \ INTRODUCTION. 11 Under such circu1nstances it must be either radically false, or essentially incomplete ; and in either case, it can neither be adopted as a satisfactory solution of existing phenomena, nor acted upon with any degree of safety for the future. The first business of philosophy is to account for things as they are; and till our theories will do this, they ought not to be the ground of any practical conclusion. I should never have had that steady and unshaken confidence in the theory of population which I have invariably felt, if it had not appeared to n1e to be confirmed, in the most retnarkable manner, by the state of society as it actually exists in> every country \Vith "vhich we a~e acquainted. To this test I appealed in laying it down; and a frequent appeal to this sort of experience is pre-en1inently necessary in most of the subjects of political economy, where various and con1plicated causes are often in operation, the presen~ e of which can only be ascertained in this way. A theory may ·appear to be correct, and may really be correct under given pren1ises; it may further appear · that these premises are the same ·as those under 'vhich the theory is about to be applied; but a difference, which might before have been unobserved, n1ay shew itself in the difference of the results fron1 those which \vere expected; and the theory may justly be considered as failing, whe~ ther this failure arises from an original error in its formation, or from its general inapplicability, or specific misapplication, to actual circumstances. .vVhere unforeseen causes may possibly be in ope- |