Definitions in Political Economy, Preceded by an Inquiry Into the Rules which Ought to Guide Political Economists in the Definition and Use of Their Terms; with Remarks on the Deviation from These Rules in Their Writings

The differences of opinion among political economists have of late been a frequent subject of complaint; and it must be allowed, that one of the principal causes of them may be...

In a mathematical definition, although the words in which it is expressed may vary, the meaning which it is intended to convey is always the same. Whether a _straight_ line be d...

It will not be worth while to advert to the misnomers of the mercantile system; but the system of the French Economists was a scientific one, and aimed at precision. Yet it must...

In adverting to the terms and definitions of Adam Smith, in his “Wealth of Nations,” I think it will be found that he has less frequently and less strikingly deviated from the r...

It would lead me too far and into too many repetitions, if I were to go through the principal definitions of the continental political economists, and examine the manner in whic...

Although it must be allowed that the criterion of value which Mr. Ricardo has endeavoured to establish is an incomplete one, yet I cannot but think that he has conferred an impo...

Mr. Mill, in his _Elements of Political Economy_, professedly lays no claim to discovery. His main object seems to have been to give the substance of Mr. Ricardo’s work in a mor...

However incautious Mr. Ricardo and Mr. Mill may have been in the definition and application of their terms, I fear it will be found that Mr. Macculloch has been still more so; a...

It might be thought that I was not called upon to notice the deviations from the most obvious rules for the use of terms in a _Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Measure, and...

As a preliminary, it may be proper to state, that it seems absolutely essential to the language of political economy, that the expression _value of a commodity_, like the expres...

2. The quality of being serviceable or beneficial to mankind. The utility of an object has generally been considered as proportioned to the necessity and real importance of thes...

_Def. 1._ The reader will be aware that, in almost all definitions, the same meaning may be conveyed in different language, and that it is the meaning rather than the mode of ex...