New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-04-05

PYcyi6spce in the deposition OF the meat from the
SAD. and the manner in which it oxgM to be Affect
ed by the cracking Of the shell in promotion OF
mnus desire to est1 The economists Of Europe
have universally adopted the second Of hess alter
nstive.. One Of the sblest Of them, Mr.. Mil. re-
CARDS it as the essence Of their method and doc
trine Political economy" be declares. "rss-
soDs from assumed premises-from premises which
might be totally without foundation in fscr ana
which are not pretended to be universally In &C
cordsnce with it," He turns his back deiioers'ey
upon Bacon, Whewel, Herschel and Comte' ana
abiures the cspons ofinvessigadon upon which the
positive sciences have made their way rom tne de-
lusiOns Of astrolocy TO that power oil pfedic'lon
which enabled the modern astronomers to say:
"Iook On given night and in certain direction,
And You will find lie Yerriers planet. though no
human eve has ever seen it," from the dreams OF
alchemy to the brilliant certainties Of Chemistry;
from augury making divinatons from thunder On
TIE right hnld or the left to electricity and Morses
Telegraph. Mr Bowen follows aud approves, and
call the product Of such lsbors seenee.
Our Cambridge professor has, moreover, the
superlative impotence to declare that in this
way, and in the work under review, hs has
&" endeayOred TO lay the foundation OF an Amer
lean system Of Political Economy ig-
norinR the fact that there is an American school
whose distinction it is to have pursued the opposite
method; TO have started from facts, and not from
assumptions; to have made Europe ring with the
consequent explosion of dogmas long undoubtingy
accept. d by is leading economists There Is not
ord in his book to show that he ever heard oil
Carey, though his system is taught alike IN sunny
Turin and bleak Upsals, has awakened re-
eponsive echo from torpid Oxford, and is dis
cussed when mo. accepted by every professor of
ANY considerable reading or repute in France and
Germsny. IL this affectation or ignorance Which
ever il may be-, the result is blank failure to pro.
duce TN American system; and, In its stead,
patchwork adaptation Of the European system to
American Internationally little pairing ln one
place AID little eloogatiOn in another; By quail
fcstions timdly reaching toward doubt, seldom
ar never amounting to "a denial. 1t is the at
tempt to put new wine into old bottles-the ia
uiar effort of trimmers and compromlsers to
serve God upon such principles and in such fashion
as TO give the Devil no solid ground for ofense
Let us take for example the way in which
Mr. Bowen deals with the theories OF Nautilus
and Ricardo And here We are called upon
TO observe that they are not only ine1tricably
connected, 30 that one must stand or fall with
the other, but that if founded in fact they are
true examples Of Il genuine method, end con-
duct to clear, uniform aud irreversibe laws,
from which we may reason deduciively with
tie same undeniable certainty as from the propo-
sitiCns of geometry. The central falsehood OF the
Ricardan b, potbess came from the Moral Phos-
Ophy side-from specializing upon ~hat man on the
principles of human nature would probably like to
do--not from inQuiriDg what the physical consutu-
tin of TIE world left it in his pOrer to do, or from
observing historically what he had in fact done, or
eeogI spbically what be is now doing. But if it
be true in point of fact that men, in the occupation
and cultivation Of the earth, begin with the best
soils and the best situations, and proceed as they
are driven by the growth Of population to those
inferior in fertility aud location, it then follows
ircxornbg that ifpopuation Increases the progress
If the race must be q steady declension toward
destitution, misery and yice-that rent must con-
tinualy absorb more and more from profits and
wages-tbat the inequality of wealth and power
must be progressively exaggerated aud feudal
sristocracy establishes more firmly as IFS grinding
force increases and the power of resistance is ex-
hausted If it be So population must tend to out
run subsistence. The rate is immateral; whether
YOU give the fgures in series diminishing by
fixed law, enc value or another, the final result Is
nothing distinctive But if the fact is the reverse
o, that imagined by Ricardo, consequences directly
the contrary follow, and the progress of mankind
toward well being, equality, aud democracy, is not
vague hope. but al abiding law.
Mr. Bowen states "toe two great facts which
Constitute complete refutaticn of Malthusianism'
thus:
The fret is that the limit Of population 10 any
country whatever is not the number of people which
the so,i of that country alone will supply with food.
hut the number which the surface OF tue whole earth
is capable Of feeding and II is matter OF denonstra,
tion that his limit cannot even be approached
IN, many ctntures London taxes all the
counties Of England for sustenance; England taxes
all the countries of the eArth for sustenance; cannot
zee any difference in the TWO cases.
Tlen, secondly, l LAY that the practical or actual
limit 10 the growth of population IN every country
tie limit 10 the increase and distribution not Of food
but of wealth. Among civilized men in modern times
famine II created not by any absolute deficiency IN
the supply OF cOd but because the poorer clss-e have
no money TO buy it with. As every human being Is
sn implement for the production of wealth, means
Of eplarging the aggregate national product or the
amount OF exchsngeabe values belonging to a nation.
tie increase of population il not of scarcity Of
food but preventative against it, Ii ,kes no diff
ference whether the of the people engaged in
hammeiug iron, spinning cotton, or raising wheat for
the produC, in each of these either food or Is
exckangeabe for food which amounts to precisely the
Ting.
This is q mere lodging of the question, for Nal