of the St. John Longs in political life. From the time in which the
bullion question came out of Pandora's Scotch mull, parliament has been
wearied with the interminable discussions which they have raised there.
Youths who were fresh from college, and men with or without education,
who were "in the wane of their wits and infancy of their discretion,"
imbibe the radiant darkness of Jeremy Bentham, and forthwith set
themselves up as the lights of their generation. No professors, even in
the subtlest ages of scholastic philosophy, were ever more successful
in muddying what they found clear, and perplexing what is in itself
intelligible. What are wages?--this, we are told, is the most difficult
and the most important of all the branches of political economy, and
this, we are also told, has been obscured by ambiguities and fallacies.
What is rent? What is value? Upon these questions, and such as these,
which no man of sincere understanding ever proposed to himself or
others, they discuss and dilate with as much ardour and to as little
effect, as the old philosophers disputed upon the elements of the
material creation; bringing to the discussion intellects of the same
kind, though as far below them in degree as in the dignity of the
subjects upon which their useless subtlety is expended. But it cannot
be said of them, that they, when all is said,

With much discretion and great want of wit,
Leave all as wisely as it was at first;


for they mystify those readers who are not disgusted by such
ineptitudes, perplex weak minds, and pervert vain ones. Of such
discussions it may be said with the son of Sirach, that "when a man hath
done, then he beginneth; and when he leaveth off, then he shall be
doubtful."