In this manner they glided over the face of the waters, discussing
everything and settling nothing. Mr. Mac Quedy and the Reverend
Doctor Folliott had many digladiations on political economy:
wherein, each in his own view, Doctor Folliott demolished Mr. Mac
Quedy's science, and Mr. Mac Quedy demolished Dr. Folliott's
objections.

We would print these dialogues if we thought anyone would read
them; but the world is not yet ripe for this haute sagesse
Pantagrueline. We must therefore content ourselves with an
echantillon of one of the Reverend Doctor's perorations.

"You have given the name of a science to what is yet an imperfect
inquiry, and the upshot of your so-called science is this: that
you increase the wealth of a nation by increasing in it the
quantity of things which are produced by labour: no matter what
they are, no matter how produced, no matter how distributed. The
greater the quantity of labour that has gone to the production of
the quantity of things in a community, the richer is the community.
That is your doctrine. Now, I say, if this be so, riches are not
the object for a community to aim at. I say the nation is best
off, in relation to other nations, which has the greatest quantity
of the common necessaries of life distributed among the greatest
number of persons; which has the greatest number of honest hearts
and stout arms united in a common interest, willing to offend no
one, but ready to fight in defence of their own community against
all the rest of the world, because they have something in it worth
fighting for. The moment you admit that one class of things,
without any reference to what they respectively cost, is better
worth having than another; that a smaller commercial value, with