Introductory Lectures on Political-economy, Delivered at Oxford, in Easter Term MDCCCXXXI. With Remarks on Tithes and on Poor-laws and on Penal Colonies |
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Common terms and phrases
admitted advancement advantage advocates amount appears arts attention better Botany Bay called cause character circumstances civilized conclusions considerable convicts course crime criminals cultivation degree division of labour Earl Grey effect emancipists emigrants employed employment England evidence evil existing expected experience fact favourable greater hope human important improvement increase individuals inquiry instance interest Ireland Irish Justice Burton kind knowledge labour land least Lecture less Mandans means measure ment merely mind mode moral national wealth nature never Norfolk Island object observed offenders Penal Colonies penal labour penitentiary perhaps persons Political-Economy Poor-Law population present principles prisoners probably produce proportion proposed proved question racter reason recommend reformation regard relief remark rent respect result savage secondary punishment sense sentence settlers society South Wales subsistence supposed tendency thing thought tion Tithes Transportation truth Van Diemen's Land whole Workhouse writers
Popular passages
Page 314 - It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant: and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation; for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over4 to their country to the discredit of the plantation.
Page 128 - The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects too are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.
Page 30 - It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book to represent every passion as wholly vicious, which is so in any degree, and in any direction.
Page 131 - England the establishment of charity-schools has had an effect of the same kind, though not so universally, because the establishment is not so universal. If in those little schools the books, by which the children are taught to read, were a little more instructive than they commonly are; and if, instead of a little smattering of Latin, which the children of the common people are sometimes taught there, and which can scarce ever be of any use to them ; they were instructed in the elementary parts...
Page 128 - His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expence of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.
Page 60 - Some, indeed, of the articles consumed might be stored up in reserve for a considerable time ; but many, including most articles of animal food and many of vegetable, are of the most perishable nature. As a deficient...
Page 64 - Providence, to contemplate, not corporeal particles, but rational free agents, cooperating in systems not less manifestly indicating design, but no design of theirs ; and though acted on, not by gravitation and impulse, like inert matter, but by motives addressed to the will, yet accomplishing as regularly and as effectually an object they never contemplated, as if they were merely the passive wheels...
Page 117 - Men are liable to form an over-estimate of the purity of morals in the country as compared with a town, or in a barren and thinly-peopled as compared with a fertile and populous district. On a given area, it must always be expected that the absolute amount of vice will be greater in a town than in the country, so also will be that of virtue ; but the proportion of the two must be computed on quite different principles.
Page 164 - By a ( tendency' towards a certain result is sometimes meant, ' the existence of a cause which, if operating unimpeded, would produce that result.' In this sense it may be said with truth, that the earth, or any other body moving round a centre, has a tendency to fly off at a tangent ; i.
Page 357 - These persons, and one Campbell and the deceased Kerr, lived near Liverpool, and kept an unlicensed still, and a house to which the gangs of prisoners in their neighbourhood resorted for drink, and they were cattle-stealers (it was no slander to call them such, since they have been convicted of it).