401-51.

[293] _Political Works_, i. 485, etc. In this paper, I may add,
Cobbett, not yet a Radical, accepts Malthus's view of the tendency of
the human species to multiply more quickly than its support. He does
not mention Malthus, but speaks of the belief as universally admitted,
and afterwards illustrates it amusingly by saying that, in his
ploughboy days, he used to wonder that there was always just enough
hay for the horses and enough horses for the hay.

CHAPTER V

RICARDO

I. RICARDO'S STARTING-POINT

David Ricardo,[294] born 19th April 1772, was the son of a Dutch Jew
who had settled in England, and made money upon the Stock Exchange.
Ricardo had a desultory education, and was employed in business from
his boyhood. He abandoned his father's creed, and married an
Englishwoman soon after reaching his majority. He set up for himself
in business, and, at a time when financial transactions upon an
unprecedented scale were giving great opportunities for speculators,
he made a large fortune, and about 1814 bought an estate at Gatcombe
Park, Gloucestershire. He withdrew soon afterwards from business, and
in 1819 became member of parliament. His death on 11th September 1823
cut short a political career from which his perhaps too sanguine
friends anticipated great results. His influence in his own department
of inquiry had been, meanwhile, of the greatest importance. He had
shown in his youth some inclination for scientific pursuits; he
established a laboratory, and became a member of scientific societies.
The perusal of Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ in 1799 gave him an
interest in the application of scientific methods to the questions
with which he was most conversant. Accepting Adam Smith as the leading
authority, he proceeded to think out for himself certain doctrines,
which appeared to him to have been insufficiently recognised by his
teacher. The first result of his speculations was a pamphlet published
in 1809 upon the depreciation of the currency. Upon that topic he
spoke as an expert, and his main doctrines were accepted by the famous
Bullion Committee. Ricardo thus became a recognised authority on one
great set of problems of the highest immediate interest. Malthus's
_Inquiry into Rent_ suggested another pamphlet; and in 1817,
encouraged by the warm pressure of his friend, James Mill, he
published his chief book, the _Principles of Political Economy and
Taxation_. This became the economic Bible