Preface.) (A new edition of “The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty,” edited by Chas. Henry Hull, has been published by the University Press at Cambridge, 1899. The above passage will be found in vol. I., p. 244. The further references are given to this new, more accessible edition. Translator.) His wonderful keenness shows itself e. g. in the proposal to transport “all the moveables and people of Ireland, and of the Highlands of Scotland ... into the rest of Great Britain.” Thereby much labor-time would be saved, the productivity of labor increased, and “the King and his Subjects would thereby become more Rich and Strong.” (Political Arithmetick, ch. 4, p. 285.) Or in the chapter of his Political Arithmetic in which he proves that England’s mission is the conquest of the world’s market at a time when Holland still played the leading part as a trading nation and France seemed to be on the way of becoming the ruling trading Power: “That the King of England’s Subjects, have Stock competent and convenient, to drive the Trade of the whole Commercial World” (l. c., ch. 10, p. 311). “That the Impediments of England’s greatness are but contingent and removable” (l. c., ch. 5, p. 298). A singular humor pervades all his writings.