To point out that fallacy is the office rather of the political economist than of the historian.

Here it is sufficient to say that the prophets of evil were under a double delusion.

They erroneously imagined that there was an exact analogy between the case of an individual who is in debt to another individual and the case of a society which is in debt to a part of itself; and this analogy led them into endless mistakes about the effect of the system of funding.

They were under an error not less serious touching the resources of the country.

They made no allowance for the effect produced by the incessant progress of every experimental science, and by the incessant efforts of every man to get on in life.