HB 
 35 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 Class 
 
THE 
 
 PRESENT POSITION & PROSPECTS 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY: 
 
 THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 THE SECTION OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 
 OF THE 
 
 ttiiish J^socjation far 
 
 AT ITS MEETING AT DUBLIN IK 1 
 
 THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION, 
 
 JOHN K. INGRAM, LL.D., F.T.C.D.,' M.E.I. A., 
 
 of ijjc Statistical anb Social Jnquirji Sccif 
 
 REVISED, WITH NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 
 
 
 
 LONDON : LONGMANS & CO., PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 DUBLIN : E. PONSONBY, GRAFTON-STREET. 
 
 1878 
 
 Price One Shilling. 
 
THE PRESENT POSITION AND PROSPECTS 
 
 OF 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
THE PRESENT POSITION AND PEOSPECTS 
 
 OF 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY: 
 
 THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED IN* 
 
 THE SECTION OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 
 OF THE 
 
 Jl8S0j5iati0n for tfy Jitettcm^nt 
 
 AT ITS MEETING AT DUBLIN IN 1878, 
 
 BY 
 THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION, 
 
 JOHN K. INGRAM, LL.D., F.T.C.D., M.R.I.A., 
 
 tbent of i^t Statistical anb Social ^nqtiiru SsocirtD of Ireland. 
 
 REVISED, WITH NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 
 
 LONDON : LONGMANS & CO., PATEKNOSTEK-ROW. 
 DUBLIN : E. PONSONBY, GRAFTON-STREET. 
 
 187~8 
 
GENERAL 
 
ADDBESS. 
 
 HAD I been called upon at any other time to preside over this section, I 
 should have folio wed the example of most of my predecessors, in select- 
 ing as the subject of the discourse which it is usual to deliver from this 
 chair, some one of the special economic questions of the day, which 
 niy knowledge might have enabled me most adequately, or, let me 
 rather say, least inadequately to treat. But I have felt that the mat- 
 ter with which I should deal has been practically determined for me 
 beforehand. An important crisis in the history of our section has 
 taken place. Its claim to form a part of the British Association has 
 been disputed. Some of the cultivators of the older branches of 
 research but half recognise the right of Political Economy and Sta- 
 tistics to citizenship in the commonwealth of science, and it is not 
 obscurely intimated on their part that these studies would do well to 
 relinquish pretensions which cannot be sustained, and proceed, with 
 or without shame, to take the lower room to which alone they are 
 entitled. 
 
 How far this sentiment is entertained by those who would be 
 recognised as the best representatives of the mathematical, physico- 
 chemical, and biological sciences, I am unable to say. But it is 
 natural to suppose that no one clothed with an official character in 
 the Association could have assumed towards us such an attitude as I 
 have described, unless supported by a considerable weight of opinion 
 amongst those within the body who are regarded as competent judges. 
 Still more and this is what lends a peculiar gravity to the incident 
 such a step could scarcely have been taken if the general mass of 
 the intelligent public entertained strong convictions as to the genu- 
 inely scientific character of political economy, as it is usually professed 
 and understood amongst us. It is, in fact, well known that there is ' 
 a good deal of scepticism current on this question. There may be 
 seen in various quarters evidences sometimes of contemptuous rejec- 
 tion of its claims, sometimes of uneasy distrust as to their validity. 
 And even amongst those who admit its services in the past, there is a 
 disposition to regard it as essentially effete, and as having no scien- 
 tific or practical future before it. 
 
 When some of our leading economists met not long ago to celebrate 
 the centenary of the publication of the Wealth of Nations, it was 
 plain from the tone of most of the speakers that the present position 
 
 169972 
 
of their studies, as regards their general acceptation and public in- 
 fluence, was considered to be far from satisfactory. 
 
 "To those who are interested in economic science," says a recent 
 writer in Mind, 1 " few tilings are more noticeable, than the small hold 
 which it has upon the thoughts of our generation. Legislation has 
 been directly influenced by it in the past, and the results of the ap- 
 plication of its doctrines are manifest in every department of our laws ; 
 yet in spite of its triumph in this region, we find a widespread ten- 
 dency to look on its teaching with suspicion." 
 
 "I seem to observe," said Professor Cairnes in 1870,2 "in the lit- 
 erature and social discussions of the day, signs of belief that political 
 economy has ceased to be a fruitful speculation ; nay, I fear I must 
 go further and admit that it is regarded by some energetic minds in 
 this country as even worse than unfruitful as obstructive a posi- 
 tive hindrance in the path of useful reform. . . It is not denied 
 that the science has done some good ; only it is thought that its task 
 is pretty well fulfilled." 
 
 The attitude which the working classes generally take up with 
 respect to political economy, may be seen from Mr. HowelTs candid 
 and instructive book on the Conflicts of Capital and Labour.' 3 
 
 Professor Jevons has recognised quite recently the state ot facts 
 indicated by these testimonies, though he has no misgiving as to 
 any grounds for it in the current methods or doctrines of political 
 economy; if the public do not like the science, so much the worse, 
 he thinks, for the public "the fact is,' ; he says, "that just as 
 physical science was formerly hated, so now there is a kind of igno- 
 rant dislike and impatience of political economy." 
 
 It is plain, therefore, that the low estimate of the studies of our 
 section which is entertained by some members of the Association, is 
 no isolated phenomenon, but is related to a mass of opinion outside 
 the body that in fact the crisis which, as I have said, has shown 
 itself in the Association with respect to our section, is only the coun- 
 terpart, in a more limited sphere, of a crisis in the history of economic 
 science, which is apparent on the face of English and, as I shall point 
 out by and by, not of English only, but of European thought. It is 
 important to understand the origin and significance of this state 
 of things; and to that subject, accordingly, I purpose to direct your 
 attention. 
 
 We must take care to distinguish, at the outset, between two views 
 which are sometimes confounded namely, between the opinion that 
 economic facts do not admit of scientific investigation, and the quite 
 different opinion that the hitherto prevailing mode of studying those 
 facts is unsatisfactory, and many of the current generalizations re- 
 specting them unsound. That economic phenomena are capable of 
 scientific treatment is a proposition which I do not intend to spend 
 
 1 Rev. W. Cunningham, in a remarkable article, entitled " Political Economy 
 as a Moral Science," published in Mind of July, 1878. 
 
 2 Introductory Lecture delivered in University College, November, 1870, 
 reprinted under the title " Polititical Economy and Laissez faire," in his Essays 
 on Political Economy, Theoretical and Applied. See pp. 238-240 of that volume. 
 
 3 London, 1878. 
 
time in demonstrating. It is comprehended in the more general 
 question of the possibility of a scientific Sociology, and any one who 
 disputes it will have enough to do in combating the arguments by 
 which Comte, and Mill, and Herbert Spencer have established that 
 possibility. Nor do I intend to waste words in showing that, if 
 there be a science of society, no other branch of investigation can 
 compete with it in importance or in dignity. It has the most 
 momentous influence of all on human welfare. It receives contri- 
 butions from all other departments of research whether in the ascer- 
 tainment of results to be used for its purposes, or in the elaboration 
 of methods to be applied in its inquiries. It presides, in fact, over 
 the whole intellectual system an office which some, mistaking the 
 foundation for the crown of the edifice, have claimed for mathe- 
 matics. It is the most difficult of all the sciences, because it is that 
 in which the phenomena dealt with are most complex and depen- 
 dent on the greatest variety of conditions, and in which, accordingly, 
 appearances are most deceitful, and error takes the most plausible 
 forms. That the professors of the more stably because earlier con- 
 stituted branches of knowledge should ignore the claims of this great 
 department of inquiry would be doubly disastrous first, by leaving 
 the scientific system without its necessary completion in a true 
 theory of the highest and most important class of phenomena acces- 
 sible to our researches ; and secondly, by tending, so far as prejudice 
 and misconception can temporarily produce such an effect, to hand 
 over to minds of insufficient power, and destitute of the necessary 
 preparation, studies which, more than any others, require a strong 
 intelligence, disciplined in the methods and furnished with the re- 
 sults of the sciences of inorganic and organic nature. There is, in 
 my judgment, no duty more incumbent in our day on the professors 
 of these last, than that of recognising the claims of Sociology, whilst 
 at the same time enforcing on its cultivators the necessity of conform- 
 ing to the genuine scientific type. Yet it is now sought to expel 
 from this Association, which ought to represent the harmonious union 
 of all positive research, the very limited and inadequate portion of 
 the science of society which has ever found recognition in its scheme. 
 I assume, then, that economic phenomena are proper subjects for 
 scientific treatment. This I imagine the public at large are not disposed 
 to doubt, though they may not repose much confidence in the methods 
 actually followed. But, strangely enough, a professor of political 
 economy has recently disputed the possibility, or at least the utility, 
 of a scientific handling of economic questions. Professor Bonamy 
 Price, of the University of Oxford, who has published a volume 4 
 in which several of those questions are handled with much ability 
 and freshness of treatment, not only repudiates a scientific character 
 for his own inquiries, but alleges the scientific method to be a mis- 
 take. According to him, ordinary people are right in believing that 
 they can arrive at truth on these questions by the aid of their 
 natural lights, by their untrained sagacity that they can take a 
 shorter and far clearer path through their own observations, than 
 
 * Chapters on Practical Political Economy. London, 1878. 
 
8 
 
 through what he calls " the tangled jungle of scientific refinements." 
 In plain terms, he is in favour of relegating the study of economic phe- 
 nomena to the domain of empiricism to what is called the common 
 sense of practical men. 
 
 A more fatal suggestion could not, in my judgment, be made. 
 I shall have to express the opinion, that the prevalent methods of 
 economic research and exposition are open to grave criticism. ; but 
 how can this be remedied by throwing ourselves on the undiscip- 
 lined and random inspirations of so-called common sense ? It was 
 "common sense" that long upheld the mercantile system ; and indeed 
 there is scarcely any error that it has not, at different times, accepted 
 and propagated. What security can there be in this as in other 
 branches of inquiry against endless aberrations and confusions, but 
 systematic observation and analysis of the phenomena, resulting in 
 a body of ascertained and reasoned truth; and what is this but 
 science? I am forced to say that Professor Price seems to me to 
 labour under radical misconception as to the nature and conditions 
 of science. Because the facts of the production and distribution of 
 wealth have always gone on spontaneously amongst mankind, and 
 definite modes of social action with respect to them have progressively 
 established themselves, economic investigation, he argues, adding 
 nothing to what men have with more or less sagacity and intelligence 
 always practised, cannot be regarded as having the nature of a science. 
 But it might be similarly shown that there is no science of human 
 nature, for the intellectual processes, the feelings, and the practical 
 tendencies of man have always been similar ; they have not waited 
 for science to develop themselves and pass into action ; rather their 
 long continued spontaneous action was the necessary condition of 
 the science that studies them. So, too, with respect to all human 
 action on external nature practice always must precede theory ; art, 
 more or less intelligent, must precede science. Science is simply the 
 ascertainment and co-ordination of laws ; a law is the statement of 
 a general fact ; we explain a particular fact by showing thai it is a 
 case of a more general fact. Now, from the beginning to the end of 
 his own book, Professor Price is endeavouring to ascertain such 
 general facts, and to explain particular facts by means of them in 
 other words, he is busied upon science without knowing it. He 
 rests much of the importance of economic studies, which he regards 
 as essentially practical, on their efficacy for uprooting the evil weed 
 of false theory ; but theory of some sort will always be necessary. 
 On ne detruit que ce qv? on remplace; and the only way of extin- 
 guishing false theory is to establish the true. 
 
 I therefore repudiate the doctrine of Professor Price, and I hold by 
 the truth, which has indeed now become a philosophic commonplace, 
 that social phenomena generally, and amongst yiem the economic 
 phenomena of society, do admit of scientific treatment. But I 
 believe, though on different grounds from his, that the mode in 
 which the study of these phenomena has been conceived and prose- 
 cuted in the hitherto reigning school, is open to serious objections ; 
 and the decline in the credit and influence of political economy, 
 of which I have spoken, appears to me to be in a large measure 
 
due to the vicious methods followed by its teachers. The dis- 
 trust of its doctrines manifested by the working classes is no 
 doubt in a great degree owing to the not altogether unfounded 
 belief, that it has tended to justify too absolutely existing social 
 arrangements, and that its study is often recommended with the real, 
 though disguised, object of repressing popular aspirations after a 
 better order of things. And it is doubtless true that some of the 
 opposition which political economy encounters, is founded on the 
 hostility of selfish interests, marshalled against the principles of 
 free-trade, of which it is regarded as the representative.- But it 
 is not with manifestations of this kind, which belong to politics 
 rather than philosophy, that I am now chiefly concerned. It is more 
 appropriate to this place to point to the growing coldness or distrust 
 exhibited by the higher intellects towards political economy, a fact 
 which lies on the surface of things, and shows itself everywhere in 
 contemporary literature. The egoistic spirit in which it is steeped may 
 explain the continued protest which Carlyle and Euskin have, mainly 
 as moral preachers, maintained against it though that very spirit is, 
 as I shall show, closely connected with vicious method. But what 
 are we to say of Miss Martineau's final judgment? Speaking in her 
 Autobiography 5 of that part of her career in which, as Professor Jevons 
 says, " she successfully popularized the truths of political economy 
 in her admirable tales," she tells us that what she then took to be the 
 science of political economy as elaborated by the economists of our 
 time, she had come to regard as being no science at all, strictly speak- 
 ing. "So many of its parts," she adds, "must undergo essential 
 change, that it may be a question whether future generations will 
 owe much more to it than the benefit (incalculable to be sure) of es- 
 tablishing the grand truth, that social affairs proceed according to 
 great general laws, no less than natural phenomena of every kind." 
 Here is a conclusion resting essentially on intellectual, not moral, 
 grounds ; and I presume Professor Jevons will not explain it as a 
 result of ignorant impatience. 
 
 But it is no longer necessary to consider scattered indications of 
 the feeling of eminent individualities on this matter, for of late years 
 the growing dissatisfaction has risen to the dimensions of a Euro- 
 pean revolt, whose organs have appeared not in the ranks of general 
 literature, but within the sphere of economic investigation itself. It 
 is a characteristic result of the narrowness and spirit of routine 
 which have too much prevailed in the dominant English school of 
 economists, that they are either unacquainted with, or have chosen 
 to ignore, this remarkable movement. 
 
 The largest and most combined manifestation of the revolt has 
 been in Germany, all whose ablest economic writers are in opposition 
 to the methods anU doctrines of the school of Eicardo. Eoscher, 
 Knies, Hildebrand, Nasse, Brentano, Held, Schmoller, Schaffle, 
 Schonberg, Samter, and others, have taken up this attitude. In 
 Italy a group of distinguished writers, amongst whom are named 
 Luzzatti, Fortij and Lampertico, follow the same direction, and have 
 
 5 Vol. ii., p. 244. 
 
10 
 
 a special organ in which they advocate their views. In Denmark a 
 similar scientific evolution is in progress, chiefly under the leading 
 of Frederiksen. The eminent Belgian publicist, M. de Laveleye, has 
 done much to call attention to these new tendencies of economic doc- 
 trine, in which he himself participates. 6 In England a corresponding 
 movement, by no means imitative, but on the contrary, highly original 
 in character, is represented by Mr. Cliffe Leslie, whom I mention with 
 pride as an alumnus of this University. In France, the new direc- 
 tion is not so marked in the economic world, strictly so called, though 
 in that country it really first appeared. For the vices of the old school 
 which have led to the development of the new, were powerfully stated 
 more than forty years ago by a French thinker, who is too little studied 
 by the mass of his countrymen, ^Auguste Comte, the greatest master 
 who has ever treated of sociological method. How far the Germans 
 may have been led by national prejudice to ignore his influence in the 
 formation of their views, I will not undertake to say ; but there is 
 no doubt of the fact that the tendencies they have sought to impress 
 on economic studies are largely in accordance with the teaching on 
 that subject contained in his Philosophic Positive.^] 
 
 In the admirable chapters of that work, in which he described the 
 normal conditions and method of social science, whilst paying a warm 
 tribute to the merits of Adam Smith, he criticised what he considered 
 the aberrations of the later political economists. The late Professor 
 Cairnes, of whom, as a member of this University, we are justly 
 proud, and whom, even when I differ from him, I name with all the 
 respect due to an able and earnest w searcher after truth, attempted an 
 answer to some of these strictures of Comte, which again elicited 
 a reply from Mr. Frederic Harrison. 7 Considering the criticisms 
 of the great Frenchman to have been perfectly just when he wrote 
 them, and only requiring a certain correction now in view of the 
 healthier tendencies apparent in several quarters since his work was 
 published, (fshall dwell at some length on the several grounds of his 
 censures^ stating and illustrating them in my own way,^ which will 
 differ considerably from the mode of treatment which they received 
 in the controversy to which I have referred. [Jhose grounds, though 
 by him nowhere formally enumerated, are essentially reducible to four, 
 having relation first, to the attempt to isolate the study of the facts 
 of wealth from that of the other social phenomena ; secondly, to the 
 metaphysical or viciously abstract character of many of the concep- 
 tions of the economists; thirdly, to the abusive preponderance of 
 deduction in their processes of research; and fourthly, to the too 
 absolute way in which their conclusions are conceived and enunciated., 
 It will be found that these heads cannot be kept strictly apart, but 
 run into each other at several points. The separation of them will, 
 however, serve to give distinctness and order to the discussion. 
 
 6 See his article "Les Tendances Nouvelles de 1'Economie Politique et du 
 Socialisme," in the Revue des deux Mondes of July 15, 1875. 
 
 7 Professor Cairnes' article, " M. Comte and Political Economy," appeared in 
 the Fortnightly Review of May, 1870, and is reprinted in his Essays on Political 
 Economy. Mr. Harrison's Essay was published in the Fortnightly Revieiv for 
 July of the same year. 
 
11 
 
 I. The first objection is, as I have stated, to the pretension of the 
 economists to isolate the special phenomena they study, the econo- 
 mic phenomena of society, from all the rest its material aspect from 
 its intellectual, moral, and political aspects, and to constitute an inde- 
 pendent science, dealing with the former alone, to the exclusion of 
 the latter. This question as to the relation of economic studies to 
 the general body of human knowledge, is really the most radical and 
 vital that can be raised respecting them, and on it more than on any 
 other depends, in my opinion, the future of these studies. 
 
 It is sometimes sought to get rid of this question in a very sum- 
 mary manner, and to represent those who raise it either as weakly 
 sentimental persons who shrink from studying the conditions of 
 wealth apart, because there are better and higher things than wealth ; 
 or as persons of confused intellect, who wish to mix together things 
 which are essentially different in their nature. On the former of 
 these imputations it is unnecessary to dwell. I am far from under- 
 valuing sentiment in its proper sphere ; but I take up no sentimental 
 ground on the present question. In denying the propriety of isolating 
 economic investigation, I appeal to considerations derived from the 
 philosophy of science. The second allegation is therefore the only 
 one with which I am now concerned. 
 
 In a recent elementary treatise on political economy, by a well-known 
 writer, it is argued : " We must do one thing at a time ; we cannot 
 learn the social sciences all at the same time. No one objects to 
 astronomy that it treats only of the stars, or to mathematics that it 
 treats only of numbers and quantities. . . There must be many 
 physical sciences, and there must be also many social sciences, and 
 each of these sciences must treat of its own proper subject, and not 
 of things in general." 
 
 But a little consideration will show that these remarks touch only 
 the outside of the question. Of course we must do only one thing 
 at a time. Only one out of several branches of a subject can be con- 
 sidered at a time; but they are yet branches of a single subject, 
 and the relations of the branches may be precisely the most impor- 
 tant thing to be kept in view respecting them. It might be said : "It 
 is important, no doubt, that plant life and animal life should both 
 be understood ; but zoology and botany are different sciences ; let 
 them be studied apart ; let a separate class of savants be appropriated 
 to each, and every essential end is secured." But what says Professor 
 Huxley, in unison with all the most competent opinion on the sub- 
 ject 1 " The study of living bodies is really one discipline, which is 
 divided into zoology and botany simply as a matter of convenience." 8 
 They are, in fact, branches from the common stem of biology, and 
 neither can be rightly conceived without bearing this in mind. Now 
 I maintain that for still stronger reasons the several branches of 
 social science must be kept in the closest relation. 
 
 Another biological analogy will place these reasons in the clearest 
 light. When we pass from the study of the inorganic world to that 
 of the organic, which presupposes and succeeds to the former, we 
 
 8 Preface to Elementary Biology. London, 1875. 
 
12 
 
 come upon the new idea of a living whole, with definite structures 
 appropriated to special actions, but all influencing one another, and 
 co-operating to one result the healthy life of the organism. Here, 
 then, it is plain that we cannot isolate the study of one organ from 
 that of the rest, or of the whole. We cannot break up the study of 
 the human body into a number of different sciences, dealing respec- 
 tively with the different organs and functions, and, instead of a 
 human anatomy and physiology, construct a cardiology, a hepatology, 9 
 an enterology. It is not of course meant that special studies of 
 particular organs and functions may not be undertaken that they 
 may not be temporarily and provisionally separated from each other 
 in our researches ; but the fact insisted on is, that it is essential to 
 keep in view their relations and interactions, and that therefore they 
 must be treated as forming part of the subject matter of one and the 
 same science. And what is thus true of theory is also true of practice 
 the physician who had studied only one organ and its function 
 would be very untrustworthy even in the therapeutics of that organ. 
 He who treats every disease as purely local, without regard to the 
 general constitution, is a quack; and he who ignores the mutual 
 action of the physique and the moral in disease, is not properly a 
 physician, but a veterinary. 
 
 These considerations are just as applicable, mutatis mutandis, to 
 the study of society, which is in so many respects kindred to biology. 
 The most characteristic fact about what is well called the social 
 system, is the consensus of its different functions ; and the treatment 
 of these functions as independent, is sure to land us in theoretic and 
 practical error. There is one great science of Sociology ; its several 
 chapters study the several faces of social existence. One of these faces 
 is that of the material well-being of society, its industrial constitution 
 and development. The study of these phenomena is one chapter of 
 sociology, a chapter which must be kept in close relation with the rest. 
 
 The justice of this view is clearly seen when we consider the two- 
 fold aspect of sociology as statical and dynamical that is, as dealing 
 on the one hand with laws of coexistence, and on the other with 
 laws of succession. [As in biology we have, alongside of the theory 
 of the constitution and actions of an organism, the further theory 
 of its development in time ; so in sociology we have, beside the doc- 
 trine of the constitution and actions of society, the doctrine of its 
 evolution from a primitive to a higher condition^ Now nothing 
 is plainer than that in the 'course of the human evolution the 
 several social elements did not follow separate and independent pro- 
 cesses of growth. The present economic state, for example, of the 
 nations of western Europe as a group, or of any individual one 
 amongst them, is the result of a great variety of conditions, many 
 of them not in their own nature economical at all. Scientific, moral, 
 religious, political ideas and institutions have all concurred in deter- 
 
 9 Some phrases in this sentence coincide remarkably with those used in a 
 similar connection in an article by Dr. J. H. Bridges in the Fortnightly Review 
 for July, 1878, entitled, " The Place of Sociology." The passage was, however, 
 written before I saw that excellent essay, which I earnestly recommend to the 
 study of my readers. 
 
13 
 
 mining it. But if they worked in this manner in the past, it follows 
 that they are working so in the present. : Jt is therefore impossible 
 rationally to conceive or explain the industrial economy of society 
 without taking into account the other coexisting social factors^ 
 
 In nothing is the eminent superiority of Adam Smith more clearly 
 seen than in his tendency to comprehend and combine in his inves- 
 tigations all the different aspects of social phenomena. Before the 
 term "social science" had been spoken or written, it could not be 
 expected that he should have conceived adequately the nature and 
 conditions of that branch of inquiry, much less founded it on defi- 
 nitive bases a task which was to be achieved more than fifty years 
 later by the genius of Comte. But he proceeded as far in this 
 direction as it was possible to do under the intellectual conditions of 
 his time, ^tn his Theory of Moral Sentiments he promises to give 
 in another discourse " an account of the general principles of law and 
 government, and of the different revolutions they have undergone in 
 the different ages and periods of society, not only in what concerns 
 justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and what- 
 ever else is the subject of law." Here is no separation of politics, 
 jurisprudence, and political economy, but rather an anticipation, 
 wonderful for his period, of general sociology, both statical and 
 dynamicaQ-an anticipation which becomes more extraordinary still, 
 when we "learn from his literary executors that he had formed the 
 plan of a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts, 
 which would have supplied, in addition to the social aspects already 
 mentioned, a view of the intellectual progress of society. Of this 
 last undertaking there remains to us only the remarkable essay on 
 the history of astronomy, which is evidence at once of his thorough 
 acquaintance with that branch of science, and of his profound philo- 
 sophical conceptions on the nature of scientific inquiry in general. 
 The other project too was never fully carried out ; it may well be 
 thought because it was essentially premature. RThe Wealth of Na- 
 tions is in fact a part of that larger design] and though in this work 
 he has for his main subject the economic phenomena of society, he 
 has incorporated into it so much that relates to the other social aspects 
 that he has on this very ground been censured by some of the later 
 economists. Mill, however, who of all his English successors was 
 the most large-minded and the best equipped in respect of general cul- 
 ture, has recognised it as the great characteristic excellence of Smith 
 that, " in his applications of political economy, he perpetually appeals 
 to other and b/ten far larger considerations than pure political eco- 
 nomy affords." x In consequence of this admirable breadth of view, 
 the study of the work of Adam Smith is, I believe, more fitted 
 than that of the writings of any other economist, to cultivate in 
 theorists a philosophic, and in practical men a statesmanlike, habit 
 of mind. 
 
 In striking contrast with this spirit of the master is the affectation, 
 habitual in his followers, of ignoring all considerations except the 
 strictly economic, though in doing so they often pass over agencies 
 
 10 Preface to the Principles of Political Economy. 
 
14 
 
 which have important effects on material well-being. Thus, when 
 Senior is led to make some observations of the utmost impor- 
 tance and interest, on the very doubtful advantage to a labouring 
 family of the employment of the mother and the children in non- 
 domestic work, he thinks it necessary to apologise for having intro- 
 duced such remarks, as not, perhaps, strictly within the province of 
 political economy. And when he finds himself similarly induced to 
 observe on the evils of severe and incessant labour, and the benefits 
 of a certain degree of leisure subjects so momentous to working 
 men, and closely connected with their material as well as moral 
 condition he pauses and corrects himself, admitting that he should 
 not only be justified in omitting, but perhaps was bound to omit, all 
 considerations which have no influence on wealth. * x This is the very 
 pedantry of purism ; and the purism is not merely exaggerated, it is 
 really altogether out of place. Mill, though, as I believe, he did not 
 occupy firm ground in relation to the constitution of social science, 
 is free from any such narrowness as this: "For practical purposes," 
 he says, " political economy is inseparably intertwined with many 
 other branches of social philosophy. Except on matters of mere 
 detail, there are perhaps no practical questions, even among those 
 which approach nearest to the character of purely economical ques- 
 tions, which admit of being decided on economical premises alone." 
 This is true ; but it is only part of the truth. For purposes of theory 
 as well as of practice, the several branches of social inquiry are in- 
 separably intertwined; and this larger proposition Mill in another 
 place has stated with all the desirable fulness of enunciation, de- 
 claring that " we can never understand in theory or command in 
 practice the condition of a society in any one respect, without taking 
 into consideration its condition in all other respects." 12 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding this ample admission, he appears to exhibit 
 some uncertainty of view with respect to the relation of economic stu- 
 dies to general sociology; at least after repeated careful examination 
 of all that he has written on the subject, I confess myself unable to 
 understand exactly the position he occupies. Sometimes x 3 he speaks 
 of political economy as being a department "carved ; ' (to use his own 
 expression) "out of the general body of the science of society; 7 ' and 
 again 1 4 he speaks of it as belonging to a subordinate order of specula- 
 tion to that with which the science of society is conversant proposing 
 to itself a quite different sort of question, and supplying only a sort of 
 knowledge sufficient for the more common exigencies of daily political 
 practice. The latter view is apparently reflected in the title of his 
 economical treatise, which is called Principles of Political Economy, 
 ivith some of their Applications to Social Philosophy, a phrase which 
 seems to imply that political economy is not a part of social phil- 
 osophy at all, but is preparatory and ancillary to it. P^nd it is inter- I 
 esting to observe that it was from this point of view of the study, as 
 preliminary only and intended to prepare the way and provide 
 
 11 Senior's Political Economy, separate edition, 1850; pp. 152 and 148. 
 i a Preface to his Political Economy; &nd System of Logic (6th ed.) vol. ii., p. 488. 
 1 3 Logic, ii., p. 496. 
 1 * /&., ii., p. 509. 
 
15 
 
 materials for a true science of society, that Comte, in his correspon- 
 dence with Mill, encouraged the latter in his project of a special 
 treatise on political economy. **J 
 
 The ground which the economists commonly take up in justifying 
 their one-sided attitude, is this : they announce that their treatment 
 of every question is partial and incomplete, and that for a real solu- 
 tion all the other elements involved must be taken into account. 
 Political economy, Professor Cairnes tells us, 1 6 is absolutely neutral as 
 between all particular schemes and systems of social or industrial life. 
 It furnishes, he tells us, certain data that go towards the formation 
 of a sound opinion, but can never determine our final judgment on 
 any social question. Now this systematic indifferentism amounts to 
 an entire paralysis of political economy as a social power capable of 
 producing or confirming in the mass of the community just convic- 
 tions on the most important of all subjects. How, it may well be asked, 
 are sufficiently fixed and convergent opinions on such matters to be 
 generated in the public mind ? How are the scattered lights, sup- 
 plied by the several partial and one-sided studies of human affairs, to 
 be combined, so as to convey social truth to the understanding, and 
 impress its practical consequences on men's consciences ? These 
 queries bring into the clearest light the doctrine I wish to commend 
 to your attention namely, that what is wanted for this purpose is a 
 study of social questions from all the points of view that really be- 
 long to them, so as to attain definite and matured conclusions res- 
 pecting them in other words, a scientific sociology, comprehending 
 true economic doctrine, but comprehending also a great deal more. 
 Even on the special subjects in which purely economic considerations 
 go for most, it will not do to take into account those considerations 
 only. Professor Fawcett, in his recent timely and useful treatise on 
 Free- trade and Protection, finds that he cannot restrict himself, in the 
 treatment of that question, to the economic point of view. "As com- 
 plaints," he says, "are constantly made by protectionists that their 
 opponents persistently ignore all the results of protection which are 
 not economic, I will be careful to consider those results." 1 7 And he 
 goes on to maintain the proposition, in which I entirely concur, that 
 protection may produce social and political consequences, even far 
 more mischievous than the economic loss it causes to a country. I 
 
 1 5 " .Te persiste a regarder votre projet de traite* sur 1' economic industrielle 
 comme une tres-heureuse et fort opportune tentative d'attirer a la nouvelle phi- 
 losophic une classe d'esprits estimables qui, tendant avec nergie vers la forma- 
 tion de la vraie science sociale, n'ont besoin, a cet egard, que d' etre mieux 
 dirigees ; en attendant, ils preservent le public, a leur maniere, du pur empi- 
 risme sociologique, qui serait bien plus dangereux. Ainsi pre'sente'e, ou dumoins 
 concue, avec la destination purement preliminaire et 1'office provisoire que lui 
 assigne I'ensemble de Pappre'ciation historique, 1'e'conomie politique perd ses prin- 
 cipaux dangers actuels, et peut devenir fort utile; car les sympathies qu'elle 
 excite encore, sans etre cornmune'inent fort e'claire'es, ont certainement un carac- 
 tere progressif." Lettres d' Auguste Comte a John Stuart Mill, p. 254. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that, for personal reasons, the letters of Mill to 
 Comte are still withheld from the public. For the influence exercised on Mill 
 by the Philosophic Positive, see Lettres d? Auguste Comte, p. 4. 
 
 16 Essays in Political Economy, p. 256. 
 11 Pages 80, 8 1. 
 
16 
 
 believe that the most effective weapons against this and other eco- 
 nomic errors will often be found in reasons not based on material inter- 
 ests, but derived from a consideration of the higher ends of society, 
 and the ideal of the collective life of the race. And, a fortiori, when we 
 have to deal with the larger economic subjects, now rapidly increas- 
 ing in urgency, which are more immediately in contact with moral 
 conceptions, these questions of the ultimate ends of the social union 
 cannot be left out of sight. This was recognised by Mill, who was open 
 to all noble ideas, and saw that the practical life of mankind cannot 
 be governed by material egoism. In discussing the claims of com- 
 munism, 18 he says : " Assuming all the success which is claimed for 
 this state of society by its partisans, it remains to be considered how 
 much would be really gained for mankind, and whether the form that 
 would be given to life, and the character which would be impressed 
 on human nature, can satisfy any but a very low estimate of the capa- 
 bilities of the species." Here, you observe, is raised the entire ques- 
 tion of the ends of social life; and economic progress is subordinated, 
 as it ought to be, to the intellectual and moral development of 
 humanity. 
 
 Mr. Lowe, at the Adam Smith celebration, * 9 declared himself not 
 to be sanguine as to the future of political economy ; he believes that 
 its great work, which he justly remarks has been rather a negative 
 than a constructive one, has been already accomplished, and that not 
 much more remains to be achieved. Such, indeed, as we have seen, 
 Professor Cairnes declared to be the prevalent idea of the great 
 majority of educated people that political economy has fulfilled its 
 task by removing impediments to industry; and that it cannot help 
 us is rather likely to be an obstruction in the social work which 
 now lies before us. I will not use language so strong ; but it does 
 appear to me that either as a fruitful branch of speculation, or as an 
 important source of practical guidance, it will cease to command, or 
 rather will fail to regain attention, unless it be linked in close connec- 
 tion with the general science of society unless it be, in fact, subsumed 
 under and absorbed into Sociology. 
 
 II. The second common error of the political economists since the 
 time of Adam Smith, consists in this, that mainly by the influence of 
 Eicardo, they have been led to conceive and present, in a viciously 
 abstract way, the conceptions with which they deal. 
 
 Abstraction is, indeed, necessary to all science, being implied in 
 the search after unity amidst variety. The criterion of true or false 
 science lies precisely in the right or wrong institution of the relation 
 between the abstract and the concrete. Now, in matters of human 
 life especially, we have only to carry abstraction fafr enough in order 
 to lose all hold on realities, and present things quite other than they 
 in fact are ; and, if we use these abstractions in the premises of our 
 
 18 Political Economy (ist ed.) i., p. 246. The passage has dropped out from 
 the chapter as recast in late editions ; but the necessity of considering the influ- 
 ence of systems of life on the formation of character is still maintained. 
 
 19 Kevised Report of the Proceedings at the celebration (by the Political 
 Economy Club) of the hundredth year of the publication of the Wealth of Nations. 
 London, 1876 ; p. 20. 
 
17 
 
 reasonings, we shall arrive at conclusions, either positively false, or 
 useless for any practical purpose. As Comte remarked, 20 the most 
 fundamental economic notions have been subtilized in the ordinary 
 treatises, till the discussions about them often wander away from any 
 relation to fact, and lose themselves in a region of nebulous meta- 
 physics ; so that exact thinkers have felt themselves obliged to aban- 
 don the use of some of the most necessary terms, such as value, utility, 
 production, and to express the ideas they attach to them by circuitous 
 phrases. I am far from condemning the effort after accuracy of lan- 
 guage and well-defined terms; but the endless fluctuations of econo- 
 mists in the use of words (of which numerous examples are given in 
 Senior's Appendix to Whately's Logic, and in Professor Price's recent 
 work 21 ) certainly indicate a very general failure to apprehend and 
 keep steadily in view the corresponding realities. 
 A vicious abstraction meets us on the very threshold of political 
 economy. The entire body of its doctrines, as usually taught, rests 
 on the hypothesis that the sole human passion or motive which has 
 economic effects, is the desire of wealthTf" It aims," says Mill, 2 2 "at 
 showing what is the course of action into which mankind living in a 
 state of society would be impelled if that motive " except so far as 
 it is checked by aversion to labour, and desire of present indulgence 
 " were absolute master of all their actions." " So strictly is this 
 its object," he adds, " that even the introduction of the principle of 
 population interferes with the strictness of scientific arrangement." 
 LBut what is the desire of wealth 1 It is, as Mr. Leslie says in an 
 article in Hennatliena, 2 3 in which he urges the necessity for a new 
 method in political economy it is a general name for a great variety 
 of wants, desires, and sentiments, widely differing in their economic 
 character and effect, and undergoing fundamental changes in some 
 respects in the successive periods of societyJ As moralists, viewing 
 the same abstraction, not as a condition oT well-being, but as the 
 root of all evil, " have denounced under the common name of love of 
 wealth, not only sensuality, avarice, and vanity, but the love of life, 
 health, cleanliness, decency, and art, so all the needs, appetites, tastes, 
 aims, and ideas which the various things comprehended in the word 
 wealth satisfy, are lumped together in political economy as a princi- 
 ple of human nature, which is the source of industry and the moving 
 principle of the economic world." QChe motives summed up in the 
 phrase "vary in different individuals, oifferent classes, different nations, 
 different sexes, and especially in different states of society;" in these 
 last, indeed, the several desires comprehended under the general name 
 follow definite laws of succession^ The point Mr. Leslie here insists 
 on is, be it observed, not merely though that is also true that the 
 phrase desire of wealth represents a coarse and crude generalization 
 in the natural history of man ; but that the several impulses com- 
 prised under the name assume altered forms and vary in their rela- 
 
 20 Philosophic Positive (ist ed.), tome 4, p. 270. 
 
 21 See especially pp. 9, 33, 34, 105, of Professor Price's volume. 
 
 22 Logic, ii.,pp. 492, 493. 
 
 **\Hermathena, No. iv., 1876. " On the Philosophical Method of Political 
 Economy," p. 269. I am much indebted to this article. 
 
18 
 
 tive strength, and so produce different economic consequences, in 
 different states of society ; and therefore that the abstraction embodied 
 in the phrase is too vague and unreal for use in economic investiga- 
 tions of a really scientific character. The special desire for accumu- 
 lation, apart from the immediate or particular uses of wealth, is no 
 doubt a principle of social growth which must not be overlooked ; 
 but this, too, takes different directions and works to different ends 
 in different stages of social development. [All these economic motors 
 require to be made the subjects of careful and extensive observation 
 and their several forms, instead of being rudely massed together un- 
 der a common name, should be discriminated as they in fact exist. 
 The consumption, or more correctly the use, of wealth, until lately 
 neglected by economists, and declared by Mill 2 4 to have no place in 
 their science, must, as Professor Jevons 2 5 and others now see, be sys- 
 tematically studied in its relations to production and to the general 
 material well-being of communities. And none of these things can 
 be really understood without correct views of the structure and 
 evolution of society in all its aspects; in other words, we are led back 
 to the conclusion that they cannot be fruitfully treated apart from 
 general sociology J I have not here been able to do more than indi- 
 cate the leading features of a criticism which I recommend all who 
 are interested in the subject to pursue in its full development in 
 Mr. Leslie's admirable essay. 
 
 There is a common economic abstraction which, by the unsympa- 
 thetic colour it has given to political economy, has tended, perhaps 
 more than anything else, to repel the working classes from its study. 
 By habitually regarding labour from the abstract point of view, and 
 overlooking the personality of the labourer, economists are led to 
 leave out of account some of the considerations which most seriously 
 affect the condition of the working man. He comes to be regarded 
 exclusively as an agent I might almost say, an instrument of produc- 
 tion. It is too often forgotten that he is before all things a man and 
 a member of society that he is usually the head of a household, and 
 that the conditions of his life should be such as to admit of his main- 
 taining the due relations with his family that he is also a citizen, 
 and requires for the intelligent appreciation of the social and political 
 system to which he belongs a certain amount of leisure and oppor- 
 tunity for mental culture. Even when a higher education is now 
 sought for him, it is often conceived as exclusively designed to adapt 
 him for the effective exercise of his functions as a producer, and so 
 is reduced to technical instruction ; whereas moral and social ideas 
 are for him, as for all of us, by far the most important, because most 
 directly related to conduct. Labour again is viewed as a commodity 
 for sale, like any other commodity ; though it is plain that, even if it 
 could be properly so called at all, yet in some particulars, as in the diffi- 
 culty of local transfer (a family having to be considered), and in the 
 frequent impossibility of waiting for a market, it is quite exceptional 
 amongst commodities. By a further abstraction, the difference of 
 
 24 Essays on some Unsettled Questions in Political Economy, p. 132. 
 1 5 Theory of Political Economy, pp. 46, 47. 
 
19 
 
 the social vocations of the sexes is made to disappear, in economic as 
 in political reasoning, by means of the simple expedient of substi- 
 tuting for man in every proposition person or human being; and so, 
 by little else than a trick of phraseology, self-support is made as 
 much an obligation of the woman as of the man. It is true that un- 
 generous sentiment has much to do with the prevalence of these 
 modes of thought ; but what it is most suitable to insist on here, is 
 that the science on which they rest, or in which they find justifica- 
 tion, is false science. By merely keeping close to facts and not 
 hiding realities under lax generalizations, we shall be led to more 
 humane, as well as truer, conceptions of the proper conditions of 
 industrial life. 
 
 It is a characteristic feature of the metaphysical habit of mind 
 (using that phrase in the sense with which Comte has familiarized us) 
 to mistake creations of the speculative imagination for objective reali- 
 ties. Examples of this tendency have not been wanting in the 
 dominant system of political economy. The most remarkable is 
 perhaps furnished by the Theory of the Wages-Fund. The history 
 of that doctrine is instructive, but I cannot here enlarge upon it ; it 
 may suffice to say that though the so-called wages-fund is simply a 
 scientific figment, the only legitimate use of which would be to 
 facilitate the expression of certain relations, it has been habitually 
 regarded as an actual entity, possessing a determinate magnitude 
 at any assigned instant. It is true that Mill gave up this theory, 
 when Mr. Thornton had convinced him 26 of its unsubstantial 
 nature ; but, strange to say, even when relinquished by the 
 master, some of the disciples continued to cling to it. Professor 
 Cairnes in his latest work 2 7 insisted that Mill was mistaken in aban- 
 doning it, and it is still taught in some of the elementary manuals 
 not, I am glad to observe, in that of Professor Jevons, who 
 indeed never adopted it. 28 There are, in my opinion, other 
 quite as illusory economic conceptions which have met with a good 
 deal of acceptance, and have even obtained the sanction of distin- 
 guished names. If I do not now enter on an examination of them, 
 it is because I am unwilling that the general views I am desirous of 
 presenting should be lost in a series of special discussions, for which 
 a more suitable opportunity can easily be found. 
 
 III. The third prevailing error of the economists and, with the 
 exception of the isolation of their study, this is the most serious of all 
 is that of exaggerating immensely the office of deduction in their 
 investigations. 
 
 Deduction has indisputably a real and not inconsiderable place 
 in Sociology. We can sometimes follow the method which Mill 
 calls the direct deductive, that is, we can, from what we know of 
 the nature of man and the laws of the external world, see 
 beforehand what social phenomena will result from their joint 
 
 26 Thornton "On Labour," p. 84, and Mill's review of that work in the 
 Fortnightly Review of May, 1869, reprinted in his Dissertations and Discussions, 
 vol. iv. ; see pp. 43 and foil, of that volume. 
 
 21 Some Leading Principles of Political Economy newly Expounded, pp. 184, 185. 
 
 a fl Theory of Political Economy ', Preface, p. vii. 
 
20 
 
 action. But, though the economists of the so-called orthodox 
 school recognise no other method, we cannot really proceed far in 
 this way, which is available only in simple cases. Social phe- 
 nomena are in general too complex, and depend on too manifold 
 conditions, to be capable of such a priori determination. In so 
 far as the method can be used, the vital condition of its legiti- 
 mate employment is the ascertainment of the consilience of the 
 results of deduction with those of observation ; and yet such veri- 
 fication from fact of the conclusions of theory, though essential to 
 the admissibility of this process of inquiry, is too often entirely 
 overlooked. 
 
 Much more commonly the function of deduction is different 
 from what has just been described, and its relation to observation 
 is inverted. The laws of the economic constitution and move- 
 ment of society are first obtained by observation, directed whether 
 to contemporary life or to the history of the past. The office of 
 deduction is then to verify and control the inductions which have 
 been arrived at, using for this purpose considerations founded on 
 the qualities of human nature and the external conditions to which 
 society is subjected. Eesults which could not have been elicited by 
 a priori reasoning from the latter data, may, when inductively 
 obtained, be in this way checked and rationalized. The preten- 
 sion of the economists, formally set forth in Senior's treatise, 29 to 
 deduce all the phenomena of the industrial life of communities 
 from four propositions, is one that cannot be sustained. But 
 conclusions derived from observation may be placed in relation with 
 the laws of the world and of human nature, so far at least as to 
 show that they contradict nothing we know respecting those laws. 
 This method, in which inductive research preponderates, and de- 
 duction takes a secondary place as means of verification, is the 
 really normal and fruitful method of sociological inquiry. 
 
 But the method of Sociology must be not only inductive, but his- 
 torical ; and by the latter name it may best be characterised. By 
 this is meant, not merely that it finds the materials for its studies 
 in the general field of human history : we mean further that it 
 institutes a comparison of the successive states of society in order 
 to discover the laws of social filiation a process similar in prin- 
 ciple to (the biological comparison of organisms of different 
 degrees ot development^ If we followed exclusively the a priori 
 s method, in (for example) economic research, and sought to infer the 
 
 ^ economic facts of life from the nature of the world and man, we 
 could arrive only at one determinate order of things, whilst/we 
 v know that in reality the economic organization and functions of 
 
 ^ society vary in time according to definite laws of successionj Mr. 
 Lowe, indeed, will have it that " political economy is founded on the 
 attributes of the human mind, and nothing can change it ; " which 
 means, I suppose, that its formulas must always correspond with the 
 phenomena. But how can this view be reconciled with the now 
 ascertained fact, that society has passed through states in which the 
 
 29 Political Economy, p. 26. 
 
21 
 
 modern economic constitution was so far from existing, that property 
 did not belong to the individual but to the community ] The a 
 priori method, in fact, overlooks what is the main agency in the 
 social movement namely, the accumulated influence of anterior on 
 subsequent generations of mankind ; an influence too complex to be 
 estimated deductively. Every department of social life, and amongst 
 the rest the industrial system, undergoes transformation not arbi- 
 trarily indeed, but in accordance with law ; and if we wish to 
 understand any of those departments, we must study its transfor- 
 mations, considering each successive form in relation to all the 
 preceding and contemporary conditions. 
 
 There is, indeed, no more important philosophical theorem than 
 this that the nature of a social fact of any degree of complexity 
 cannot be understood apart from its history. "Only when its 
 genesis has been traced," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, " only when 
 its antecedents of all orders have been observed in their co-opera- 
 tion, generation after generation, through past social states is there 
 reached that interpretation of a fact which makes it a part of 
 sociological science." To understand, for example, the true mean- 
 ing of the trade societies of modern times, so important an object 
 of economic study, " we must," he says, "go back to the older periods 
 when analogous causes produced analogous results." And facts of 
 this order, he adds, "must be studied not merely in their own suc- 
 cessive forms, but in relation to the other phenomena of their time 
 the political institutions, the class distinctions, the family arrange- 
 ments, the modes of distribution and degree of intercourse between 
 localities, the amounts of knowledge, the religious beliefs, the 
 morals, the sentiments, the customs." 3 These considerations all 
 point to the historical method, and, I may add, they all confirm what 
 I have already urged, that the economic phenomena of society 
 cannot be isolated from its other aspects. CWhen our object is not 
 the explanation of any past or present fact, but tke prevision (within 
 possible limits) of the future, and the adoption of a policy in re- 
 lation to that future, our guide must still be the historic method, 
 conceived as indicating, from the comparison of successive states, 
 the general tendency of society with respect to the phenomenon con- 
 sidered, and the agencies which are in course of modifying existing 
 systems!] " Legislative action of no kind," again says Mr. Spencer, 
 " can be taken that is not either in agreement with or at variance 
 with the processes of national growth and development as naturally 
 going on." 3 x CWe can by judicious action modify in their special 
 mode of accomplishment or -in the rate of their development, but 
 cannot alter in their fundamental nature, the changes which result 
 from the spontaneous tendencies of hurnanity._7 An attempt to 
 introduce any social factor which is not essentially conformable to 
 the contemporary civilization, will result, if not in serious disturbance, 
 at least in a mere waste of effort. 2.ny proposal of social action, 
 therefore, should repose on a previous analysis of those spontaneous 
 
 30 The Study of Sociology, pp. 131, 132. 
 al Ib., p. 71. 
 
22 
 
 tendencies, and this is possible only by the historic method. I Let 
 me give an example from an economic subject which happens just 
 at present to offer a special interest. Attention has been called by 
 Sir Henry Maine to the general law that property in land originally 
 belongs, not to individuals, nor even to families in the modern 
 sense, but to larger societies, and that in the progress of mankind 
 there is a natural movement from common to separate ownership. 
 This historical result has been elaborated by a number of inde- 
 pendent inquirers, and M. de Laveleye in a work 3 2 of great research 
 has brought together a vast mass of evidence, both establishing the 
 main fact, and exhibiting the varied features which the common 
 evolution has assumed in different countries. There is much that 
 is attractive in particular sides of this early organization of terri- 
 torial property, and M. de Laveleye has'yielded to the charm, so far 
 as to regret its disappearance in the developed communities of the 
 west, though he stops short of recommending what others have 
 suggested namely, a return to the primitive constitution, by re- 
 placing the commune in the possession of the soil. Indeed, he 
 himself, by establishing the progressive spontaneous tendency of 
 'society towards individual property, shows such a project to be a 
 dream, and banishes it from the field of practical economic policy. 
 1 From the general appearance of this collective ownership in an early 
 stage of society, it is sometimes argued that it is a natural system ; 
 but the historic method shows that it is just as natural that it 
 should disappear at a more advanced stage.; Serving useful ends 
 in the former period, it becomes in the latter an obstruction to pro- 
 gress by stereotyping agricultural art, and impeding that individual 
 initiative which is an indispensable condition of social improvement. 
 The safe prediction is that the Swiss At I mend, the Russian Mir, and 
 other forms of collective ownership will disappear, and that personal 
 appropriation will become the universal rule. The social destination 
 of property in land, as of every species of wealth, will be in- 
 creasingly acknowledged and realized in the future ; but that result 
 will be brought about, not through legal institutions, but by the 
 establishment and diffusion of moral convictions. 
 
 There have "been great differences of opinion as to the method of 
 economic inquiry pursued by Adam Smith. Mr. Lowe insists 
 that his method was deductive that he had the unique merit of 
 having raised the study of a branch of human transactions to the 
 dignity of a deductive science. At the same celebration at which 
 this opinion was put forward, Professor Thorold Kogers expressed 
 his surprise that anyone should entertain such a view. It seemed to 
 him clear that Adam Smith was pre-eminently an inductive philo- 
 sopher. Mr. Kogers has edited the Wealth of Nations, and in doing 
 so has verified all the references; and what strikes him is the ex- 
 traordinary wideness of the reading from which Smith drew his 
 inferences. The work, he says, is full of facts. It is interesting to 
 observe that David Hume made just the same remark on the book 
 at the time of its publication : " It has depth," he said, " and 
 
 3 Primitive Property, translated by G. R. L. Marriott. London, 1878. 
 
23 
 
 solidity, and acuteness, and is so much illustrated with curious facts, 
 that it must take the public attention." 
 
 Of the two views thus advanced by Mr. Lowe and Mr. Rogers, 
 the latter seems to me much the more correct. That the master 
 tendency of Smith's intellect was the deductive, or that it is at the 
 deductive point of view that he habitually places himself, seems to 
 me plainly at variance with fact. Open his book anywhere, and read 
 a few pages; then do the same with Eicardo' s principal work, and 
 observe the difference of the impression produced. /-Under the gui- > 
 dance of Eicardo you are constantly, not without misgivings, follow- 
 ing certain abstract assumptions to their logical results. In Smith 
 you feel yourself in contact with real life, observing human acts and 
 their consequences by the light of experienceTl Of course deduction 
 is not wanting ; but it is in the way of explanation ; the facts are 
 interpreted from the nature and circumstances of men in general, or s 
 particular groups of men. Sagacious observation and shrewd com- r 
 ment go hand in hand. 
 
 Adam Smith, besides giving generally a large place to induction, 
 opened several lines of interesting historical investigation, as notably 
 in his Third Book, which contains a view of the economic progress 
 of modern Europe as shaped by political causes. But historic inquiry 
 was neglected by his successors, with a partial exception in the case 
 of Malthus, and the a priori method became dominant chiefly by 
 the influence of Eicardo. Professor Price objects to this method 
 as too scientific; but, as Mr. Leslie has said, 33 what ought to be 
 alleged respecting it is that it is unscientific, because ill adapted 
 for the successful investigation of the class of phenomena with which 
 it deals. Setting out from propositions involving the loose abstrac- 
 tions of which I have spoken, it arrives at conclusions which are 
 seldom corrected by the consideration of conditions which were at first, 
 for simplicity, omitted in the premises. And these conclusions can in 
 general not be directly confronted with experience for the purpose of 
 verification, for they are hypothetical only; they give us, not the 
 resultant phenomenon, but only a tendency of a certain character, 
 which will be one component of the resultant. 
 
 I am not concerned nor disposed to deny that useful general in- 
 dications have been gathered by inference of this kind. But it is 
 evidently a very unsafe process, even in purely economic matters, es- 
 pecially when consequences are pushed into any degree of detail. 
 Careful thinkers have a profound distrust of lengthened deductions 
 in economic inquiries. When it is argued that A must lead to B, 
 and B again to C, and so on through a long chain of results, they 
 assume in self-defence a sceptical attitude of mind, and often feel 
 more than half convinced that what is going on is a feat of logical 
 sleight of hand. And this suspiciousness is, I think, reasonable ; 
 for we are not here on the same ground as in mathematics, where 
 protracted deductions are always safe, because we can be sure that 
 we have before us at every step all the determining data, and each 
 proposition successively used is universally true. But as the most 
 
 33 In a review of Professor Price's work in the Academy of June 8th, 1878. 
 
24 
 
 that the economist can affirm is a set of tendencies, the certainty of 
 his conclusions is plainly weakened in a rapidly increasing ratio by 
 the multiplication of links, there being always a possibility that the 
 theorems applied in the course of the demonstration may be subject 
 to special counteractions or limitations in the case we are considering. 
 
 I observed before that Mill betrayed some uncertainty of view as to 
 the precise relation of economic inquiries to general sociology. As to 
 the proper method of the social science also, he appears to me not 
 strictly consistent with himself. That method he declares, 3 4 in so 
 many words, to be the direct deductive. Yet elsewhere 3 5 he as plainly 
 agrees with Comte, that in the general science of society, as dis- 
 tinguished from its separate departments, nothing of a scientific 
 character is possible except by the inverse deductive as he 
 chooses to call the historical method. In one place 3 6 he seems to 
 assert that the general course of economic evolution could be pre- 
 dicted from the single consideration of the desire of wealth. Yet 
 again 3 7 he admits that no one could determine a priori from the 
 principles of human nature and the general circumstances of the race 
 the order in which human development takes place. Now this in- 
 volves the conclusion that the laws of economic progress like all 
 dynamic laws of sociology must be ascertained by observation on 
 the large scale, and only verified by appeal to the laws of the external 
 world and human nature; in other words, that the right method for 
 their study is the historical. 
 
 I hope it is not inconsistent with a profound respect for the eminent 
 powers and high aims of Mill, to say that he appears to me never to 
 have extricated himself completely from the vicious habits in regard 
 to sociological method impressed on him by his education. His 
 father had the principal part in the formation of his mind in his early 
 years. Now whatever were the intellectual merits of James Mill, 
 his mode of thinking on social subjects was essentially metaphy- 
 sical, as opposed to positive. Through him, as well as directly, 
 John Mill came under the influence of Bentham, of whom, whilst 
 fully recognizing his services, we may truly say that he was one 
 of the most unhistorical of writers, building most, I mean, on 
 assumed a priori principles, and sympathizing least with the social 
 past, in which he saw little except errors and abuses. It is strong 
 evidence of the natural force of Mill's intellect that he more 
 and more, as he advanced towards maturity, shook himself loose 
 of the prejudices of his early entourage. On every side, not even ex- 
 cluding the aesthetic, he grew in comprehensiveness, and his social 
 and historic ideas in particular became wider and more sympathetic. 
 The publication of the letters addressed to him by Auguste Cornte 
 has revealed more fully, what could already be gathered from his 
 writings, that the study of that eminent thinker's first great work 
 happily concurred with and aided his spontaneous tendencies. Hence 
 in his economic studies he broke away in many respects from the 
 
 34 Logic, vol. ii., pp. 484, 487. 
 
 ss 76., p. 498. 
 
 36 76., p. 492. " Under the influence of this desire, it shows mankind," etc. 
 
 3 ' 76., p. 509. 
 
25 
 
 narrow traditions of the reigning English school, and by opening 
 larger horizons and discrediting rigid formulas, did much to prepare 
 the public mind for a more complete as well as truly scientific 
 handling of these subjects. But, though the interval between his 
 father and himself represents an immense advance, yet never in 
 regard to method did he, in my opinion, attain a perfectly nor- 
 mal attitude. Whilst in his Logic 38 he criticized with just severity 
 what he, not very happily, calls the geometrical mode of phi- 
 losophising practised by the Benthamites in political research, he 
 approves what is essentially the same course of proceeding in eco- 
 nomic inquiry ; and, whilst protesting against the attempt to con- 
 struct a special science of the political phenomena of society apart 
 from general sociology, 3 9 he yet, with whatever restrictions and quali- 
 fications, accepts the separate construction of a science of its industrial 
 phenomena. His ambition in his work on political economy was, 
 as may be seen from the preface, to replace the Wealth of Nations 
 by a treatise which, whilst more uniformly correct on points of de- 
 tail, should be in harmony with contemporary social speculation in 
 the widest sense. Admitting fully the great merits of the book, I 
 yet must hold that, chiefly from the absence of any systematic 
 application of the historic method, he has not succeeded in attaining 
 this end. The presentation of what is solid and permanent in the 
 work of the economists in relation with the largest and truest views 
 of general sociology, is, in my judgment, a task which still remains 
 to be accomplished. 
 
 The tendencies of the new school with respect to method are 
 sufficiently indicated by the names of the Eealistic and the His- 
 torical by which it designates itself. It declares, in the words of 
 Brentano, 40 the description of political economy by the so-called 
 orthodox writers as a hypothetic science, to be only a device to 
 cloak its dissonance with reality; and affirms that much of the 
 current doctrine is made up of hasty generalizations from insuffi- 
 cient and arbitrary premises. It sets out, says Held, 41 from 
 observed facts, and not from definitions, which often serve to mask 
 
 Logic., pp. 477,482. 
 
 39 /&., p. 498. 
 
 40 " Die altere 6'konomische Schule hatte allerdings ein einheitlich zusammen- 
 hangendes Lehrgebaude angeblicher volkswirthschaftlicher Wahrheiten errichtet, 
 das jedoch seine Dissonanz mit der Wirklichkeit nur durftig zu verschleiern 
 vermochte, indem es dutch den Mund seiner wissenschaftlichsten Vertreter 
 sich selbst fiir eine lediglich ' hypothetische Wissenschaf t ' erklarte/' . . . 
 " jenen unwissenschaftlichenMethoden, welche denNamen der Nationalokonomie 
 zum Beiwort hastiger Generalisationen aus ungeniigenden und willkiirlichen 
 Pramissen . . . gemacht haben." Verhaltniss von Arbeitslohn und 
 Arbeitszeit zur Arbeitsleistung, von Dr. L. Brentano, pp. I, 2. 
 
 41 Dieaufgabe des Nationalokonomen ist zunachst, auszugehen von richtig 
 und nach alien Seiten bin beobachteten Thatsachen, nicht von Definitionen, 
 welche verkappte Axiome oder Wlinsche enthalten." " Die Nationalokonomie, 
 welche die gegenwartigen Verhaltnisse objectiv schildert, und als Produkt 
 allmaliger historischer Entwickelung begreift, begnugt sich nicht mit starren 
 Festhalten am Bestehenden, versteigt sich aber auch nicht zu utopischen 
 Zukunftsplanen, sondern giebt Fingerzeige, etc." Sozialismus und Sozialdemo- 
 kratie, von Adolf Held, p. 69. 
 
26 . 
 
 foregone conclusions. It aims at describing objectively existing 
 economic relations, not as immutable necessities, but as products of a 
 gradual historical development in the past, and susceptible of gradual 
 modification in the future. " Its philosophical method," says Mr. 
 Leslie, "must be historical, and must trace the connection between 
 the economical and the other phases of national history." In these 
 tendencies the rising school seems to me to be in harmony with all 
 that is best in the spirit of the most advanced contemporary thought. 
 IV. Lastly has to be noticed the too absolute character of the theo- 
 retic and practical conclusions of the political economists. It follows 
 (as I have already indicated) from their a priori and unhistoric method 
 that they arrive at results which purport to apply equally to all states 
 of society. Neglecting the study of the social development, they tend 
 too much to conceive the economic structure of society as fixed in 
 type, instead of as undergoing a regular modification in process of 
 time, in relation to the other changing elements of human condition. 
 Similar consequences arose in other branches of sociological inquiry 
 from the prevalence of unhistoric methods. But reforms have been 
 largely carried into effect from the increasing recognition of the 
 principle, that the treatment of any particular aspect of society must 
 be dominated by the consideration of the general contemporary 
 state of civilization. Thus, in jurisprudence there is a marked ten- 
 dency to substitute for the a priori method of the Benthamites a 
 historical method, the leading idea of which is to connect the whole 
 juristic system of any epoch with the corresponding state of society ; 
 and this new method has already borne admirable fruits, especially 
 in the hands of Sir Henry Maine. Again, the old search after the 
 best government, which used to be the main element of political 
 inquiry, is now seen to have been radically irrational, because the 
 form of government must be essentially related to the stage of social 
 development and to historic antecedents, and the question, what is 
 the best? admits of no absolute answer. 
 
 Mill admits that there can be no separate science of government ; 
 in other words, that the study of the political phenomena of society 
 cannot be conducted apart, but must, in his own words, stand part 
 of the general science of society, not of any separate branch of it. 4 2 
 And why 1 ? Because those phenomena are so closely mixed up, both 
 as cause and effect, with the qualities of the particular people, or of 
 the particular age. Particular age must here mean the state of gene- 
 ral social development. But are not economic phenomena very 
 closely bound up with the particular state of development of the 
 society which is under consideration 1 Mr. Bagehot, 43 indeed, took 
 up the ground that political economy is " restricted to a single kind 
 of society, a society of competitive commerce, such as we have in 
 England." And Mill himself, whilst stating 4 4 that only through the 
 principle of competition as the exclusive regulator of economic phe- 
 
 42 Logic, vol ii., p. 498. 
 
 43 "The Postulates of English Political Economy," in Fortnightly Review of 
 February, 1876. 
 
 44 Political Economy, i. pp. 284, 285. 
 
27 
 
 / nomena, has political economy any claim to the character of a science, 
 admits that competition has, only at a comparatively modern period, 
 become in any considerable degree the governing principle of con- 
 tracts; that in early periods transactions and engagements were 
 regulated by custom, and that to this day in several countries of 
 Europe, in large departments of human transactions, custom, not 
 competition, is the arbiter. 
 
 The truth is, that in most enunciations of economic theorems by 
 the English school, the practice is tacitly to presuppose the state of 
 social development, and the general history of social conditions, to be / 
 similar to that of modern England; and when this supposition is^ 
 not realised, those theorems will often be found to fail. 
 
 The absolute character of the current political econonty is shown, 
 not only by this neglect of the influence of the general social state, 
 but in the much too unlimited and unconditional form which is 
 given to most of its conclusions. Mr. Fawcett has, in his latest 
 publication, 4 5 animadverted on this practice ; thus, he points to the 
 allegation often met with, that the introduction of machines must 
 improve the position of the workman, the element of time being left 
 out of account ; and the assertion that the abolition of protection 
 in the United States could not injure the American manufacturer. 
 But this lax habit cannot, I believe, be really corrected apart from 
 a thorough change of economic method. As long as conclusions are 
 deduced from abstract assumptions, such as the perfectly free flow of 
 labour and capital from one employment to another, propositions 
 which only affirm tendencies will be taken to represent facts, and 
 theorems which would hold under certain conditions, will be an- 
 nounced as universally true. 
 
 The most marked example the economists have afforded of a too 
 absolute conception and presentation of principle, both theoretic and 
 practical, is found in the doctrine of laissez faire. It might be in- 
 teresting, if time permitted, to follow its history in detail. First 
 inspired by a priori optimistic prepossessions, it long served a useful 
 purpose as an instrument of combat against the systematic restric- 
 tions with which a mistaken policy had everywhere fettered Euro- 
 pean industry. But, from the absolute manner in which it was 
 understood and expressed, it tended more and more to annul all 
 governmental intervention in the industrial world, even when in- 
 tended, not to alter the spontaneous course of industry, but only to 
 prevent or remedy the social injustices and other mischiefs arising 
 from the uncontrolled play of private interests. Experience and 
 reflection, however, gradually surmounted the exaggerations of theory. 
 The community at large became impatient of laissez faire as an im- 
 pediment and a nuisance ; statesmen pushed it aside, and the econo- 
 mists, after long repeating it as a sacred formula, themselves at last 
 revolted against it. So far has the reaction proceeded, that Profes- 
 sor Cairnes has declared 4 6 the doctrine implied in the phrase, namely, 
 that the economic phenomena of society will always spontaneously 
 
 45 Free Trade and Protection, pp. 6-7. 
 
 46 Essays in Political Economy, pp. 244, 252. 
 
28 
 
 arrange themselves in the way which is most for the common good, 
 to be a pretentious sophism, destitute of scientific authority, and 
 h aving no foundation in nature or fact. 
 
 Let me now recapitulate the philosophical conclusions which I 
 have been endeavouring to enforce. They are the following : 
 
 (i) That the study of the economic phenomena of society ought 
 to be systematically combined with that of the other aspects of 
 social existence ; (2) That the excessive tendency to abstraction and 
 to unreal simplifications should be checked; (3) That the a priori 
 deductive method should be changed for the historical; and (4) 
 That economic laws and the practical prescriptions founded on those 
 laws should be conceived and expressed in a less absolute form. 
 These are, in my opinion, the great reforms which are required both 
 in the conduct of economic research, and in the exposition of its 
 conclusions. 
 
 I am far from thinking that the results arrived at by the hitherto 
 i dominant economic school ought to be thrown away as valueless. 
 They have shed important partial lights on human affairs, and afforded 
 salutary partial guidance in public action. The task incumbent on 
 sociologists in general, or such of them as specially devote themselves 
 to economic inquiries, is to incorporate the truths already elicited into 
 a more satisfactory body of doctrine, in which they will be brought 
 into relation with the general theory of socialexistence, to recast the 
 first draughts of theory, which, however incomplete, in most cases 
 indicate real elements of the question considered, and to utilize the 
 valuable materials of all kinds which their predecessors have accu- 
 mulated. Viewed as provisional and preparatory, the current political 
 economy deserves an approbation and an acceptance to which I think 
 it is not entitled, if regarded as a final systematization of the indus- 
 trial laws of society. 47 
 
 Returning now from our examination of the condition and pros- 
 pects of economic study in the general field of human knowledge 
 to the consideration of its position in this Association, what seems 
 to follow from all I have been saying ? I do not take into account 
 . at all the suggestion that that study should be removed from what 
 professes to be a confederation of the sciences. As has been well said, 
 the omission from the objects of this body of the whole subject of 
 the life of man in communities, although there is a scientific order 
 traceable in that life, would be a degradation of the Association. 
 If the proper study of mankind is man, the work of the Association, 
 after the extrusion of our section, would be like the play with the 
 part of the protagonist left out. What appears to be the reasonable 
 suggestion, is that the field of the section should be enlarged, so as to 
 comprehend the whole of sociology. The economic facts of society, as 
 I have endeavoured to show, cannot be scientifically considered apart, 
 
 47 " Bien que 1'analyse e'conomique proprement elite ne me semble pas devoir 
 finalement etre conue ni cultivde, soit dogmatiquement, soit historiquement, a 
 part de 1'ensemble de 1'analyse sociologique, soit statique, soit dynamique, 
 cependant je n'ai jamais me'connu 1'efficacite* provisoire de cette sorte de me'ta- 
 physique actuelle, surtout e'labore'e par un aussi bon cerveau que le v6tre." 
 Lettrcs d* Auguste Comte a John Stuart Mill, p. 231. 
 
29 
 
 and there is no reason why the researches of Sir Henry Maine, or 
 those of Mr. Spencer, should not be as much at home here as those 
 of Mr. Fawcett or Professor Price. Many of the subjects, too, at pre- 
 sent included in the artificial assemblage of heterogeneous inquiries 
 known by the name of anthropology, really connect themselves with 
 the laws of social development ; and if our section bore the title of 
 the Sociological, the studies of Mr. Tylor and Sir John Lubbock con- 
 cerning the early history of civilization would find in it their most 
 appropriate place. I prefer the name sociology to that of social science, 
 which has been at once rendered indefinite and vulgarised in common 
 use, and has come to be regarded as denoting a congeries of incohe- 
 rent details respecting every practical matter bearing directly or 
 remotely on public interests, which happens for the moment to en- 
 gage attention. There are other societies in which an opportunity 
 is afforded for discussing such current questions in a comparatively 
 popular arena. But if we are to be associated here with the students 
 of the other sciences, it is our duty, as well as our interest, to aim 
 at a genuinely scientific character in our work. Our main object 
 should be to assist in fixing theoretic ideas on the structure, 
 functions, and development of society. Some may regard this 
 view of the subject with impatience, as proposing to us investi- 
 tigations not bearing on the great and real needs of contemporary 
 social life. But that would be a very mistaken notion. Luciferous 
 research, in the words of Bacon, must come before fructiferous. 
 11 Effectual practice," says Mr. Spencer, "depends on superiority 
 of ideas; methods that answer are preceded by thoughts that 
 are true." 48 And in human affairs, it is in general impossible 
 to solve special questions correctly without just conceptions of 
 ensemble all particular problems of government, of education, of 
 social action of whatever kind, connect themselves with the 
 largest ideas concerning the fundamental constitution of society, its 
 spontaneous tendencies, and its moral ideal. 
 
 I have as yet said nothing of statistics, with which the name of 
 this section at first exclusively connected it, and which are still recog- 
 nized as forming one of its objects. But it is plain that though 
 statistics may be combined with sociology in the title of the section, 
 the two cannot occupy a co-ordinate position. For it is impossible 
 to vindicate for statistics the character of a science; 49 they constitute 
 only one of the aids or adminicula of science. The ascertainment 
 and systematic arrangement of numerical facts is useful in many 
 branches of research, but, till law emerges, there is no science ; and 1 
 the law, when it does emerge, takes its place in the science whose 
 function it is to deal with the particular class of phenomena to 
 which the facts belong. We may arrange meteorological facts in 
 this way as well as sociological ; and if doing so helps us to the dis- 
 covery of a law, the law belongs to meteorology ; and, in the same 
 manner, a law discovered by the aid of statistics, would belong to 
 sociology. 
 
 48 The Study of Sociology, p. 220. 
 
 49 See the remarks on this subject in the Address of Mr. G. J. Shaw-Lefevre 
 as President of the Statistical Society of London, Journal of that Society for 
 December, 1877. 
 
30 
 
 But though the character of a science cannot be claimed for statistics, 
 it is obvious that if the views I have advocated as to the true nature 
 and conditions of economic study should prevail, the importance of 
 statistical inquiries will rise, as the abstract and deductive method 
 declines in estimation. Senior objected 50 to the saying that political 
 economy is avide de faits, because, according to him and the school 
 of Ricardo in general, its work was mainly one of inference from a 
 few primary assumptions. But if the latter notion is given up, every 
 form of careful and conscientious search after the realities of the 
 material life of society, in the present as in the past, will regain its 
 normal importance. This search must, of course, be regulated by 
 definite principles, and must not degenerate into a purposeless and 
 fortuitous accumulation of facts ; for here, as in every branch of in- 
 quiry, it is true that " Prudens interrogatio est dimidium scientice." 
 
 I do not expect that the views I have put forward as to the necessity 
 of a reform of economic studies will be immediately adopted either in 
 this section or elsewhere. They may, I am aware, whilst probably 
 in some quarters meeting with at least partial sympathy, in others en- 
 counter determined hostility. And it is possible that I may be accused 
 of presumption in venturing to criticize methods used in practice, and 
 justified in principle, by many distinguished men. I should scarcely 
 have undertaken such an office, however profoundly convinced of 
 the urgency of a reform, had I not been supported by what seemed 
 to me the unanswered arguments of an illustrious thinker, and by 
 the knowledge that the growing movement of philosophic Europe 
 is in the direction he recommended as the right one. No one can 
 feel more strongly than myself the inadequacy of my treatment of 
 the subject. But my object has been not so much to produce con- 
 viction as to awaken attention. Our economists have undeniably 
 been slow in observing the currents of European thought. Whilst 
 such foreign writers as echo the doctrines of the so-called orthodox 
 school, are read and quoted in England, the names of those who as- 
 sume a different and more independent attitude are seldom heard, 
 and their works appear to be almost entirely unknown. But the 
 fence of self-satisfied routine within which in these countries we 
 formerly too often entrenched ourselves, is being broken down at 
 every point ; and no really vital body of opinion can now exist 
 abroad without speedily disturbing our insular tranquillity. The 
 controversy, therefore, as to the methods of economic research and its 
 relations to sociology as a whole, cannot long be postponed amongst 
 us. It has in fact been already opened from different sides by Mr. 
 Leslie and Mr. Harrison, and it is desirable that it should arrive as 
 promptly as possible at a definitive issue. If I have done anything 
 to-day to assist in launching this great question on the field of general 
 English discussion, the purpose I have set before me will have been 
 abundantly fulfilled. 
 
 so Political Economy, p. 4. 
 
31 
 
 I here subjoin some further extracts, illustrative of the method and spirit of 
 the new school. 
 
 1. From the Geschichte der National-OeJconomik in Deutschland (1874) of 
 Wilhelm Roscher, 209-21 1. (The whole passage well deserves attention.) 
 
 " The now prevailing direction of economic studies in our universities has 
 been rightly called Realistic. It takes men, as they in fact are, influenced at 
 once by very different motives some of them not of an economic kind and 
 belonging to determinate races, states, and periods of history. Abstraction from 
 all these, which has led many, even great, economists into serious errors is per- 
 missible only in the preparatory studies ; but in the completed theory as little as 
 in practice. . . If this direction is consistently carried out, it must also be 
 Historic. . . We no longer believe in the abstract man as he was imagined 
 . . by the old teachers of Natural Law . . This realistic-historical direction 
 may also be called Moral (ethisch) we must consider what is good for the whole 
 life of the nation . . An economic fact can then only be regarded as scienti- 
 fically explained when its inductive and deductive explanation are shown to 
 harmonize." 
 
 2. From the Social-Lehre (1875) of Adolf Samter ( Vorwort). 
 
 " Political economy, as it has developed itself since Adam Smith, is no longer 
 adequate to the requirements of the present. The question is, in the last resort, 
 not about wealth, but about men. Wealth must retire into the background ; 
 man must come to the front. Not only material, but immaterial interests also, 
 must be kept in view." 
 
 3. j^rom the Grundriss filr Vorlesungen tiber National- OeJconomie (2nd ed. 
 i878)"of Dr. Adolf Held, p. 25^ (This work has come into my hands since the 
 Address was delivered^! 
 
 " i . (The new scboojjppposes itself to the view, whether arising from shortsight- 
 edness or from conscious materialism, that the production and acquisition of 
 wealth by individuals is the single or principal object of human life ; wealth, on 
 the contrary, it regards as a means used by Humanity in its struggle towards 
 moral ideals of life, and for the furtherance of universal culture. 
 
 " 2. It rejects absolute Economic ' laws of nature ' (verwirft die absolut 
 gultigen wirihschaftlichen Natur-gesetze ) ; it seeks to understand present economic 
 phenomena through the study of their historical development, and to ascertain 
 them as accurately as possible through statistical investigations. Qt uses the 
 knowledge of the nature of man's intellect and will for the rational explanation 
 of economic facts, but does not construct those facts themselves out of one-sided 
 assumptions respecting the nature of manjj 
 
 "3. As compared with the English school, it lays greater stress on the ques- 
 tion of the Distribution of wealth, and recognises the right of the state to posi- 
 tive intervention in the economic relations of the community, for the support of 
 the weak and the strengthening of public spirit. As the Political Economy of the 
 last century applied itself chiefly to the liberation of the economic forces from 
 antiquated and useless restrictions, so the new school specially meets the acknow- 
 ledged need of new social arrangements, the need of social reform, in opposition 
 to social revolution on the one hand and to rigid laissez faire on the other. 
 
 " 4. It takes up, therefore, a less isolated position in relation to the other Moral 
 and Political Sciences." 
 
 I do not, of course, bind myself to an acceptance of all the views of the School 
 at large, or of any of its members ; but it will be seen that I am in general agree- 
 ment with it as to the right direction and method of Economic studies. 
 
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