THE MIDDLE CLASS. 225 VII. sweeps off in the former case, is but a small minority: LECTURE in the latter they are the mass, or a great majority. That political institutions may favour the growth of The middle the middle class, which is the distinctive element of class. modern society, is undeniable; but the measures which Mr. Godwin and similar writers advocated, were not calculated to promote this result, 226 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. VIII. LECTURE VIII. LECTURE THE last quarter of the eighteenth century supplied a most ample harvest of facts to the new School of Economists, which had adopted the principles of Adam Smith, and pursued the experimental method, which he had introduced. The great social experiments, to which the Political Revolution in France had given rise on the continent of Europe, have been already alluded to. Contemporaneous with those Industrial experiments, an industrial revolution was silently operating in England, leading to results, still more remarkable, and more important in their bearings upon economical questions; for the conditions, under which human labour was henceforth to be applied, were thereby undergoing a modification, only second in extent to that, which Attic piety commemorated of old in the Eleusinian mysteries. revolution. Watt and Balance of trade. The great motive power, which the genius of Watt had first disciplined (his earliest patent was taken out in 1769) was applied, about the year 1785, in furtherance of the discoveries of Arkwright, and the combination of the steam-engine with the spinningframe, as it changed the aspect of production, so it gave rise to a new class of problems, bearing upon the distribution of produce. At the same time the emancipation of so large a portion of the American continent from the dominion of European interests gave a new face to many great questions of commerce. The prosperity of the United States of North America, for instance, inflicted a death-blow upon the ancient theory of the Balance of Trade, whilst the WATT AND ARKWRIGHT. 227 VIII. finance. colonial traditions of Europe were annihilated by the LECTURE mother countries becoming tributary to their former subjects for the raw material of their staple manufactures. The Science of Finance, likewise, received Science of a new impulse, from the extraordinary development which manufacturing industry underwent, and that branch of the system which was more particularly concerned with indirect taxation, was subjected to a most complete revision. The protracted struggle, which England was maintaining against the system of the French Revolution, could not but hasten the march of events. It was impossible to diminish the burden of taxation, as long as this struggle lasted: hence it became of the last importance to augment the means of supporting the burden; and thus the indirect result was a more rapid development of the elements of change. Smith's Adam Smith had explained, with sufficient preci- Adam sion, those branches of economical inquiry, which were work not more peculiarly connected with the production of complete. wealth, as far as agriculture and the arts were concerned; but his investigations were not so complete in reference to commerce. On the other hand, as his system was essentially experimental, based upon an examination of facts, the operations of industry, properly so called, in distinction from labour, had not assumed that importance which entitled them to a special analysis. The course of events, however, subsequent to the publication of the "Wealth of Nations," had given prominence to many commercial and industrial questions, which consequently demanded solution at the hands of his successors. Amongst the first and the most distinguished writers of the Continent, who justly appreciated the value of the "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," was M. Jean M. Jean Baptiste Say, "who, not merely," to use Say Baptiste 228 VIII. JEAN BAPTISTE SAY. LECTURE Mr. Ricardo's words, "has done more than all other continental writers taken together, to recommend the principles of that enlightened and beneficial system to the nations of Europe, but who has succeeded in placing the science in a more logical and more instructive order, and has enriched it by several discussions, original, accurate, and profound." Traité d'Economie Politique. Utility. Mr. Mal.. thus' Principles of Political Economy. His earliest work was his "Traité d'Economie Politique, ou Simple Exposition de la Manière dont se forment, se distribuent, et se consomment les Richesses," published in 1803, whilst Napoleon Buonaparte was First Consul. The science of Political Economy was now, for the first time, formally limited to the legitimate sphere, which Adam Smith had by implication marked out for it, namely, the investigation of the laws which govern the formation, distribution, and consumption of wealth. M. Say, however, extended the meaning of the term wealth, under which head he embraced immaterial as well as material products: in this respect, differing entirely from the English School. He enlarged the signification of the word "utility," defining it to be "cette faculté qu'ont certaines choses de pouvoir satisfaire aux divers besoins des hommes:" and thus, whatever was capable of satisfying the wants of man was, according to M. Say, an article of wealth, as such a capacity was the first foundation of value. It is not proposed, on the present occasion, to do more than allude to the discussion of this question, which is to be found in "Mr. Malthus' Principles of Political Economy." Mr. Malthus, who, in several respects, was strongly opposed to M. Say's views, in regard to rent, for instance, considers that this enlarged definition of wealth has led M. Say almost inevitably to contradictions and inconsistencies. "One motive," he says, "which seems to have in MALTHUS' PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 229 VIII. to M. Say's duced M. Say to force into his definition of wealth LECTURE 'les plus nobles vertus et les plus rares talens,' is to enlarge and exalt the domain of Political Economy, Objections which he says has been reproached with occupying definition itself upon worldly goods, and encouraging a spirit of of wealth. avarice. But even if such a classification would give the subject more importance, this additional importance would be dearly purchased at the expense of the precision of its conclusions. The question, however, is not whether the results of useful labours may not, very properly, find a place in a Treatise on Political Economy, as they have done in the Inquiry of Adam Smith, but whether the specific term wealth, should be so defined, as to make not only its own meaning quite indistinct, but to introduce still greater indistinctness into the terms of the science of morals." "The fact really is," he continues, "that if we once desert matter in the definition of wealth, there is no subsequent line of demarcation which has any tolerable degree of distinctness, or can be maintained with any tolerable consistency, till we have included such a mass of immaterial objects as utterly to confuse the meaning of the term, and render it impossible to speak with any approach towards precision, either of the wealth of different individuals or different nations. "If then we wish, with M. Say, to make Political Economy a positive science, founded on experience, and capable of making known its results, we must be particularly careful in defining its principal term, to embrace only those objects, the increase or decrease of which is capable of being estimated, and the line, which it seems most natural and useful to draw, is that which separates material from immaterial objects." It was observed, in the Sixth Lecture, that Adam Immaterial Smith's classification of labour, under the heads of products. productive and unproductive labour, was open to grave objections. M. Say, on the other hand, by in |