as the doctor with those of anatomy, physiology, and pathology.

trial art

Political

The Art of Political Economy is entirely ignored by the modern school of economists, but not be- Indus. cause they modestly believe that the facts of ignored their science are not sufficiently established in modern to be made available for the purposes of art, Economy. but because they think its principles, or laws, as they are pleased to call them, are naturally adapted to every condition of economic existence. What in other departments of knowledge would be termed rules of art, are with them designated scientific laws. They have laws for everything, but whether they are laws in the strictly scientific sense may be a matter of dispute. We hear of the Laws of Production, the Laws of Demand and Supply, the Laws of Value, the Laws of Price, even the Laws of Free Trade, and how many more beside it would be difficult to say, for the bare enumeration of them would fill a good-sized volume. But the great majority of these so-called laws are mere truisms. Even the fundamental maxim of this school, that mankind desire to obtain the greatest amount of wealth with the least expenditure of labour or self-sacrifice, is a mere truism, on a par with such maxims as these, that a man will choose the greater of two goods, that of two evils he will choose the lesser, or that of two roads to the same place he will take the shortest. All these and similar platitudes imply nothing more than average intelligence on the part of the agents.

We have seen that Industrial Science has to deal

N

Mental phe

nomena

incapable

of prevision.

with mental forces. The laws of the science will therefore be formulated statements of the modes in which these forces operate. Mental forces are of two kinds, psychological and moral. The laws of psychological forces are few and simple. They are those of Contiguity, of Similarity, and of Compound Association. But of the moral laws, the laws of human action, what do we really know about them? We know, indeed, that mankind act from motives, and we can enumerate many of such motives, and we know generally the kind of actions which certain motives influence. We know also that some motives are more powerful than others, judging by their effects; that the Hemeistic, for instance, are stronger than the Allostic, and that the Egoistic are stronger than either; but motives vary in strength, or, what amounts to the same thing, the receptiveness of the agent varies with. times and circumstances, so that the same motive which. will determine action at one time, or under one set of conditions, will not at another time, or under another set of conditions. If we take a given motive and isolate it from all others, we may certainly be able to ascertain approximately how the agent will act under its influence. We say "approximately" only, for as we can never know the strength of a motive but by its results, so we can never previse its precise operation. But in actual life a motive is never isolated in this way. There are always several motives operating concurrently on the mind, some of which determine action and others not,

and we can never tell beforehand which will prevail. We can never measure the strength of a motive quantitatively, and we can therefore never previse its effect on the volition. No doubt when several motives have the same general tendency we may be able to tell pretty accurately the result, just as we can in the case of an isolated motive; but when they are in conflict we can never predicate which will get the mastery, and even if we could, we cannot tell the exact amount of deflection which may result from the subjected motives. A man is both hungry and fatigued at the same time. The one state predisposes him to exertion, the other to rest, and the result will prove whether the desire to eat or the desire to rest was the stronger motive and which the weaker, and possibly also the influence of the latter on the former; but it would have been impossible to previse the result. Even if we are to take a purely hedonistic view of human nature we would still be no nearer prevision, as pains and pleasures are presented to the human mind in such a variety of aspects that it can never be said, absolutely, that mankind always act so as to avert the one or secure the greatest amount of the other.

does not

It does not follow, however, that because there can be no prevision there can be no science. We But it cannot previse geological phenomena, and yet it follow will not be disputed that there is a Science of there is ro Geology. The various processes of upheaval, Science. denudation, and subsidence, take place according to

Moral

certain general laws which are more or less understood, but we cannot foretell their effects, as they vary according to the nature and strength of the subterranean forces which cannot be measured quantitatively. Even in Biology and Psychology, as Mr. Herbert Spencer has observed, the previsions are, most of them, only qualificative, and even when they are quantitative, their quantitativeness can only be ascertained approximately.1 In Psychology, Ethics, Sociology, and Industrial Science, the phenomena are only qualificative, and are therefore altogether incapable of exact prevision.

insist on

Nothing but exact prevision will, however, satisfy the The deduc. deductionists. With them, Political Economy is tionists an exact science or it is nothing; and in order prevision. to make it exact they isolate it from the other moral sciences. They adopt an arbitrary conception of man, assume him to be impelled by a single motive, and then they proceed to explain how he must necessarily act under its influence. And no sooner have they adopted this assumption than they proceed to dogmatize upon it as if it were no assumption at all. They make believe, in fact, that they have not assumed anything, and present their deductions as if they were absolute, incontrovertible truths, and all this they do. with such an air of infallibility as would be ridiculous were it not mischievous.

But this only leads them further astray. So satisfied

1 Sociology, p. 45.

are they with the manner in which they have elaborated their system, that they have come to believe Laissez in its absolute perfectibility. So admirably faire. adapted, in their opinion, are the laws of their science to meet every industrial requirement, that they imagine nothing more is necessary than that they should be left to their free operation. Borrowing a shibboleth from certain French traders, they preach henceforth the gospel of laissez faire. To make any attempt to promote industry, either directly or indirectly, was naturally enough regarded by the commercial mind in Colbert's day as an interference with vested interests; but by the economist of the modern English school such an attempt is looked upon as nothing less than a gross violation of the first principles of economic law, an unwarrantable outrage on the established order of nature. "Free exchange," we are told by one of that school, "between man and man—or, what is the same thing, free trade -is action in accordance with the teachings of nature. Protection, on the other hand, is an attempt to make things better than nature made them."1 To all such objections I would only reply that it is the function of art to improve upon nature, or, to use the words of Polixenes to Perdita

"This is an art

Which does mend nature,--change it rather: but

The art itself is nature."

1 Mr. David Wells in The Atlantic Monthly for August, 1875.