allowance But, in truth, the making-allowance theory is not applicable in all cases. Motives are of various The kinds, and impel to various, and even opposite, propercourses of action, according to their character. theory inapplicable. One motive impels to one kind of action, another motive to action of an entirely different kind. I owe a man a sum of money, and if I am influenced solely by a desire to obtain the maximum of wealth by the minimum of expenditure, I will refuse to pay it; if, on the other hand, I am actuated mainly by a sense of duty, I will pay what I owe whatever may be the consequences to myself. There can be no compromise between motives such as these, any more than there can be between a negative and an affirmative proposition, and there can, therefore, be no proper allowances" made in such cases. It is not a question as to the extent of the modifying influence of one motive upon another, but of two motives which neutralize each other. Conclu the whole. If, then, the hypothesis in question fails to explain all the phenomena of industrial life; if the results obtained by this process are only sion from approximately true, and can only be true by making allowances for disturbing causes; and if, at the same time, it is found to be impossible to make these allowances, or to adjust motives which neutralize each other; and if, after all, the verifying or inductive process is still necessary to correct important, and even fundamental errors, arrived at by the deductive process, surely enough has been said to show that this method is inapplicable to the subject before us. method is the In all investigations of which Man is the subject, The true the only proper method of treatment is by induction. Psychology, Ethics, Politics, and Inductive. Industrial Science, are all Sciences of Observation. By the latter term we understand experience in its widest sense, including a recognition of the internal facts of consciousness as well as the external facts of human activity. Mill, indeed, contends that experience is altogether inefficacious in the moral sciences. "In chemistry and natural philosophy," he says, "we can not only observe what happens under all the combination of circumstances which nature brings together, but we can also try an indefinite number of combinations. This we can seldom do in ethical, and scarcely ever in political, science. We, therefore, study nature under great disadvantages in these sciences; being confined by the limited number of experiments which take place (if we may so speak) of their own accord, without any preparation or management of ours; in circumstances, moreover, of great perplexity, and never perfectly known to us, and with the far greater part of the processes concealed from observation." 1 It is no doubt true that the student of Industrial Science cannot treat human beings as the chemist can treat inert matter, nor is it necessary he should. Experiments enough are already made to his hand, and all that is requisite is that he should collect and apply them. Thus, the changes brought about in seasons of scarcity and plenty, in 1 Some Unsettled Questions, pp. 146, 147. periods of adversity and prosperity, of stagnation and activity in trade or commerce, affect production and consumption, prices, wages, and currency in a variety of ways, and are indirect experiments of the very greatest value. But we can also "try an indefinite number of combinations." All changes we make in customs and excise duties, and in the mode of taxation, for example, are, in their very nature, experiments; and the whole course of legislation in banking, currency, usury, forestalling, wages, and combinations; our factory acts, health acts, licensing acts, insolvent acts, insurance, landlord and tenant, and master and servants acts; our corn laws, game laws, poor laws, patent, navigation, and sumptuary laws, are nothing but a long series of experiments, and we can extend these in any direction we think proper. Nor can we agree with Mill in the opinion that in the investigation of the moral sciences, as com- Is more applicable pared with the physical, the student stands at to moral any disadvantage whatever. Indeed, we believe than to physical quite the contrary to be the case. In the science. physical sciences, as has been well said, we can only interrogate nature by a slow and tedious process, for nature is mute; but in the moral sciences the object, man, is also the subject, and he is a conscious articulate being. He can explain his own feelings and describe the motives of his own acts.1 In the 1 1 Lewis, On the Methods of Observations and Reasoning in Politics, vol. i. p. 165. See also Bain, Mental and Moral Science, p. 223. moral sciences, therefore, we get directly at the cause; in the physical only indirectly. The individual knows what motives impel him to action; he can also ascertain the motives which influence other people around him, for he can interrogate them, and they can answer; and he has, in addition, the actions themselves, which he can interpret in the same way as he can the phenomena of nature. There is, therefore, no special reason why the inductive method should not be applicable to the moral sciences, at least in the first instance. Once the facts have been correctly ascertained, deductive reasoning may be founded on them, but not before. Deduction properly begins where induction ends. CHAPTER III. ALLEGED SUFFICIENCY. OF SELF-INTEREST. THE principle that underlies the whole system of the English school of Political Economy is self The dogma stated. interest. This is regarded not only as an essential force, but as an all-sufficient one. It needs no supplementing, and it brooks no interference. So far from requiring to be adjusted or regulated by any other force, it is the grand regulator of all other forces. What wonder, then, that writers of this school never tire of expatiating on the great and manifold blessings which flow from this principle, that the very contemplation of these fill their minds with awe and admiration, till language almost fails to express the benign feelings with which it inspires them? Its existence, according to the writers referred to, betokens a wise and beneficent arrangement of Providence.1 It is a sublime contrivance which indicates the benevolent purposes of the Deity. Only let it have full scope, and wealth and 2 1 Whateley, Lectures on Political Economy, p. 103. |