THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 45 3 



that are no less beneficent than necessary, they need only suppose a 

 moment that human nature had opposite tendencies. Imagine that, 

 instead of preferring to buy things at low prices, men habitually pre- 

 ferred to give high prices for them ; and imagine that, conversely, sell- 

 ers rejoiced in getting low prices instead of high ones. Is it not ob- 

 vious that production and distribution and exchange, supposing them 

 possible under such conditions, would go on in ways utterly different 

 from their present ways ? If men went for each commodity to a place 

 where it was difficult of production, instead of to a place where it could 

 be produced easily, and if, instead of transferring articles of consump- 

 tion from one part of a kingdom to another along the shortest routes, 

 they habitually chose roundabout routes, so that the cost in labor 

 and time might be the greatest, is it not clear that, could industrial 

 and commercial arrangements of any kinds exist, they would be of 

 natures so unlike the present ones as to be inconceivable by us ? And, 

 if this is undeniable, is it not equally undeniable that the processes of 

 production, distribution, and exchange, as they now go on, are pro- 

 cesses determined by certain fundamental traits in human nature, and 

 that Political Economy is nothing more than a statement of the laws 

 of these processes, as inevitably resulting from such traits ? 



That the generalizations of political economists are not all true, 

 and that some, which are true in the main, need qualification, is very 

 likely. But, to admit this, is not in the least to admit that there are 

 no true generalizations of this order to be made. Those who see, or 

 fancy they see, flaws in politico-economical conclusions, and there- 

 upon sneer at Political Economy, remind one of the theologians who 

 lately rejoiced so much over the discovery of an error in the estimation 

 of the sun's distance, and thought the occasion so admirable a one for 

 ridiculing men of science. It is characteristic of theologians to find 

 cause for extreme satisfaction in whatever shows human imperfection ; 

 and in this case they were much elated because astronomers discovered 

 that, while their delineation of the Solar System remains exactly right 

 in all its proportions, the absolute dimensions assigned were too great 

 by about one-thirtieth. In one respect, however, the comparison fails : 

 for, though the theologians taunted the astronomers, they did not ven- 

 ture to include astronomy within the scope of their contempt did 

 not do as those to whom they are here compared, who show con- 

 tempt, not for political economists only, but for Political Economy 

 itself. 



"Were they calm, these opponents of the political economists would 

 see that as, out of certain physical properties of things there inevi- 

 tably arise certain modes of action, which, as generalized, constitute 

 physical science ; so out of the properties of men, intellectual and 

 emotional, there inevitably arise certain laws of social processes, in- 

 cluding, among others, those through which mutual aid in satisfying 

 wants is made possible. They would see that, but for these processes, 



