EDITOR'S TABLE. 



497 



has a natural and inalienable right to 

 his personal freedom of action, to the 

 use of his muscles, and the employment 

 of his powers, in any manner and direc- 

 tion that he chooses ; to contravene 

 this is slavery. A man has a right to 

 the use of his mind, to freedom of 

 thought and speech ; and to interfere 

 with this is. tyranny. A man also has 

 a natural right to freedom of exchange 

 of the products of labor, to buy and to 

 sell, as he pleases and where he pleases ; 

 and every arbitrary impediment to this 

 liberty is despotism. In the advance of 

 civilization, and through the struggles 

 of ages, personal liberty of action and 

 thought has been secured ; but it still 

 remains to extort from governments 

 absolute freedom of commercial inter- 

 course, whether on a small scale or 

 large. Dr. Anderson paid a compli- 

 ment to the great abstract thinkers 

 Grotius, Smith, and Bentham who, 

 although only scholars and philoso- 

 phers, have exerted a powerful influ- 

 ence upon the modern world ; and he 

 stated that free-trade doctrines are now 

 taught in all our best colleges so effi- 

 ciently that this influence will be cer- 

 tain to tell in the future settlement of 

 the question. 



Prof. Sumner took up, briefly, the 

 present state of political economy, 

 and remarked upou its incompleteness 

 and the conflict of views that has 

 recently sprung up in regard to its 

 scope, its validity, and its permanence. 

 While many of its questions will have 

 to be further elucidated, while much 

 that was at first laid down as true has 

 required revision, and while other forms 

 of knowledge are reacting upon and 

 modifying it, Prof. Sumner is of the 

 opinion that political economy must 

 stand in the future as an established 

 division in the classified hierarchy of 

 the sciences. 



Mr. Sanborn, of Boston, followed 

 this line of thought in some remarks on 

 the relation of political economy to so- 

 cial science. In that closer interdepen- 



vol. x. 32 



dence of the various forms of knowl- 

 edge which has resulted from scientific 

 investigation our views become en- 

 larged, and it is apparent that these 

 subjects must more and more be con- 

 sidered together. Political economy 

 will suffer if studied exclusively, or 

 with no reference to that philosophy 

 of man and society of which it is but 

 a part. 



Dr. Leverson closed the speech- 

 making by an appeal to introduce the 

 study of the rudiments of political 

 economy in our schools. He testified, 

 from his own large experience as a 

 lecturer, both in England and in this 

 country, that pupils in schools may be 

 very early interested in an elementary 

 knowledge of economics, or of the 

 sources of familiar things and the busi- 

 ness operations by which they are 

 procured. He thought this was the 

 proper place to begin the study of so- 

 cial science. 



SOCIETIES FOB TEE DIFFUSION OF 

 SCIENCE. 



The necessity of associated action 

 for the attainment of desirable and 

 important public objects is generally 

 understood, as is shown by the numer- 

 ous societies and organizations for the 

 promotion of religious, political, phil- 

 anthropic, literary, historical, and sci- 

 entific objects. The directions taken 

 by such associations in respect to the 

 interests to be promoted are, of course, 

 various, and well represent the state of 

 intelligence, the culture, the mental 

 preoccupations and aspirations, of the 

 community in which such societies are 

 formed. As regards science, the or- 

 ganization of societies for its promo- 

 tion has mainly had for its object 

 the encouragement and aid of original 

 observation and research ; and, as men 

 devoted to independent inquiry are not 

 numerous, and are widely scattered, 

 such associations are neither large in 

 number nor strong in their member- 



