POLITICAL ECONOMY AS A MORAL SCIENCE. 



323 



activities and capacities — of humau nature as are 

 ■employed in the satisfying of human wants : it is 

 not concerned with things as valuable in them- 

 selves—that delusion is done with forever — but 

 with human powers working on things and giving 

 them their worth : it ha3 not to do with human 

 atoms impelled by one force, but with the many 

 powers which are common to all human beings, 

 while they are more highly developed as civiliza- 

 tion advances. If this view of the subject re- 

 moves the appearance of egoism, it also gives 

 the science a closer relation to actual life, both 

 past and present. There may have been a state 

 of society when, practically, things had a fixed 

 value, and the old thoughts were true ; there 

 have been signs of a time when there was no 

 society, and a competing individualism was the 

 order of the day, and the doctrines of Ricardo 

 represent the truth then. But our science need 

 not be limited to any one of these conditions of 

 mankind if it fixes its attention on the human 

 powers that are at work in every stage of civiliza- 

 tion. Political economy, as a moral science, may 

 express general truths, while by other methods 

 of treatment it is limited to special states of so- 

 ciety and cut off from all relation to history. 



ii. 



-GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 



These considerations seem to establish a pri- 

 ma- facie case for at least some new method of 

 treatment; and we may proceed to attempt a 

 new presentation of old truths by delineating, 

 very briefly, some leading doctrines in the form 

 they would take as part of the science of the re- 

 sources of human nature. To this view of the 

 •subject an objection at once occurs: we are con- 

 cerned, not with thoughts and feelings — mental 

 or .moral powers — but with things. The growth 

 of wealth implies changes in the material uni- 

 verse: it is for material wealth that men strive, 

 and the resources of human nature may be very 

 considerable, but they are not capable of filling a 

 mouth, not to mention a pocket. But though 

 this is true, the fact remains that these material 

 objects are not only valueless in themselves, but 

 useless in themselves ; they become useful from 

 the fact that there is a man to use them. To 

 one who does not know their use, they are worth- 

 less ; and the increase of knowledge means, as 

 Bacon saw, the increase of power over Nature 

 to turn material things to our uses. Things in 

 themselves have no place in our science ; only 

 material objects as known, and material objects 

 as used. We do not need to cumber our discus- 

 sion with any distinction between mind and mat- 



ter, still less need wc confuse it by trying to 

 treat of both together: we shall include all that 

 is needed for the study of the subject if we think 

 of the resources of human nature, among which 

 we may include its knotvledge of Nature and incli- 

 nation to use it. 



This may be a hard saying to those who have 

 accepted the teaching of the common text-books ; 

 but we are not at issue with ordinary language, 

 if we have gone beyond popular thought. A 

 wealthy man is simply one who has many satis- 

 factions, and the certain expectations of satisfac- 

 tions to come : we may say that wealth consists 

 of all pleasures present or expected which are 

 embodied in a material form, rather than that it 

 consists of " every commodity which has an ex- 

 change value." This is no mere quibble : so far 

 as the latter statement is not a meaningless tru- 

 ism, it accentuates commodities rather than the 

 feelings of human beings, which are the reasons 

 of their worth. The thing in itself has no value, 

 only pleasure in the thing ; and more than this, 

 we buy or sell not merely the thing, but the ex- 

 pectation of pleasure embodied in the thing. 

 When John and Thomas bargain as to a watch, 

 there are at least as many possibilities of confu- 

 sion as there are when they talk on other sub- 

 jects. 1 There 13 John's expectation of the use- 

 fulness of the watch to him, there is Thomas's 

 expectation of being able to get more from some 

 one else : on both sides there are ideal elements, 

 and the thing in itself — the real watch — is only 

 the centre round which these subjective expec- 

 tations cluster : so, too, the disappointment of a 

 bad purchase is due, not to any change in the 

 commodity, but to finding that the actual pleasure 

 does not come up to the expectation. 



So long as we assert that wealth consists of 

 commodities, so long will it be impossible to di- 

 vest men wholly of the belief that value is an in- 

 herent quality of objects, or to enforce clear ideas 

 of the nature of wealth. Wealth consists of sat- 

 isfactions embodied in objects ; and the distinc- 

 tion is important when we remember that many 

 exchanged commodities are not themselves the 

 embodiment of any pleasure, but rather of ab- 

 stinence from enjoyment. The result of our toil 

 — the satisfaction of our wants — is surely to be 

 classed differently from the commodities which 

 we merely use for producing that result : the one 

 is but the means to an end, the other is the end 

 •itself — a distinction which is sufficiently recog- 

 nized in the common view of a miser as one who 

 makes his means an end. Commercial crises 

 1 " Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table." 



