THE LOGIC OF FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 55 



all, it proves that tariff legislation, taken separately, had no more 

 influence on the national prosperity than the movement of the 

 planets. To make matters even worse, he attempts to account for 

 the instances that make against him by ascribing the results to 

 other causes. For example, in the case of the free-trade period, 

 1846 to 1856, he tells us that the war with Mexico, the Irish fam- 

 ine, the discovery of gold in California, and the Crimean war 

 combined to defeat the natural result of free trade, and, instead 

 of there being a minus, there was a plus quantity. What else is 

 this than a simple begging of the question ? By assuming that 

 the result was due in this instance to a plurality of causes, suffi- 

 ciently strong to totally destroy and even reverse the effect which 

 he believes free trade would have produced alone, he leaves the 

 ground open for a similar assumption by his opponents during 

 those periods which apparently make for his theory. Wars, fam- 

 ines, and gold discoveries have happened at other times times in 

 which protection was in force. These would doubtless produce 

 similar effects in disturbing the predicted results, and would act 

 as disastrously against Mr. Blaine's theory in the one instance as 

 for it in the other. It was of reasoning such as this of which 

 Bacon wrote : " The very form of induction that has been used by 

 logicians in the collection of their instances is a weak and useless 

 thing. It is a mere enumeration of a few known facts, makes no 

 use of exclusions or rejections, concludes precariously, and is 

 always liable to be overthrown by negative instances." * 



For a satisfactory and anything approaching a reliable applica- 

 tion of empiricism, it would be requisite to ascertain precisely what 

 effect the increase of population, emigration, the variations of the 

 seasons causing excessive rains, droughts, and storms also in- 

 ventions, political contests, fires, robberies, etc., had upon trade ; 

 and until such an application can be made, no one can truly say 

 such and such a period of prosperity was due directly to the tariff. 

 The element of time plays one of the most important parts in this 

 method. \ Our greatest and most general truths have taken ages 

 to make themselves apparent. We come now to the examination 

 of the argument by which free trade is sustained. 



Mr. Gladstone deduces his conclusion from these premises: 

 " International commerce is based not upon arbitrary or fanciful 

 considerations, but upon the unequal distribution among men 

 and regions of aptitudes to produce the general commodities 



* The inductive system seems to have been the peculiar aversion of the brightest Scotch 

 intellects of the eighteenth century. Both Adam Smith and David Flume spoke contemptu- 

 ously of the Baconian method, and Buckle thinks this aversion to Bacon's system led 

 Hume to underrate his genius. In his History of England, Hume places Bacon inferior to 

 Galileo, and possibly below Keppler ! which Buckle considers unfair. 



f Hume calls it the " tedious, lingering method." (Philos. Works, vol. i, p. 8.) 



