POLITICAL ECONOMY. 727 



ideas as to the processes to be followed in an economic investigation. 

 Nowhere else does he seem more clearly to show how essentially he 

 had the power to handle a purely abstract question, such as that of 

 method. And yet, on the other hand, it is to be noticed in his 

 " Leading Principles," that the whole criticism, by which he amends 

 Mr. Mill's positions — his study of value, the wages question, and in- 

 ternational trade — shows how much more appreciation he had of the 

 real facts of trade than Mr. Mill. Under his economic penetration 

 the cold columns of Australian statistics, and American exports and 

 imports, glow with brilliant illustrations of general economic laws. 

 Armed with this firm grasp upon principles, and the ability to see their 

 operation in practical affairs, he examined the facts of our foreign 

 trade before 1873, and came to the conclusion that we were rapidly 

 accumulating the material for a great financial explosion, and actually 

 prophesied the panic which came in that year. Scarcely anywhere is 

 there a better illustration of the success arising from the possession of 

 these two almost wholly unlike powers of mind which I have been 

 trying to show are essential for the highest achievement in political 

 economy. Mr. Cairnes was an economic tight-rope walker ; he could 

 go with a cool head through airy spaces where other men became 

 dizzy or fell to the ground. And, at the same time, he had the Eng- 

 lishman's sturdy respect for facts, with more than the ordinary Eng- 

 lishman's willingness to acquaint himself with social systems different 

 from his own. 



These economists, whose powers I have attempted to analyze, 

 have been the ones who have contributed most to our knowledge 

 of the principles of political economy, as they are understood to-day. 

 Above all other writers, these men have possessed a useful eco- 

 nomic intuition, and a respect for facts, which have given peculiar 

 strength to their clear, abstract generalization of results in the form 

 of universal principles. Wherever other students and writers have 

 accomplished less, it will appear that weakness arose from their entire 

 or partial lack of one or both of these two sets of faculties. It ex- 

 plains some other things also. French writers are unexcelled in the 

 power of lucid statement ; but the generalizing and less practical 

 French are not so likely to be good economists as the more common- 

 sense English. Therefore, while the French have never much assisted 

 the progress of political economy, they have stated results in the most 

 admirable way. It is, then, reasonable also to expect that the practi- 

 cal Americans, with their keen insight and thoughtful disposition, may 

 also furnish the material for excellent economists, whenever they set 

 themselves seriously to get the proper training. 



It may now be worth while to explain briefly some of the evi- 

 dent ways by which the study of political economy disciplines the 

 mind. It may seem somewhat startling to say of so practical a sub- 



