POLITICAL ECONOMY. 729 



general principles, can best interpret the facts around him. To fol- 

 low through a course of political economy without this attempt to 

 think out the principles by use of the imagination, and by constant 

 application to familiar facts, is like trying to climb a perpendicular 

 slope of ice — the student will not catch hold. 



In the next place, the disciplinary power of the study is very much 

 that which is gained in the study and pursuit of the law. The be- 

 ginner first gets an understanding of the principles, and he is then 

 constantly engaged in turning with them to the economic phenomena 

 around him as an exercise in their application. Or, struck by some 

 new or interesting fact, he studies to find the law which explains the 

 observed effects. In thus apjDlying general principles to explain spe- 

 cial facts, the economic student is doing almost exactly that which he 

 does when, in the profession of the law, he applies legal principles to 

 particular cases, or considers whether the interpretation of the law in 

 one decision applies also to the special case he has in hand. The mod- 

 ern theory of legal teaching no longer recognizes the plan of simply 

 filling the mind with statements of what the law now is, but aims to 

 force the student, under oversight, constantly to apply principles to 

 multitudes of cases, or to discover the principle running through the 

 studied cases. It will, then, be seen that this process is much the same 

 as in political economy. Consequently, quite apart from the " useful- 

 ness " of our study, its training is an excellent preparation for legal 

 work, and strengthens the powers which are most called into play in 

 that profession. 



Moreover, this kind of mental exercise is continually calling upon 

 . one for the ability to see the pivotal part in any statement, whether 

 of fact or principle. Not to see the essential bearing of an exposition 

 is a species of mental blindness ; but exercise will gradually give 

 clearer vision. Nothing is more common in the replies of untrained 

 students to questions than the happy-go-lucky kind of answers which 

 bear upon the general subject, but are aside from the point. Persons 

 may write or speak about the question, but do not answer it ; what 

 they may say may be quite true in itself, but it is irrelevant. The 

 faculty of hitting a point is one, in my opinion, like concentration of 

 mind (to which it is nearly allied), which is largely capable of cultiva- 

 tion and growth. And the discipline of rigorous study in political 

 economy is one of the best means of acquiring it. In my experience, 

 there have been some interesting illustrations of this analysis. Trained 

 lawyers have, by heredity, transferred this faculty of directness of 

 thought to their sons ; and it has been possible, sometimes, without 

 further data, to pick out the sons of lawyers from reading their exami- 

 nation-books in political economy. These sons " hit the nail on the 

 head," and made clean work of their answers, without any mental 

 shuffling, or avoidance of the essential point. 



To make progress in such a study, the student must necessarily 



