LITERARY NOTICES. 



417 



kind, and dependent upon the advance of 

 other sciences. But the foundations of the 

 old political economy were well laid ; the 

 method was broad, valid, and as productive 

 of important results as research in any 

 other field. The correctness of the pro- 

 cedures has been attested by the discover- 

 ies of economic laws, worked out, if not into 

 their final forms, at least iuto such clear- 

 ness and certainty as to give them value for 

 practical guidance. Granting that there is 

 much need for revision, amendment, en- 

 largement, what is this but the common 

 condition of all progressive knowledge ? 

 To speak of the " decline and fall " of the 

 English school of political economy savors 

 of exaggeration, and seems no more proper 

 than to speak of the decline and fall of any 

 other branch of science when its errors are 

 discovered, and it passes to a new stage of 

 its development. 



Dr. Ely, as wo have seen, charges that 

 the whole spirit of the old school is nega- 

 tive. " It was powerful to tear down, but 

 it did not even make an attempt to build 

 up." Yet in the department of science 

 what can we mean by " building up " if it 

 be not the organization and analysis of 

 facts, the derivation of principles, and the 

 establishment of a connected body of truths 

 as accurate and verifiable as the nature of 

 the phenomena and the coHdition of knowl- 

 edge will admit. Is not this in the highest 

 sense constructive work, and, making allow- 

 ance for the necessary imperfections of the 

 earlier stages of inquiry, it can not be intel- 

 ligently denied that the English school of 

 economists have established a body of posi- 

 tive truths which can never be subverted, 

 although they may be much further unfold- 

 ed. We think, indeed, that Dr. Ely's accu- 

 sation against the English school may be 

 turned with far greater propriety against 

 the German school, which has made no dis- 

 coveries, constructed no system, worked out 

 no generalizations, and whose main stock 

 in trade appears to consist in its attempts 

 to demolish what the English economists 

 have built up. 



We gather from Dr. Ely's argument that 

 a very confusing and also a most mischiev- 

 ous error pervades the teachings of the new 

 school — it does not discriminate between 

 science and art, between economical princi- 

 VOL. XXV. — 27 



pies and laws and the art of practical poli- 

 tics. The investigation of phenomena, the 

 establishment of their relations, and the der- 

 ivation of principles, is a sufficiently large 

 subject to occupy distinctive attention, and 

 science proper ceases when this important 

 work is done. The results gained will be 

 valuable in application, but this is a sepa- 

 rate field of effort. Law-making may be 

 helped by science, but to rank it as itself a 

 part of economic science confuses important 

 distinctions. That the German school should 

 favor paternalism in government, and legis- 

 lative interference with the business life of 

 the people, should magnify the state, belit- 

 tle individualism, and question the doctrine 

 of natural human rights, is what we are pre- 

 pared to expect, but when all this is put for- 

 ward as political economy, and a warrant 

 for the installation of a " new school " to 

 replace a fallen system, the case seems 

 somewhat strained. It is not so easy to 

 take leave of the older idea of legitimate 

 science in this field of thought. And yet 

 tiie tendency of government to encroach 

 upon the liberty of citizens, and regulate 

 the private affairs of industry and business, 

 although as old as political tyranny, is now 

 coolly put forth as the discovery of a great 

 master of political economy. Dr. Ely says 

 that "Adolph Wagner, the Coryphajus of 

 German economists," has discovered " the 

 law of increasing functions of government " 

 — "has shown how government has taken 

 upon itself function after function, and how 

 the operations of government trench more 

 and more upon the domain of private indus- 

 try." If the reader will here refer to what 

 is said upon page 302 of this " Monthly," he 

 will get further light upon the new school 

 claim of what it considers a discovery in 

 the progress of political economy. 



Dr. Ely objects to the English school, 

 not only that it is deficient in facts and 

 data, indulges too much in theory and neg- 

 lects history, but also that it is narrow and 

 ignores the wide range of social phenomena 

 with which it is connected ; and he refers 

 to Professor Ingham's address, in which it 

 is maintained that political economy must 

 in future be considered from the point of 

 view of social science, or as a branch of the 

 more comprehensive subject of sociology. 

 But, granting that the old system is more 



