OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 287 



on more tlian the capacity of a soil to support a maximum population 

 with the least subsistence needed for the labor of production. The 

 principle applies without qualification to the animal world in general 

 and to savage men ; but not to progressive communities of men, in 

 which foresight and prudence, with moral and social aspiratioub, are 

 forces of more or less influence in checking increase in population, and 

 in improving the condition of the masses. The poorest, the most 

 wretched, are not in the same condition of want in all communities of 

 men. The poorest savage is objectively in a worse condition than the 

 poorest civilized man. 



Mill did not oppose the views of his predecessors nor their manner 

 of treatment, as so many other writers had done : he'carried out their 

 mode of regarding the science as a physical one, but with a thorough- 

 ness which brought to light considerations materially modifying their 

 conclusions. The prospects of mankind are not hopeless, so long as men 

 are capable of asjjiration, foresight, and hope ; though they may be 

 gloomy enough in view of the slow working of these forces. What 

 these forces have to oppose, however, is not the resistance of an im- 

 movable necessity, but only the force of inveterate customs. To the 

 sentimental objection that the laws of political economy are cruel, and 

 therefore not true, Mill humorously replied that he knew of no law 

 more cruel than that of gravity, which would put us all to death, were 

 we not always and vigilantly on our guard against it. 



With a full, perhaps a too extreme appreciation of moral forces, as 

 elements in the problems of Political Economy, Mill still treated the 

 science as an abstract one ; as a science of conditional propositions, a 

 science applicable to the practical problems of morals and politics, but 

 not in itself treating of them. For example, wars are expensive, and the 

 establishment of a new industry is also an expense which the principles 

 of political economy can estimate ; but it does so without deciding 

 whether war or an industry ought under given circumstances to be 

 undertaken. 



Moral forces are real agents affecting the future of the human race. 

 As causes of effects, they are calculable forces, and as means to ends are 

 proper subjects of the abstract science of political economy. It was 

 because Mr. Mill believed in " moral causation " (the name he gave to 

 what had indiscriminately been called the doctrine of necessity in 

 human volition), and because he himself was powerfully and predomi- 

 nantly actuated throughout his life by high moral considerations, that 

 he gave such emphasis to the moral elements in political economy, and 

 made room for hope — for a sober, rational hope — respecting the 



