15 



although it is perfectly true that a bridge is built upon mathe- 

 matical principles ; neither does political economy regulate 

 the affairs of trade and commerce, or make or mar the welfare 

 of a people, although it is wise to be guided by its principles 

 in dealing with such subjects. It is in consequence of this 

 misapprehension of the nature and scope of political economy, 

 that it has been decried as visionary and selfish, much as 

 geology used to be supposed by many well-meaning people to 

 be antagonistic to revealed religion. " Hitherto," says Newman, 

 " the value of the science has been great in dispelling false 

 and injurious theories, but very small in originating positive 

 benefit : and for this it has been scoffed at ; but very unjustly. 

 The same may be said of physic and of politics. Physicians 

 are themselves ready to allow how unsatisfactory are the 

 practical results of their art in curing diseases ; yet their 

 science is of great value in repressing false pretenders and 

 mischievous treatment. Were there no educated physicians 

 among us, we should be deluged with astrology, charms, 

 and magic. ... In political economy the danger of 

 quackery is immense ; as the history of opinion shows ; and 

 those who have not studied systematically the works of men 

 who have devoted themselves to the science, are (here as in 

 other branches of human knowledge) apt to trust their own 

 theories, and to name all others mere tJieorists." ["Lectures 

 on Political Economy, p. 19.] 



In the beginning of the newspaper article quoted, political 

 economy is truly said to be " a science of rigid logic ;" and 

 it is that science which discovers the laws that regulate the 

 production, the distribution, and the exchange of wealth. 

 Newman is inclined to " call it simply The Theory of Wealth.** 



Political economy being a science, before we can fix the 

 true limits of its functions, we must enquire what is a 

 science ? The best definition I have seen is in the Ency- 

 clopaedia Britannica: " Science (scientia), in its strictest sense, 

 is a body of organised knowledge, whose phenomena are 

 arranged so as to exhibit the reasons or causes by which they 

 are influenced, in their legitimate connection and interdepen- 

 dence. That science which deals mth the succession of reason 

 and consequent is entitled an abstract science ; while that 

 which deals with causes and effects is called, for the most 

 part, a natural or physical science. Those scien{;es which 

 are supposed to be complete are called exact sciences, such as 

 geometry. But the great majority of what are called sciences 

 — that is, all those branches of knowledge in which discovery 

 is possible — hardly deserve the name, being only a bundle of 

 theories or of facts, bound together with more or less exact- 

 ness, and which afresh discovery may any day untie. Science 



