ECONOMIC SCIENCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 35 



what objects and conditions it contains that may be made use of 

 for a given intended purpose. Human conduct, as viewed from this 

 standpoint, ceases to be merely uniform, quantitative, inert reaction 

 to adequate forces, and comes to be regarded as qualitative, pur- 

 posive response to stimuli. The ethical counterpart of this revamped 

 Hedonism, the utilitarianism of Mill, correspondingly recognizes in 

 the motivation of human conduct differences in kind of pleasures 

 as well as in amount, and imputes to the selective agent in conduct 

 a continuity of purpose that gives a spiritual stability to the life 

 process. And herewith there begins to fall away from political 

 economy that ancient article of faith which had seen in nature, and 

 nature alone, the consummate, beneficent trend which enabled 

 the economist to go to his work with conviction in his heart and 

 confidence on his lips. 



It is out of the question to pursue here the modifications wrought 

 by Mill and his following in the received version of economic doctrines 

 as a result of the change in their mental attitude. To one of these, 

 though it is far from being the most significant, Mill himself calls 

 special attention. It is the distinction he draws between the laws 

 of the production of wealth and the laws of its distribution. The 

 first are "real laws of nature dependent upon the properties of 

 objects " and cannot be modified; but the second are only the 

 "necessary consequences of particular social arrangements " and are 

 "liable to be much altered by the progress of social improvement." 

 Any attentive reader of Mill will recall many instances in which the 

 outcome in the economic situation is represented as controlled or 

 modified by other forces than mere pecuniary interest. The eco- 

 nomic situation is far from frictionless. The many circumstances 

 that Mill finds impeding the indiscriminate play of human competi- 

 tion as, for example, in his discussion of the causes of differences of 

 value or differences of wages, are cases in point. The "counter- 

 acting forces" as well as the "controlling principles" are noticed. 

 It is the "negligible factors " that mar the symmetry and flow of 

 his exposition. For similar reasons the unmitigated results of gain- 

 seeking traffic are not necessarily to be construed as good, and 

 competition loses something of its former virtue as the natural scheme 

 of social salvation. There is a visible shrinkage of the teleological 

 content of the laws of political economy. They imply less of approval 

 than formerly of the competitive process of which they are presumed 

 to offer the explanation. They are still natural laws but with more 

 of the limitations of later-day science, empirical generalizations, 

 statements of impersonal uniformities, of coexistence, and of sequence. 

 Moreover, they are abstract laws built on assumptions and of hypo- 

 thetical validity only. They are not entitled to exercise, therefore, 

 a narrowly constraining influence on the economist who undertakes 



