638 



NATURE 



{Oct. 2,1, 1889 



divided into three parts, the first dealing with ques- 

 tions relating to public health, the second with various 

 economic problems, and the third (of course) with 

 educational topics. Though most of the essays are 

 more or less scientific in character and mode of treat- 

 ment, only one is purely scientific, viz. that on " Sleep 

 and some of its Concomitant Phenomena," which contains, 

 with a few alterations, the substance of a lecture delivered 

 before the Royal Institution in 1846. 



The whole forms a volume which, if it will add nothing 

 to the great reputation of the author, is eminently read- 

 able, and exhibits his usual power of apt illustration and 

 dexterous handling of masses of facts. It is not, indeed, a 

 book which many will read from cover to cover, for, as is 

 natural when we consider the conditions under which its 

 contents were originally produced, there is a considerable 

 amount of repetition both in the subjects and in the 

 mode of treatment. But readers in search of trenchant 

 arguments and pointed illustrations on such debated ques- 

 tions as vivisection and vaccination will find both in the 

 lucid and pithy discourses devoted to these subjects by Sir 

 Lyon Playfair ; and there is a great variety of interesting 

 economic facts drawn both from Europe and America in 

 the second part of the volume, which deals with industrial 

 wealth. We cannot, however, candidly say that weVegard 

 the second section of the book as satisfactory. Much of it 

 was originally intented to serve a definite and temporary 

 purpose — to confute an adversary or to reassure wavering 

 adherents of Free Trade — and for such a purpose it was 

 well adapted. It came under the head of what an 

 eminent politician has called the literature which to-day 

 is and to-morrow is (or at least should be) cast into the 

 oven, and its preservation will, we fear, serve no useful 

 end. When, for example, Sir Lyon Playfair declares that, 

 " so far as regards politics, ethics, sculpture, painting, 

 and architecture, the world has advanced little beyond, if 

 it has reached, the position attained by Greece and Rome. 

 These, though they grace, do not now. form the founda- 

 tion of a nation's prosperity. That is formed from the 

 applications of science to industry," he is expressing an 

 opinion which may have been the passing sentiment of a 

 moment, but which he will hardly care to have permanently 

 associated with his name. 



One of the weakest of the papers is that on bimetallism. 

 Sir Lyon Playfair does not appear to realize the point of 

 view of the bimetallist economists, who, however un- 

 practical they may be, are not wanting in theoretic know- 

 ledge and power of analysis, and who are certainly not 

 in such a state of fog as to the cause and regulator of 

 the values of the precious metals as their critic seems to 

 suppose. Such men as President Walker, whose exposi- 

 tion of the question is not lacking in clearness, certainly 

 never subscribed to the opinion gratuitously thrust upon 

 bimetallists by Sir Lyon Playfair, that the value of gold 

 and silver can be fixed by statute independently of the 

 state of demand and supply. But a very brief examina- 

 tion of. the subject will make it clear that the establish- 

 ment by a considerable number of nations of a legal 

 ratio between the values of gold and silver would be a 

 most powerful factor in altering the conditions of demand, 

 by making the two metals alternative for the purpose for 

 which they are most largely used. This automatic action 

 of the " bimetallic bond " would be comparatively in- 



significant in the case of a single nation surrounded by- 

 monometallic countries, because the neighbouring coun- 

 tries would offer such a wide area for the overflow of the 

 dearer metal, which might thus all drain away before 

 matters could readjust themselves ; but it would become 

 theoretically very powerful if four or five of the great nations 

 could unite for the establishment of the double currency. 

 The real objection to such a policy arises from the practical' 

 difficulty of forming a strong international monetary union,, 

 and the physical fact that silver is much heavier and 

 more inconvenient to carry than the equivalent value in 

 gold. These difficulties are very real in practice, but it 

 is useless to suppose that the bimetallic position is turned 

 by an appeal to the action of the Chinese Emperor Wang- 

 Mang, who is said to have proclaimed a legal ratio of 

 value between {^sic) five shells — in which attempt he very 

 naturally failed. 



It is time also that economic writers gave up the vague 

 references to supply and demand as the cause of all 

 things ; as though supply and demand were ultimate facts- 

 incapable of being further analyzed and explained. 

 " These laws" says Sir Lyon Playfair, " are all-powerful, 

 and no statute law of one nation or of ten combined 

 nations can prevail against them." (The italics are ours.) 

 Now what is this but a revival of the old confusion between 

 the two meanings of the word " law," which once led a 

 writer in a leading Review to question the use of economic 

 laws unless enforced by the] police ? In other essays Sir 

 Lyon Playfair declares (with truth) that Protection raises- 

 prices and lowers wages. Is not this a case of a statute 

 law " prevailing against," or (as we should put it) modi- 

 fying, the conditions of supply and demand ? 



In the same lecture on bimetallism Sir Lyon Playfair told) 

 the National Liberal Club that "gold might be stationary in 

 c^mxitity and value, yi\ii\t the prices of commodities might 

 fall from causes having no relation to it, and then its ap- 

 preciation or power of increased purchase would be a 

 contemporaneous fact but not a cause of the deprecia- 

 tion." How can " value " be stationary while " purchas- 

 ing power " rises ? The meaning of the passage is not 

 obscure ; but the looseness of phraseology is deplorable 

 in a science in which strictness in the use of terms is so 

 essential. Would Sir Lyon Playfair say that a school- 

 boy had not gone up in class because it was the fault of 

 his companions that they had gone down ? 



A far more thoughtful essay is that on the displace- 

 ment of labour by modern inventions, in spite of the use 

 of such loose phrases as " labour has suffered much less 

 than capital," and the old confusion between changes in 

 the rate of profit on capital and the (totally distinct) 

 amount of profit reaped by the capitalist. Sir Lyon, 

 Playfair was personally acquainted with the three great 

 discoverers. Oersted, Faraday, and Wheatstone, who 

 have revolutionized commerce by their electrical re- 

 searches ; and he views the changes which are taking 

 place in modern industrial conditions from a large and 

 philosophic point of view, seeing in them the inevit-. 

 able dislocations and friction resulting from a slow and 

 difficult readjustment of industry consequent On new 

 discoveries. To take one case. The discovery of the 

 mode of making madder from coal tar has reduced the 

 importation of natural madder into this country from 

 22,000,000 pounds in 1872 to 2,000,000 in 1887. What has- 



