THE "DISMAL SCIENCE" DECADENT 



By THOMAS ELMER WILL 



IN HIS address at the annual meet- such commodities as he deals in. The 

 ing, Rev. Edward Everett Hale apprehension, on the one hand, of not 

 spoke of having, as a boy, studied realizing all the profit he might, and on 

 Jean-Baptiste Say's Political Economy, the other, of having his goods left on 

 "which was a science comparatively his hands, these antagonist muscles 

 new then. It was called the 'dismal regulate the extent of his dealings and 

 science,' and with very good reason, for the prices at which he buys and sells, 

 the political economy of those days was An abundant supply causes him to 

 founded on the Devil's philosophy, lower his prices, and thus enables the 

 which is 'the Devil take the hindmost public to enjoy that abundance ; while 

 and everybody cut throats for him- he is guided only by the apprehension 

 self.' " of being undersold. On the other hand, 

 One of the infallible dogmas of the an actual or apprehended scarcity 

 "dismal science" was the doctrine of causes him to demand a higher price 

 laisscr fairc. It rested on the assumption O r to keep back his goods in expecta- 

 that the existing economic status, in- tion of a rise. Thus he cooperates, un- 

 cluding private property in practically knowingly, in conducting a system 

 all land and tools, and the uncontrolled which no human wisdom directed to 

 conduct of industry by private individ- that end could have conducted so 

 uals for private profit, was divinely de- we ll, the system by which this enor- 

 creed, fixed and eternal ; that the opera- mous population is fed from day to day. 

 tions of such an economic system were "I sa y, 'no human wisdom' ; for wis- 

 regulated by "natural laws" as irrepeal- dom there surely is, in this adaptation 

 able as the laws which govern the o f the means to the result actually pro- 

 motions of the planets, and that the duced. In this instance, there are the 

 outcome was a system of "economic same marks of benevolent design which 

 harmonies" beautiful to contemplate we are accustomed to admire in the 

 and, like the Ark of the Covenant, anatomical structure of the human 

 sacredly to be guarded against the pro- body. * * * The heavens do in- 

 fane touch of man or government. deed 'declare the glory of God,' and 

 Archbishop Whately (quoted in the human body is fearfully and won- 

 Francis Bowen's Principles of Political derfully made; but man, considered 

 Economy, 1863, pages 20-22) illus- no t merely as an organized being, but 

 trates the automatic workings of this as a ra ti O nal agent and as a member of 

 system in the feeding of a city like soc i et y ; j s perhaps the most wonder- 

 London. After explaining the perfec- fully contr j ve d product of Divine wis- 

 tion of the mechanism, he exclaims : "It dom that wg haye any know i edge o f." 

 is really wonderful to consider with Qn thi Professor Bowen com - 

 what ease and regularity this impor- 



tant end is accomplished day after day, n j induction from such 



and year after year, through the sa- , 



gacity and vigilance of private inter- cases as this, that political economists 



ests operating on the numerous class rest their most _ comprehensive and 



of wholesale, and more especially retail, most noted maximthe laisser-faire 



dealers. Each of these watches at- or 'let-alone' principle the doctrine oi 



tentively the demands of his neighbor- non-interference by the government 



hood, or of the market he frequents, for with the economical interests of society. 



223 



