254 J. W. SLATER^ ESQ., ON 



take its place. In his rejection of this unhappy discipline 

 he seems to me, however, to have been for once guided by a 

 correct principle. For what is. after all, political economy ? 

 Simply the study of man viewed solely as a producer, accumu- 

 lator, distributer and consumer of wealth, all his other func- 

 tions being temporarily set aside. That such disregard is 

 temporarily justifiable as a scientific artifice for the sake 

 of convenience in study cannot be contested. But how if this 

 regard is continued and carried into practice ? Let me take a 

 parallel case. Suppose that nothing were known concerning 

 the anatomy and physiology of man, and that the art of heal- 

 ing had been conducted solely upon clinical principles, practi- 

 tioners observing that when certain symptoms were observed 

 benefit was obtained by the use of this or the other remedy or 

 appliance. Under such circumstances, if a body of men came 

 to the conclusion that a knowledge of the human system and 

 of its various functions was desirable, it would be quite 

 legitimate for them to confine themselves for the present to 

 the study of some one set of organs. They might, e.g., select 

 in this manner the respiratory apparatus and its laws of 

 action. The truths they might thus ascertain Avould, if rightly 

 applied, prove of great value in medical practice. But 

 suppose that after having reached a moderately accurate 

 knowledge of respiration and its organs, they declined to 

 investigate other functions of the body, and attempted to 

 heal the sick in the sole light of their recent studies, 

 declaring, tacitly at least, that so long as the lungs of a 

 patient were kept in healthy action, the digestive and cir- 

 culatory organs, and even the nerve centres, might safely be 

 neglected, the result would be quackery of a very dangerous 

 type. But mutatis mutandis this is precisely Avhat the 

 economists do in attempting to reduce their fragment of a 

 science to practice. Comte felt this, and hence his condem- 

 nation of the Economists was legitimate. I cannot help here 

 expressing my regret that the section of the British 

 Association which professes to deal with Statistics and 

 Political Economy is still allowed to exist. It verges to a 

 dangerous degree upon party politics, and at the best it 

 merely does work which had much better be left to Chambers 

 of Commerce. 



Comte proclaimed that the " military and ecclesiastical 

 regime" as he called it, of the present was to give place to 

 an industrial and scientific organisation, the workman taking 

 the place of the soldier and the savant that of the priest. 



