TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 183 



produce, or the value of the produce, is divided between the three classes by whose 

 concurrence it has been obtained. 



When he uses as his premises, as he often must do, facts supplied by physical 

 science, he does not attempt to account for them ; he is satistied with stating; their 

 existence. If he has to prove it, he looks for his proofs, so far as he can, in the 

 human mind. Thus the economist need not explain why it is that labour cannot 

 be applied to a given extent of land to an indefinite amount with a proportionate 

 return. He has done enough when he has proved that such is the fact; and he proves 

 this by showing, on the principles of human nature, that, if it were otherwise, no 

 land except that which is most fertile, and best situated, would be cultivated. All 

 the technical terms, therefore, of political economy, represent either purely mental 

 ideas, such as demand, utility, value, and abstinence, or objects which, though some 

 of them may be material, are considered by the political economist so far only as 

 they are the results or the causes of certain affections of the human mind, such as 

 wealth, capital, rent, wages, and profits. 



The subject matter of political economy is, I repeat, wealth. The political 

 economist, as such, has nothing to do with any of the other physical or moral 

 sciences, or with any of the physical or moral arts, excepting so far as they affect the 

 production or distribution of wealth. Whether wealth be a good or an evil, whe- 

 ther it be conducive to human morality or to human happiness, that it be hoarded 

 or that it be consumed, that it be accumulated in masses, or that it be generally 

 diffused, are questions beyond his science. His business is to state what are the 

 effects on the production and distribution of wealth, or, to use a shorter expression, 

 the economic effects, of accumulation and of expenditure, of the different kinds of con- 

 sumption, and of the aggregation in a few hands, or the division among many, of the 

 things of which wealth consists. Whenever he gives a precept, whenever he ad- 

 vises his reader to do any thing, or to abstain from doing anything, he wanders 

 from science into art, generally into the art of morality, or the art of government. 



The science of statistics is far wider a3 to its subject matter. It applies to all 

 phenomena which can be counted and recorded. It deals equally with matter and 

 with mind. Perhaps the most remarkable results of the statistician's labours are 

 those which show that the human will obeys laws nearly as certain as those which 

 regulate matter. 



There are countries in which we find year after year the same number of marriages 

 at the same ages and in the same proportion to the population, the same number 

 of children to a marriage, the same number of bankruptcies, and the same number 

 of crimes and suicides, committed at the same ages, and by each sex in permanent 

 proportions ; in which the average height, the average weight, the average con- 

 sumption and production of commodities, and the average longevity, of men and of 

 women, continue for long periods unaltered. 



There are others in which the number or the proportion of these events varies ; 

 in which marriages, births, deaths, crimes, consumption and production, and even 

 the average stature are different at different periods. This uniformity, or these 

 differences, are detected by the statistician. His task is over when he has stated and 

 recorded them. It is the business of the legislator to draw from the figures of the 

 statistician, practical inferences. To ascertain the circumstances, moral, commercial, 

 or political, under which the tribute paid by his countiyruen to insolvency, crime, 

 sickness and death, has been increased, has been diminished, or has remained 

 stationary— these circumstances will often appear to be under control, and by 

 watching the statistical results of every attempt to control them, he will ascertain 

 whether they are under control or not. 



We have been told that a statesman " reads his history in a nation's eyes." 

 I should rather say that he reads it in a nation's figures. 



But it is not only to the statesman that statistics are useful, many of the most 

 important and most useful employments of capital depend on them. Vital statistics 

 are the base of life insurance. They decide the value of annuities, of life estates, 

 and of reversions. Every man in the management of his property has to consult 

 them. The statistics of fires regulate fire insurance, those of wrecks regulate 

 marine insurance. Wherever the success or failure of an undertaking depends on 



