TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 1147 
see, or continually forget, that the English economist, in giving an explanation of 
the manner in which pric®s, wages, profits, &c., are determined, is not attempting 
to justify the result; he is not trying to show that in getting the market price of 
his services the labourer, capitalist, or landlord gets what he deserves. Thus 
when Senior called interest the ‘ reward of abstinence,’ he did not mean to imply 
that it was normally proportioned to the capitalist’s merit in abstaining, but merely 
that capital is increased by individuals saving instead of spending, and that they 
require the inducement given by the actual rate of interest to save to the extent to 
which they actually are saving. Whether any other rate of interest would be 
juster is a question of ideal politics to which the English economist has usually 
nothing to say so long as it is stated in this abstract form; it is only when the 
political idealist descends to practice, and proposes a scheme for realising his con- 
ception of justice, that it comes within the province of economic science to discuss 
the probable effects of this scheme on production and distribution. But it is not 
with such far-reaching proposals of change that the English economist is mainly 
concerned ; his primary business is to ascertain the causes which determine actual 
prices of products and services. 
Hence, when the most recent German school of economists—variously known as 
the ‘historical,’ ‘ethical,’ or ‘social’ school—claims to have moralised political 
economy by throwing over the assumption of egoism, which they regard as charac- 
teristic of ‘ Smithianismus,’ they usually appear to the Hnglish economist to con- 
found what is with what ought to be. The assumption that egoism ought to be 
universal—that the universal prevalence of self-interest leads necessarily to the best 
possible economic order—has never been made by leading English writers; and 
it is an assumption with which they generally conceive themselves in no way 
concerned—in that part, at least, of the science which deals with distribution. It is 
the actual prevalence of self-interest in ordinary exchanges of products and services 
which constitutes their fundamental assumption. 
But I admit that this reply does not end the controversy. The critic may 
rejoin that, if egoism is not what it ought to be, the tranquil way in which the 
economist treats it as universally predominant is objectionable, as tending to give 
dangerous encouragement to the baser side of human nature. And, secondly, he 
may deny that self-interest actually has any such predominance as English 
economists assume ; hence, he may argue, their fundamental assumption must lead 
to serious errors in the analysis and forecast of actual facts. 
The first of these points I should concede to some extent. If we regarded it as 
blameworthy that a man should, under ordinary circumstances, try to get the highest 
price for any commodity he sells, and give the lowest for what he buys, then, 
though the analysis of economic facts, as they exist in the present selfish and 
wicked world, might still be conducted on the present method, I certainly think 
its results ought to be—and would be—expounded in a different tone. I should 
say, therefore, that our economists generally do not hold to be censurable, in a 
broad and general way, the self-regard which they assume as normal. I conceive, 
however, that this view is commonly held with the following important qualifica- 
tions. 
Firstly, it is not implied that the right of free exchange ought not to be legally 
limited in respect of certain special commodities. Thus, when it is urged by 
statesmen or philanthropists that the sale of opium, or brandy, or lottery-tickets, or 
children’s labour ought to be prohibited or placed under certain restrictions, the 
political economist, as such, is not to be regarded as holding a brief on the other 
side—at most he only throws the onus probandi on those who advocate interference, 
adding perhaps a warning that the consequences of their measure may possibly be 
different from what they anticipate, owing to the play of ordinary self-regard 
working under the new conditions that they aim at imposing. 
Secondly, it is not implied that similar limitations may not be effectively im- 
posed by the force of moral opinion. It has, indeed, to be pointed out that morality, 
like law, may produce effects other than what are designed—e.g. that the discredit 
attaching to usury may cause the unhappy debtor to pay more instead of less for 
his inevitable loan, since the usurer has to be compensated for the social drawbacks 
