I 



ON THE COMTIST CKITICISM OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 405 



very limited area, and was exposed to risks of famine which do not 

 threaten a nation with world-wide commerce; they had but little skill ia 

 clothing, and had not such a variety of fabrics for dilFaront seasons as we 

 possess. The contrast in the buildings erected brings out still more 

 plainly our extraordinary advance in control over industrial forces. The 

 argument in regard to mediaeval life is as sound if not so obvious; suffice 

 it to say that a great queen in a royal hall in Norman times, with no 

 carpets, no flooring, no bed to sleep on, and no plates to eat off",' was not 

 nearly so well provided with the material conditions for a healthy life as 

 the nineteenth-century pauper. The English economic organism of the 

 present day is far more effective for the maintenance and perpetuation of 

 human life than groups of the family, village, or municipal type ; and 

 just because it fulfils its pui'pose better, the modern economic organism 

 has superseded and is everywhere superseding less effective institutions 

 in the struggle for existence. 



2. Even when the earlier types are superseded they must not be 

 ignored, for they continue to exorcise an important influence as survivals 

 within the larger group.s. Thus the family served as the sphere for 

 technical education in weaving in England long after a term of apprentice- 

 ship had been enforced by Parliament.- For good, and sometimes for 

 evil, the old social structures are embedded in modern institutions, and 

 English society is complicated, partly because it carries on such large 

 and various industry and commerce, and partly because it embraces so 

 many historical survivals. 



Nor is this only the case in old countries. The United States of 

 America are little more than a century old, and society was deliberately 

 constituted in accordance with modern principles ; yet even in their 

 territories there are curious remnants of township and manorial institu- 

 tions ^ which were imported from England, and special features distin- 

 guish the districts which have been peopled by Irish, French, or German 

 settlers. 



If this is true of each of the more advanced societies, it is also true 

 that if we view the world as a whole we shall find all the various economic 

 types existing side by side. Even if we take a mere portion of a continent, 

 like our Indian Empire, we may see traces of them all in active work — 

 undivided joint families and village communities; vigorous towns like 

 Ahmedabad, with its gilds — and the British Raj controlling all, with a 

 keen regard for the collection of revenue, and half a thought for the 

 opium trade with China, and the prosperity of Lancashire in the back- 

 ground. 



Whatever economic problem has to be faced in England, in the United 

 States, or in India, or in connection with their relations to one another, 

 "we must take the special sociological conditions into account. Economic 

 'generalisations must necessarily be rehitive to a given form of civilisation 

 and a given stage of social development. This,' according to Mr. J. S. 

 MiU, ' is what no political economist would deny.' ' But some of them 



' Turner, Domestic Architecture, 97-104. 



» 5 El. c. 4. 



» Johns Iloplibis Political Studies, II. 



* Augiiste Comte and I'ositirism, p. 81. He apparentlj- holds that the generalisa- 

 tions hold good, but that it is always necessary to add those qualilications which 

 are required to adapt our statements to the circumstances of other peoples. I should 

 prefer to say that it is only in the case of peoples in a similar stage of civilisation 

 that this mode of adjustment proves convenient. If a great deal of correction has 



1889. H H 



