466 EEroiiT— 1889. 



at least have appeared at times to forget it, and we have to thank the 

 Comtist criticism for forcing us to remember that the material truth of 

 economic principles depends on compHcated social conditions, and that 

 they have no independent validity. 



3. It is quite as important to bear this in mind if we are discussing, 

 not the wealth of nations, but the economic conduct of an individual ; his 

 habits and ideas and aspirations are formed by the society in which he 

 lives ; the econom^ic man of each time and place is relative to the economic 

 organism of which he forms a part. Partly by custom, partly through 

 explicit regulation, he v/ill have to do as the society around him does — to 

 work their hoiirs, and use their holidays, and buy and sell on their terms, 

 be they by calculated or competition prices. As a matter of fact, in the 

 more complicated societica there is less repression of the individual's 

 independent action; and it h' also true that his positive aims are deeply 

 affected by his social environment. In India the individual desires to be 

 respected in his caste, as in mediEEval towns ' the individual wished to 

 stand well with the good men of his craft, or to hold office and attain to 

 civic dignity, — not so much to be rich himself as to stand well with his 

 neighbours in a prosperous community. In modern life the individual 

 wishes, not to stand well in his class, but to rise out of his class to a 

 better social grade ; and since wealth gives the means of gratifying that 

 ambition, the desire of wealth has become a dominant factor in the minds 

 of most men. Thus the ' economic man ' is not a constant type, but he 

 is always relative to his social environment, both as concerns his habits 

 and his ambitions. As Professor Thorold Rogers excellently says, ' much 

 which popular economists believe to be natural is highly artificial.''^ 

 Even those who do not see much hope of constructing a systematic 

 science of society may hold that little pi-ogress can be made in investigat- 

 ing the economics either of national or individual life unless careful 

 account is constantly taken of the special social conditions at every 

 point. 



III. 



The changes in the subject-matter of economic investigation, as the 

 more effective organisms supei'seded others, have been necessarily followed 

 by changes in economic terminology and in economic conceptions. As 

 always in the growth of knowledge, there has been progress from the 

 vague to the definite. Men have found better means of supplying their 

 wants, partly by mechanical inventions and physical discoveries, partly 

 by introducing better forms of the combination and division of labour. 

 Along with this greater complexity in the organism, there has been the 

 need of new names to describe its various j^arts, and the opportunity 

 for more careful reflection on their several functions. Knowledge could 

 not advance until the things to be known came into being ; it was quite 

 impossible for anyone to understand the principles which, as we say, 

 determine the rent of arable land, in a village community where no corn 



to be introduced, it may be simpler to state the priuciiDles which hold good for, e.g., a 

 village community, in an entirely different shape, rather than try to adapt generalisa- 

 tions drawn from modern society. Mr. Mill would apparently agree that we could 

 not adapt our economic generalisations, but he seems to hold that the phenomena of 

 primitive life lie outside the scope of economic science altogether. 



' Eiehl, Deutsche Arbeit, 21. 



'Economic Interprctaiion, p. vi. 



