TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 187 
murder itself—tmight have beeti mitigated, and in great measure prevented, had 
the people of this country in their youth, and before the mind could be warped, 
been instructed in the elements of Economic Science.” And on this, and on other 
grounds, they urged that no more time should be lost in taking measures for gra- 
dually introducing this knowledge, as a regular branch of education, into all schools 
to which the State gives pecuniary aid. Their demand was not fully conceded ; 
but a beginning has been made in England as in Ireland, and the study has been 
introduced in some large schools under efficient inspectors. Individuals have made 
the same experiment in London and Glasgow (eminently Mr. Ellis and Mr. 
M‘Clelland), and with a success demonstrating the feasibility of imparting econo- 
mic knowledge to young people, and making it full of attractive interest to them. 
We must all sincerely trust that the same success may attend the effort which has 
been so well begun in Ireland. _ : 
I do not think I need apologize for these references to the connexion between 
economic and statistical science and the intellectual traditions of Belfast ; for, whilst 
they prove that I am not unwarranted in asserting its worthiness to receive this 
great Association, they must gratify specially those whom I address, as indicating 
a healthy interest in the prosecution of that science and a continuous effort to 
assist its progress here. 
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of such progress to the highest 
interests of every class of our society. The branch of knowledge with which we 
have to deal must have had an existence coeval with all advanced civilization, 
although its name is new. It could never have been ignored by the historian, who 
properly marshalled facts and drew inferences as to the characters and actions of 
individuals and the causes of the rise and fall of nations. It was necessarily 
cultivated by investigators of thé working of commercial communities, and the 
influences which affect their prosperity or decay. It was implicitly recognized by 
all careful and conscientious statesmanship, in dwelling on the events and circum- 
stances which might require the maintenance of institutions or warrant their aboli< 
tion or reform. Those who fulfilled such functions were, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, statisticians and economists, although the recognition of statistics and 
economy, as distinct domains of human knowledge, and the cultivation of them, 
with exclusive attention, are comparatively of recent origin in the world of thought. 
It is not, perhaps, matter of surprise that such new-comers have not always met 
a cordial reception—that the masters of exact science have sometimes looked 
askance on their looser and more speculative methods, and disputed their right to 
rank at all with the older scientific sisterhood. But the controversy was never of 
much practical account ; and it has well-nigh ended. 
The statistician and economist do not demonstrate; do not claim for their pro- 
positions the certainty of mathematics; are too much engaged with the shifting 
conditions of human existence and the infinitely varied shades of human thought 
and feeling to pronounce, with rigid dogmatism, as to the course to be adopted in 
all the varying circumstances which concern the wealth of nations and the social 
interests of mankind. 
But, nevertheless, they are entitled to call their labours scientific, if science be 
needed to deal with subjects and educe results of the last importance to our race, 
and to accomplish this by drawing, from facts rightly ascertained, lucidly classified, 
and profoundly considered, conclusions of permanent truth and wide application 
for the government of human conduct and the increase of human happiness. 
_ The reign of Law is not bounded by the physical universe. Its vigilant power is 
not exhausted when the planets have been kept in their courses and the earth is 
made bountiful for the maintenance of man. As the material creation assuredly 
did not owe its harmony and beauty to a fortuitous concourse of atoms, so ‘thé 
humanity, to whose needs it has such a marvellous adaptation, has not been left'to 
be the sport of chance, stumbling through the ages in blind disorder and hopeless 
desertion by the Infinite Power which called it into being. There is a moral 
government which “shapes our ends,” pervading the apparent chaos of motive 
and action, and making the liberty which belongs to us, as individuals, subor- 
dinate itself, with a felicity as admirable as it is incomprehensible, to the prome- 
tion of the universal good, Three millions of free and responsible beings consti- 
tute the population of London, each having his own idiosyncracy am power to 
14 
