648 report— 1878. 



sided attitude, is this : they announce that their treatment of every question is 

 partial and incomplete, and that for a real solution all the other elements involved 

 must be taken into account. Political economy, Professor Oairnes tells us, is ab- 

 solutely neutral as between all particular schemes and systems of social or indus- 

 trial life. It furnishes, he tells us, certain data that go towards the formation of a 

 sound opinion, but can never determine our final judgment on anv social question. 

 Now this systematic indifferentism amounts to an entire paralysis of political 

 economy as a social power capable of producing or confirming in the mass of the 

 community just convictions on the most important of all subjects. How, it may 

 well be asked, are sufficiently fixed and convergent opinions on such matters to be 

 generated in the public mind ? How are the scattered lights, supplied by the 

 several partial and one-sided studies of human affairs, to be combined, so as to 

 convey social truth to the understanding, and impress its practical consequences on 

 men's consciences ? These queries bring into the clearest light the doctrine I wish 

 to commend to your attention — namely, that what is wanted for this purpose is & 

 study of social questions from all the points of view that really belong to them, so 

 as to attain definite and matured conclusions respecting them — in other words, a 

 scientific sociology, comprehending true economic doctrine, but comprehending also 

 a great deal more. 



Even on the special subjects in which purely economic considerations go for 

 most, it will not do to take into account those considerations only. Professor 

 Fawcett, in his recent timely and useful treatise on Free-trade and Protection, finds 

 that he cannot restrict himself, in the treatment of that question, to the economic 

 point of view. " As complaints," he says, " are constantly made by protectionists 

 that their opponents persistently ignore all the results of protection which are 

 not economic, I will be careful to consider those results." And he goes on to 

 maintain the proposition, in which I entirely concur, that protection may produce 

 social and political consequences even far more mischievous than the economic 

 loss it causes to a country. I believe that the most effective weapons against 

 this and other economic errors will often be found in reasons not based on 

 material interests, but derived from a consideration of the higher ends of society, 

 and the ideal of the collective fife of the race. And, a fortiori, when we have to 

 deal with the larger economic subjects, now rapidly increasing in urgency, which 

 are more immediately in contact with moral conceptions, these questions of the 

 ultimate ends of the social union cannot be left out of sight. This was recognised 

 by Mill, who was open to all noble ideas, and saw that the practical life of man- 

 kind cannot be governed by material egoism. In discussing the claims of Com- 

 munism, he says: — "Assuming all the success which is claimed for this state of 

 society by its partisans, it remains to be considered how much would be really 

 gained for mankind, and whether the form that would be given to life, and the 

 character which would be impressed on human nature, can satisfy any but a very 

 low estimate of the capabilities of the species." Here, you observe, is raised the 

 entire question of the ends of social life ; and economic progress is subordinated, 

 as it ought to be, to the intellectual and moral development of humanity. 



Mr. Lowe, at the Adam Smith celebration, declared himself not to be sanguine 

 as to the future of political economy ; he believes that its great work, which he 

 justly remarks has been rather a negative than a constructive one, has been already 

 accomplished, and that not much more remains to be achieved. Such, indeed, as 

 we _ have seen, Professor Oairnes declared to be the prevalent idea of the great 

 majority of educated people — that political economy has fulfilled its task by 

 removing impediments to industry ; and that it cannot help us — is rather likely to 

 be an obstruction — in the social work which now lies before us. I will not use 

 language so strong ; but it does appear to me that either as a fruitful branch of 

 speculation, or as an important source of practical guidance, it will cease to command, 

 or rather will fail to regain attention, unless it be linked in close connection with 

 the general science of society — unless it be, in fact, subsumed under and absorbed 

 into Sociology. 



II. The second common error of the political economists since the time of Adam 

 Smith, consists in this, that, mainly by the influence of Eicardo, they have been led to 



