656 report— 1878. 



its history in detail. First inspired by a priori optimistic prepossessions, it long- 

 served a useful purpose as an instrument of combat against the systematic restric- 

 tions with which a mistaken policy had everywhere fettered European industry. 

 But, from the absolute manner in which it was understood and expressed, it tended 

 more and more to annul all governmental intervention in the industrial world, even 

 when intended not to alter the spontaneous course of industry, but only to prevent 

 or remedy the social injustices and other mischiefs arising from the uncontrolled 

 play of private interests. Experience and reflection, however, gradually surmounted 

 the exaggerations of theory. The community at large became impatient of laissez 

 faire as an impediment and a nuisance ; statesmen pushed it aside, and the econo- 

 mists, after long repeating it as a sacred formula, themselves at last revolted against 

 it. So far has the reaction proceeded, that Professor Oairnes has declared the 

 doctrine implied in the phrase — namely, that the economic phenomena of society 

 will always spontaneously arrange themselves in the way which is most for the 

 common good — to be a pretentious sophism, destitute of scientific authority, and 

 having no foundation jn nature or fact. 



Let me now recapitulate the philosophical conclusions which I have been en- 

 deavouring to enforce. They are the following : — 



(1) That the study of the economic phenomena of society ought to be syste- 

 matically combined with that of the other aspects of social existence ; (2) That 

 the excessive tendency to abstraction and to unreal simplifications should be 

 checked ; (3) That the a priori deductive method should be changed for the 

 historical ; and (4) That economic laws and the practical prescriptions founded on 

 those laws should be conceived and expressed in a less absolute form. These are, 

 in my opinion, the great reforms which are required both in the conduct of econo- 

 mic research, and in the exposition of its conclusions. 



I am far from thinking that the results arrived at by the hitherto dominant 

 economic school ought to be thrown away as valueless. They have shed important 

 partial lights on hiunan affairs, and afforded salutary partial guidance in public 

 action. The task incumbent on sociologists in general, or such of them as specially 

 devote themselves to economic inquiries, is to incorporate the truths already elicited 

 into a more satisfactory body of doctrine, in which they will be brought into 

 relation with the general theory of social existence — to recast the first draughts of 

 theory, which, however incomplete, in most cases indicate real elements of the 

 question considered — and to utilize the valuable materials of all kinds which their 

 predecessors have accumulated. Viewed as provisional and preparatory, the cur- 

 rent political economy deserves an approbation and an acceptance to which I 

 think it is not entitled, if regarded as a final systematization of the industrial laws- 

 of society. 



Returning now from our examination of the condition and prospects of eco- 

 nomic study in the general field of human knowledge to the consideration of its 

 Position in this Association, what seems to follow from all I have been saying ? 

 do not take into account at all the suggestion that that study should be removed 

 from what professes to be a confederation of the sciences. As has been well said, 

 the omission from the objects of this body of the whole subject of the life of man 

 in communities, although there is a scientific order traceable in that life, would be 

 a degradation of the Association. If the proper study of mankind is man, the 

 work of the Association, after the extrusion of our Section, would be like the play 

 with the part of the protagonist left out. What appears to be the reasonable 

 suggestion, is that the field of the Section should be enlarged, so as to comprehend 

 the whole of Sociology. The economic facts of society, as I have endeavoured to 

 show, cannot be scientifically considered apart ; and there is no reason why the 

 researches of Sir Henry Maine, or those of Mr. Spencer, should not be as much at 

 home here as those of Mr. Fawcett or Professor Price. Many of the subjects, too, 

 at present included in the artificial assemblage of heterogeneous inquiries known 

 by the name of Anthropology, really connect themselves with the laws of social 

 development ; and if our Section bore the title of the Sociological, studies like those 

 of Mr. Tylor and Sir John Lubbock concerning the early history of civilization 

 would find in it their most appropriate place. I prefer the name Sociology to that 



