732 REPORT — 1891. 



that may he granted at once; individualism, like nationalism, will doubtless be an 

 important economic category for many purposes, but who shall say that it is even 

 as widely appropriate in England now as it was sixt}' years ago, when the tide of 

 legislation was dominated by laissez faire and the ComJaiuation Laws were repealed ? 

 Is it so dominant in these days of capitalist trusts and labour leagues as to be 

 the most appropriate conception with which to study all economic phenomena in 

 our own country in the present day ? 



One disadvantage about this mode of treatment is that we really know so little 

 about the isolated individual and his manner of dealing with other isolated in- 

 dividuals ; the mere statement brings out the difficulty. Our assumptions regarding 

 such human nature could only be a satisfactory basis for argument if they tallied 

 with observations made in a large number of instances, so as to form the ba.sis for 

 a valid induction like the great argument of Malthus in his Essay. As Mr. 

 Keynes has admirably pointed out, the value of the deductive method as a means 

 of studying actual economic phenomena depends on the inductive determination of 

 premisses.' But in regard to the unfettered action of individuals there can be no 

 fiuch induction, for there are no cases to observe. If we wish to state abstract 

 principles of individual human action, we are forced to fall back on another method ; 

 to take a type of human nature and analyse it ; and it is on this line that econo- 

 mists proceed in framing their fundamental assumption about individual human 

 nature. Bentliam many years ago attempted to analyse the motives which may 

 be brought to bear upon a man and reduced them all to quantities of pleasure and 

 pain. Thirty years have elapsed since Mill demonstrated the insufficiency of this 

 analysis and showed that we must take qualitative as well as quantitative 

 difl'erences into account ; - and in economics it is specially necessary to attend to 

 qualitative distinctions. It is far less important to measure the force of self-interest 

 than to distinguish the cases where self-interest coincides with family welfare and 

 national prosperity, and those where it does not. Here, if anywhere, it is essential 

 that we should keep abreast of the times, and recognise the importance of qualita- 

 tive as well as quantitative distinctions in discussing the motives which influence 

 men in their material concerns. But some recent economists seem satisfied that a 

 defective analysis is good enough for them ; the crude method which Bentham 

 suggested has been adopted by Jevons ; ^ the quantitative analysis of individual 

 motives is spoken of as if it were the principal work of an economist ; writers still 

 discuss quanta of pleasure and pain, of utility and disutility ; and the individual, as 

 Bentham analysed him, is still a fundamental conception in current economic 

 treatises. ' Put a pennj' in the slot and the model will work.' Society is too 

 frequently regarded as an aggregate of similar individuals, whose actions can all be 

 represented with sufficient accuracy by the Benthamite analysis of motives. Such 

 a conception of societj^ is surely out of date to-day. 



Very fruitful resiilts have certainly' been obtained bj' those economists who 

 have not busied themselves about measuring supposititious motives, and who do 

 not assume that man is an isolated self-interested individual. Frederic Le Play 

 regards the family as the most convenient unit for economic observations, both in 

 the advanced and the primitive societies; he has distinguished the different types 

 of family, and their social importance, with rare acuteness; and he has set forth 

 with admirable judgment their respective characters as elements in society. 

 Though too little known in England, his work does not stand alone ; for Mr, 

 C^harles Booth's monumental investigation into the condition of the dwellers in 

 East London is based on a number of investigations in regard to the circumstances 

 •of families. In the family there is a natural social and economic unit which was 

 of much actual importance before English municipalities arose, and before English 

 national life asserted itself in economic affairs. The family is a natural unit 

 which is destined to survive even if our national industry and commerce are more 

 and more merged in cosmopolitan and international progress. 



2. When I thi\s criticise the fundamental conceptions and assumptions of 

 current economic science, as very imperfectly appropriate to the actual conditions 



^ Sco2}e, 214. - Utilitarianism, 1^. ' Theory, 30. 



