F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 155 
unbounded admiration more than thirty years later the teachings of Smith, 
declares ‘there is a provision in the nature of things by which the 
selfishness of the individual accelerates the progress of the community.’ ' 
Where the beneficence of natural liberty is not positively asserted, it is 
of course implied in the use of so condemnatory a term as “ artificial’ to 
designate any limitation of it: as for instance in the Merchants’ Petition 
drafted by Tooke in 1820. 
It can be easily understood that when Political Economy passed into 
the hands of a stockbroker like Ricardo and of utilitarian agnostics like 
the two Mills, the language of theism would fall into disuse. No longer 
were they inclined to echo the old saying ‘ Nature: that is God Himself.’ 
And it was not only because they had ceased to think theologically: it 
was because some at any rate could hardly fail to be more or less 
conscious that the turn Ricardo had given to the doctrine had deprived 
it of its optimistic character, and made it uncomfortably fatalistic. 
‘Nature’ was still enthroned; and if ‘God’ means only a Supreme 
Power there was no reason why Nature should not continue to be called 
God, or God’s Vicegerent—were it not that the Supreme Power which 
had established ‘the Principle of Population’ and ‘the natural price 
of labour ’ could hardly be respected, let alone loved. 
When, however, we get to the period of the Anti-Corn Law League there 
was a return to Smith’s optimism and Smith’s theism. ‘ The responsibility 
of having to find food for the people belongs,’ says Cobden in 1846, ‘ to the 
law of Nature; as Burke says ’—he continues— it belongs to God alone 
to regulate the supply of the food of nations.’ 1° It is congenial to him to 
appeal to ‘ the will of the Supreme Being’? and ‘ the moral government 
of the world’ ;18 and to describe Free Trade as ‘ the International Law of 
the Almighty.’?° And with the return to a theistic conception went a 
return to the idea of natural rights, which the Benthamite economists 
had likewise thrown over. Thus the petition of the Manchester Chamber 
of Commerce, drawn up by Cobden and two of his friends in 1838, bases 
itself upon ‘ the unalienable right of every man freely to exchange the results 
of his labour for the productions of other people.’ 2° The eloquent orator, 
W. J. Fox, refused on this ground to compromise on Free Trade: ‘ It is 
_ “the very stuff o’ the conscience ”’ : it is a principle upon which we have 
made up our minds, as embracing the right of man anterior to the existence 
of civilised society.’ 21 And after the further lapse of a quarter of a 
century, the editor of Bright’s and Cobden’s ‘Speeches,’ Thorold Rogers, 
becoming Professor at Oxford and writing ‘A Manual for Schools and 
Colleges,’ ‘ assumes,’ as of course, ‘ that there are such rights as are called 
“ natural,’ and that these are the inalienable conditions under which 
individuals take part in social life.’ 2 
14 Civilisation in England, vol. ii., ch. vi. 
15 The medizval legist Azo ‘explains Ulpian’s natura by id est ipse Deus.’ Pollock, 
Essays, p. 42, from Maitland. 
16 Speech of Feb. 27, 1846. 
17 Speech of Aug. 25, 1841, quoting a petition of ministers of religion. 
18 Speech of Oct. 19, 1843. 
19 According to Mallet, Intro. to Political Writings of Cobden, p. vi. 
20 Text in Hirst’s collection, Free Trade and the Manchester School (1903), p. 142. 
21 Speaking in 1844, Ibid. p. 174. 
2 Manual, 2nd ed. revised, 1869, p. 223. 
