908 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 522. 



expense of ethics, notwithstanding during 

 the, same period the world has been con- 

 structing great charitable and educational 

 institutions emphasizing its desire to bene- 

 fit the human race. These institutions, how- 

 ever, have fallen far short of their true pur- 

 pose. Much of the charity of the world — 

 unscientific, unreasonable — has resulted in 

 more densely populating penal institutions. 

 The scientific investigations of the present 

 time are remedying this fault, and are 

 showing that economics and such institu- 

 tions must be considered together. 



All the strides civilization has made com- 

 mand our admiration, and its onward 

 steps are marked by numerous and con- 

 vincing evidences; but such evidences are 

 outside the science of political economy, 

 and are considered by it only as the cost 

 may enter into the distribution of wealth 

 it seeks to create, but not as means for a 

 happier and better condition wherein 

 wealth could be more successfully pro- 

 duced. 



Under the spur of this progress political 

 economy has flourished— first, by the pa- 

 tronage and through the admiration of all 

 classes. England did not give it birth, 

 perhaps, but cared for it through its in- 

 fancy, and gave to the world the more 

 matured growth which we call political 

 economy ; but England 's writers claim that 

 she owes her industrial position in the past 

 to it. It may be that to a too blind fol- 

 lowing of later teachings she owes to-day 

 the partial loss of her old industrial su- 

 premacy. America, if she desires to oc- 

 cupy the place England is vacating, must 

 take lessons of her mother, and profit by 

 her mistakes and advance her scientific 

 understanding to economic truths and prin- 

 ciples. 



The old school has been content to teach 



wholly until more recent years, constituted 

 the science of political economy. It has 

 studiously avoided all other matters, and, 

 in the endeavors of its devotees to consti- 

 tute it a science, has taken no cognizance 

 of the conditions which, favorable or un- 

 favorable, must attend the participators in 

 the production, distribution and exchange 

 of commodities. It has been content to 

 limit itself to things and their relations to 

 individual and national wealth, more par- 

 ticularly the latter, rather than to include 

 in its sphere of creed the vital relations of 

 men. Even Mr. Mill, perhaps the most 

 brilliant writer of his age, informed us that 

 "political economy is concerned with man 

 solely as a being who desires to possess 

 wealth, and who is capable of judging of 

 the comparative efficacy of means to that 

 end. It makes entire abstraction of every 

 other human passion or motive, except 

 those which may be regarded as perpetu- 

 ally antagonizing pidnciples to the desire 

 of wealth, namely, aversion to labor, and 

 desire of the present enjoyment of costly 

 indulgences. * * * Political economy con- 

 siders mankind as occupied solely in ac- 

 quiring and consuming wealth." This 

 statement was made in 1844. 



Professor John K. Ingram, in 1879, 

 called this a vicious abstraction, which 

 meets us on the very threshold of political 

 economy, and the strictures of our own 

 Professor Walker upon this saying are too 

 well known to be quoted here. 



Mr. Mill 's statement represents the tenets 

 of the old school, although the founder 

 of the science, Adam Smith, began his 

 labors in it as a professor of moral philos- 

 ophy, and taught it as a branch of that 

 philosophy. His followers, in their ambi- 

 tion, for many years strayed far from the 

 doctrines of their great master, and with 

 their departure from him political economy 

 ■■,_^: I- ■ . "'''"v and even +he attention 



