634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is the science of selecting suitable facts to prove certain prede- 

 termined propositions with regard to the laws of trade; it can 

 always be made to favor protection, but it will also favor free 

 trade if you choose to have it do so and select your facts with 

 proper discretion; political economy is the favorite science of 

 practical men. John, then, has studied political economy, and he 

 comes to the conclusion that the various members of the family 

 are squandering their forces by working for outsiders. He calls 

 the family together and says : 



" I think I see a way in which we could be more prosperous. 

 We must give up working for the rest of the world. Father must 

 make shoes only for us ; Jane must not cook for anybody except 

 ourselves ; James must not make clothes for any one except his 

 father and his three brothers ; Henry must not undertake to sell 

 groceries to people who do not belong to the family ; and I shall 

 not supply any one but you with meat. Moreover, no one must 

 buy of other people. We must have our shoes made by father, 

 our clothes by James, and we must buy our groceries of Henry. 

 If any member of the family buys anything of an outsider, he is 

 to be fined twenty -five per cent of the cost of the article ; and if 

 any one of us sells anything to an outsider, and takes that 

 outsider's goods in exchange, those goods shall be taxed one 

 fourth of their value. The money so collected shall be put into 

 a common fund, and used for defraying the joint family ex- 

 penses/' 



What, think you, would be the reply of the philosophic father 

 to a proposition like that ? He would not be likely to waste 

 many words over the matter. He would tell John flatly that he 

 was a fool, and advise him to let political economy alone, and he 

 would send the whole family about their business. 



But now let us suppose that, instead of a family, we have a 

 town made up of a hundred families, and the people get together 

 and are asked to adopt a proposition similar to that made by John, 

 the political economist. Some prominent citizen arises and de- 

 clares that the town would be vastly more prosperous and inde- 

 pendent if all its trading were done within its own limits ; that 

 the poor and struggling traders would have enough to do if people 

 would patronize them instead of sending to other towns for goods ; 

 and that to discourage trade with outsiders it was expedient to 

 tax all such commercial transactions, and place the money so 

 obtained in the town treasury. Would not this proposition be as 

 absurd as the other ? Would not some citizen with a philosophi- 

 cal turn of mind, who reasoned from general principles, reply in 

 words like these : 



"The gentleman who has made this proposition is talking 

 nonsense. The prosperity of this town and the comfort of its 



