530 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No 175 



heading or title ' political economy ' ? Open your 

 Mill, your Schonberg, your Wagner, your eco- 

 nomic magazines, and you readily discern that 

 the course of economic thought is largely, perhaps 

 mainly, directed to what ought to be. It is not, as 

 Professor Sidgwick says, that German economists, 

 in their declamations against egoism, confound 

 what is, with what ought to be ; for no econo- 

 mists know so well what is, but that they propose 

 to help to bring about what ought to be. This is 

 the reason why the more recent economic think- 

 ers may be grouped together as the ' ethical 

 school.' They consciously adopt an ethical ideal, 

 and endeavor to point out the manner in which 

 it may be attained, and even encourage people to 

 strive for it. 



This establishes a relation between ethics and 

 economics which has not always existed, because 

 the scope of the science has been, as a matter of 

 fact, enlarged. The question is asked, what is 

 the purpose of our economic life ? and this at 

 once introduces ethical considerations into politi- 

 cal economy. Of course, it is easily possible to 

 enter into a controversy as to the wisdom of this 

 change of conception. Some will maintain that 

 economic science will do well to abide by the con- 

 ception current at an earlier period in its develop- 

 ment, and restrict itself to a discussion of things 

 as they are. The discussion between representa- 

 tives of these two conceptions would reveal differ- 

 ences of opinion as regards economic facts and 

 economic forces. 



Why should economic science concern itself with 

 what ought to be ? The answer must include a 

 reference to the nature of our economic life. 



This life, as it is understood by representatives 

 of the new school, is not something stationary : 

 it is a growth. What is, is not what has been, 

 nor is it what will be. Movement is uninter- 

 rupted ; but it is so vast, and we are so much a 

 part of it, that we cannot easily perceive it. It 

 is in some respects like the movement of the 

 earth, which can only be discerned by difficult 

 processes. We are not conscious of it. Although 

 the thought of evolution of economic life had 

 not until recently, I think, been grasped in its 

 full import, yet economists of the so-called older 

 school, like Bagehot and John Stuart Mill, ad- 

 mitted thai the doctrines which they received ap- 

 plied only to a comparatively few inhabitants of 

 the earth s surface, and even to them only during 

 a comparatively recent period. In other words, 

 English political economy described the economic 

 life of commercial England in the nineteenth 

 century. Now, a growth cannot well be compre- 

 hended by an examination of the organism at 

 one period. The physiologist must know some- 



thing about the body of the child, of the youth, 

 of the full-grown man, and of the aged man, 

 before he fully understands the nature of the 

 human body. Our biologists, indeed, insist that 

 they must go back to the earliest periods, and 

 trace the development of life-forms forward dur- 

 ing all past periods, and they endeavor to point 

 out a line of growth. The modern economist 

 desires to study society in the same manner. 

 Lord Sherbrooke and others have claimed for 

 political economy the power of prediction, and 

 this has been based on the assumption that men 

 will continue to act precisely as they have acted 

 in time past. What seems to me a more truly 

 scientific conception is this : the economist hopes 

 to understand industrial society so thoroughly, 

 that he may be able to indicate the general lines 

 of future development. It follows from all this, 

 that the future is something which proceeds from 

 the present, and depends largely upon forces at 

 work in the past. 



More than this is true. The economic life of man 

 is to some considerable extent the product of the 

 human will. John Stuart Mill draws the line in 

 this way : he says that production depends upon 

 natural law T s, while distribution ' is a matter of 

 human institution solely.' Both statements are 

 somewhat exaggerated. The truth is, political 

 economy occupies a position midway between 

 physicial or natural science and mental science. 

 It is a combination of both. Witli the inventions 

 and discoveries of modern times, we seem almost 

 to have solved the problem of production ; but 

 the problem of an ideal distribution of products 

 still awaits a satisfactory solution. But how 

 largely does this depend on human will? Mill 

 points to the institution of private property as 

 fundamental in the distribution of goods. This 

 is true, and the historical economist discovers that 

 the idea of property is something fluctuating. He 

 ascertains that there was a time when landed 

 property was mostly held in common ; that in 

 certain parts of the earth it is still held in that 

 manner ; while there are far-reaching variations 

 in systems of land-tenure, even in England, 

 France, and Germany, — all of them, countries 

 in about the same stage of economic development. 

 Take changes in labor. The laborer has been a 

 slave, a serf, and a freeman in various stages of 

 economic development. His condition has been 

 one of human institution, yet how largely fraughl 

 with consequences for the distribution of goods. 

 One more illustration : take even railways. HoW 

 differently would the wealth of the United states 

 to-day be distributed, had we adopted an exclusive 

 system of state railways in the beginning of rail- 

 way constructions, and adhered to that system I 



