of Edinburgh, Sessmi 1883-84, 
97T 
has never been successfully applied to social action. Nor is it 
adequate even in the simplest case. Taking the amoeba and 
labourer of the preceding illustration, both frequently satisfy desire 
by the consumption of that which is not food in the biological 
sense, and of what supplies no energy from the physical. Here 
then a dilemma arises : if with the majority of economists we 
recognise no physical or biological aspects in the phenomena of 
economics, all wants and desires are alike expedient, since no 
criterion of action exists, and laissez faire becomes the only prac- 
tical maxim. If, however, we recognise physical and biological 
facts, and the psychological as the subjective aspect of the latter, 
then the psychological economist must simply commend those 
wants and desires which are conducive to maintenance and evolu- 
tion, and these only. 
‘‘It is not enough to transfer the point of view from the indivi- 
dual to the race, and to take the social factor into account ; we 
must also frankly accept the biological point of view, which ^ 
regarding mental functions as vital functions, and states of con- 
sciousness as separable from states of the organism only in our 
mode of apprehending them, sets aside the traditional conception of 
mind as an agent apart from the organism.” 
From this sharply defined statement of the position of the present 
chapter (cf. Introduction, § 13), we are thus forced to draw the 
following economic corollaries : — (1) Since, from the physiological 
side, the nature, amount, and direction of muscular activities are 
dominated by cerebral action, the cerebral functions are supreme ; 
(2) as similarly, from the psychological side, all functions are 
equally — nay, are solely — expressible as cerebral, the functions 
of creative and directive thought, the activities of education, &c., 
are as really “productive” as any. Thus our economic utilita- 
rianism passes from the crudely practical state to that into which 
it has been recast by its more philosophical exponents; and if 
psychology, leaving its academic isolation, assumes its modem 
position, schoolmaster, hodman, and artist, are alike productive. 
The problem of practical economics now demands that we pro- 
duce not that mere maximum of food and eaters, which is the 
first aspect of the physical ideal ; not even that perfection' of 
* Lewes, of Psychology, chap. i. 
