of Edinburgh, Session 1880-81. 
319 
unscientific character or of the consequences into which it might 
lead. Shall we do, then, as others advise ? Much advice certainly 
is current from newspapers, economic schools, and other quarters ; 
but such authority, however often good, has already been dis- 
missed. We are thus thrown back upon our scientific knowledge. 
Why should we not act upon that? Since nature yields matter 
and energy, let us utilise nature. Since organisms struggle for 
existence, let us compete ; since, too, they join in united action, let 
us co-operate. This seems more hopeful, and might be largely 
developed to furnish practical axioms, tolerably coincident on the 
whole with the majority of existing customs and precepts. Prac- 
tical rules of conduct may be made corresponding, for instance, to 
the table of energy, counselling us to utilise tides, coal, timber, 
plants, and animals. Yet if these preceding scientific grounds be 
accepted as sufficient for these practical actions, consistency demands 
the similar utilisation of the organisms composing society — that is 
to say, of our fellow-men, as machines, food, &c. ; courses, more- 
over, for which there exist in many societies abundant preced ts, 
both of custom and of counsel. Competition, too, as might easily 
be shown, would lead us to similar courses of action, and so on 
with the rest. In short, then, the development of scientific know- 
ledge into practical action is in many cases serviceable, yet here 
and there without warning leads us into a course where we find 
ourselves confronted by a difficulty of a new order — the moral. 
§ 29. How is it that every proposed course of action has thus led 
us into difficulties ? Because we are seeking rules of action without 
having defined any aim of action. As we required axioms for 
scientific economics, so now we require postulates for action, and 
the latter are readily derivable from the former ; thus from our first 
axiom that the society exists within limits of space and time, the 
corresponding postulate is evident — let the society exist within 
limits of space and time, while from the second, third, and fourth 
axioms the respective postulates arise — (2) let the society consist of 
living organisms, (3) let them seize the matter and energy of sur- 
rounding nature, (4) let them apply this to the purposes of their 
life, and so on ; for, as it was pointed out, that as our knowledge of 
the nature of societies in general and in particular progresses, new 
axioms would necessarily be added to the most general ones with 
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VOL. XI. 
