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to the national vanity, occasioned a different theory of political economy. Here the science took the form of an inquiry into the means of increasing wealth. Truly catching its spirit, Mr. M'Culloch says, 'It points out the means by which the neces'saries, comforts, and enjoyments that constitute wealth may be most easily and cheaply produced.'* The prevention of misery was a subordinate consideration, confined to pauperism and poorlaws. Adam Smith did not in form discuss the natural organization of society, though practically he and his disciples, sometimes contrary to their intention, have elucidated many of its general laws. He explained the causes of the increase of national wealth.' Even the name which his successors have given the science-for Smith flouted and scorned the scheming political economist-was borrowed from France.

The latest systematic writer who has trod in Smith's steps, says:

The subject with which the inquiries of political economy are conversant is wealth.' 'Writers on political economy profess to teach or to investigate the nature of wealth and the laws of its production and distribution, including directly or remotely the operation of all the causes by which the condition of mankind, or any society of human beings in respect to this universal object of common desire, is made prosperous, or the reverse.'t

In England, then, the science began in the midst of comparative prosperity; wealth was increasing, and it took the form of an inquiry into the causes of the increase by an examination of details. Public writers were free to discuss questions as they arose which always gave the science a practical object. From facts general principles were here slowly evolved, while in France the science began by the assumption of general principles; in both countries hasty generalisations have always been corrected by a reference to actual facts.

If the French method be scientifically most imposing, the English method has been most successful. The former tends to elevate the subject to the dignity of a natural science, such as astronomy or meteorology, which man has only to observe and cannot alter; the latter tends to lower it to a political or mechanical art, which man can improve. Here it is the practical application of principles, which there are only discovered, noted and not applied. The bulk of the improvements in the economic legislation of our own country and of Europe may be traced to our mode of treating the science. From the time of

Introductory Discourses prefixed to Mr. M'Culloch's edition of The Wealth of

Nations.

Principles of Political Economy, by John Stuart Mill.

Comparison of the Two Methods.

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the Physiocrats almost to our own time, it is difficult to find a single trace of the influence of their theory in the conduct of the French Government except during Turgot's administration, and not much can be traced in the opinions of the people. But for the circumstances of France this might make us despair of ever effecting good by abstract disquisitions. In truth, the misery of the people there soon became too intense for prudent guidance or political control, and the Revolution, stifling rational inquiries, carried into high places vulgar civilians or rude soldiers utterly unacquainted with philosophy, and too deeply engaged in schemes of ambition or bloody broils, to pay the least attention to the grave lessons of abstract science. Her philosophers were neglected or persecuted to death, the ridicule heaped on the Physiocrats by wits, who seem never to understand science or philosophy till it has become vulgar, having effectually prevented them taking any hold of the public mind. So their admirable teaching was unavailing for their country, and the public mind in France is still deeply imbued with errors they detected and exposed. The English theory beginning in details illustrates in the end the natural system as well as, or better than, the French theory beginning in assumptions-a result due to those natural harmonies in which M. Bastiat delights. In every part of nature, including society, one fact carefully noticed may be an index to other facts. Thus the tangible objects constituting wealth are about the best index we can have, as M. Bastiat acknowledges, to the total welfare, moral and material, of society. On this principle the English method is the more useful, if it be less logically precise. Gradually eliminating extraneous inquiries, such as into the balance of trade, the peculiar profitableness of particular industries, the forms of taxation, with all the arts of the politician, political economy has become the science of labour, and its consequences exhibited in the material objects by which life is sustained and society enlarged.

Our method of treating the subject continually leads us, however, which is its most conspicuous defect, to mingle together the effects of natural principles and the consequences of our laws. To just thinking it is necessary that they should always be discriminated, but we have in our books discussions about Bank Acts and Corn Laws, tenure of land, foreign exchanges, large and small farms, &c., without any notice such as Smith gave, that they are episodical, and are placed there only to illustrate some principle. With us the science is still overdone with the details in which it originated, puzzling the student, preventing him from discriminating between the effects of natural laws and of Acts of Parliament, and in the end impressing on him the erroneous belief that

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the latter are of greater efficacy than the former in regulating the affairs and in determining the welfare of nations.

The deductions of the science are much the same in both countries. Freedom of trade, the starting-point almost of the French system, is here the elaborated consequence of numerous facts. In both countries labour is now recognised as the basis of the science; land is only considered like sunshine, or atmospheric air, a natural power which labour and skill use. Only things to which labour gives value are included in the science. In both countries the circumstances which tend to increase the efficiency or productive power of labour, such as division of labour, the increase of knowledge and skill, are regarded as the same. In both systems private interest is assumed to be the great motive for all exertions, and being ordained by nature is considered to be the best and only guide to public good.

One school of economists in France, composed of Garnier, Say, Chevalier, and others, took up Smith, but gave to their writings a more systematic and logical form than can be traced in the Wealth of Nations. Their improvements were adopted here. Our political economy is at present, as to form, more like M. Say's work than like Smith's. Other political economists, more systematic or more independent, such as Sismondi and Bastiat, took a course of their own. Singularly enough the French have now departed from the methodical form which they gave the science, and which our writers borrowed from them. M. Bastiat's chief work is entitled Harmonies Economiques, and is divided into chapters, describing natural organization, wants and the means of satisfying them, exchange, value, wealth, capital, &c. The great distinctions of his predecessors-production, distribution, and consumption-he does not adopt. What is true, he says, of man is true of society; isolated man is at once producer and consumer, inventor and completer, capitalist and workman; all the economical phenomena are accomplished in him, and he is a summary of society. In the natural system, then, production, intended only to satisfy the wants of the individual, determines also distribution and consumption, and is sufficient to determine them in the furthest development of society as at the beginning. If the old classification were a help to the memory, it confused the judgment by establishing distinctions where there are no essential differences, and the science will probably be improved by discarding them.

Passing by Garnier, Say, and the other followers of Smith in France, we take M. Bastiat as at once the most peculiar, the most distinguished, and the best representative of the modern French school. The greater part of his life was passed in study and

The Chief of the Modern French School.

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retirement in the Landes, but in 1845 he was roused by the discussion then rife in Europe about free trade, and he repaired to Paris and took part in it. His first work, a pamphlet entitled Cobden et la Ligue, shows at once the source and the object of his new life. It was born of free trade and spent in its service. Many of his opinions, though put in a French dress, were obviously derived from English journals. Commenced in 1815, his political life terminated in 1850. In 1851 he died, but he had for several months before been incapable of labour, and had left the sphere of his exertions for Italy, in the vain hope that rest in its balmy climate might restore him to health. În five years the outpourings of his well-stored mind and the products of his pen were abundant; they acquired for him considerable reputation, and after the Revolution of 1848, induced his countrymen to make him one of their representatives. His writings, born of controversy, were for the most part occasional, and appeared as articles in the Journal des Economistes, or in the Journal du libre Echange, which was under his direction, or as pamphlets. They were all, even those which expound principles, Les Harmonies Economiques, alike in this respect, and contain many personal and temporary, though witty and spirited, remarks, such as are unlooked for in grave treatises, though admirable in journals. His early death caused his chief work to be left extremely imperfect, and we possess no complete exposition of his principles and their consequences. He was not a copyist, nor a mere follower of any great teacher; his mind, his language, his mode of treating the subject were entirely his own, and entirely French. At the same time his general agreement with the conclusions of the best English writers, enables us with less prejudice to recognise the difference between his principles and those prevalent here, and do justice to the present theoretical system of our neighbours.

France, only slightly improved by the first Revolution, continues in a condition of social disorder. The misery of the population has accordingly given birth to numerous communistic and socialistic schemes of regeneration. Modern theories suggest no cure for it. If society be forced,' say the socialists interpreting these theories, by the laws of value into inequality, by the law of population into misery, and by the law of hereditary 'succession into sterility, the Creator has not made the moral 'world, like the material world, an harmonious whole. On the 'contrary, it must be avowed that the moral world is in revolting ' and irremediable discord. If the tendencies of society were to 'an harmonious agreement for the advantage of all, nothing better could be done than to worship complete liberty and

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'gather its fruits. But political economy demonstrates that the perfectly free development of these social tendencies hurries society towards injustice, inequality, pauperism, and barrenness, and therefore they must be restrained. Man, is the conclusion alike of imperialists and socialists, must organize society, since 'God has neglected to do it.' To meet doctrines of this description and their consequences as deduced from prevalent theories by the socialists and communists under the stimulus of suffering, M. Bastiat was obliged to look further than those theories which gave arms into the hands of those who troubled society. He willingly adopted our practical deductions, but our principles were not sufficient to defeat the disturbers with whom he had to contend. Hence, like his predecessors, he went to the root of society.

He puts forward as his groundwork the assumption of the Physiocrats, that society is a natural object, having a natural organization for all its parts as contra-distinguished from and opposed to every species of artificial regulation, or regulation only to be carried into effect by constraint and force. There is 'a social mechanism,' he says, as there is a mechanism of the 'celestial bodies and of the human body. To this, civil and 'penal laws should not be in opposition. This mechanism tends to make society happy and powerful beyond any scheme of Government ever yet seen or conceived.'

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'Natural social order,' (we translate, but abridge) he says, 'has been so skilfully arranged by the Divine Workman, that the most advanced portions of society always lend a helping hand to their brethren, knowingly or unknowingly; for the Creator has so disposed matters that no man can work well for himself without at the same time working for others. This community of well-being is the work of God, and he has not confided the execution of his will to the chance of man's puerile arrangements, nor even to the increasing sentiment of charity, or philanthropy, but to the most active, the most inbred, the most permanent of man's energies, his personal interest, which is never lulled to sleep. If this mechanism be studied as it left the hands of the GREAT MECHANIC, a conclusion will ensue that His solicitude for society leaves at an immeasurable distance the dreams of the Communists. Then instead of pretending to re-make the Divine work, man will be content to reverence it.'

It is objected to such a doctrine that it is incompatible with the many evils to which men are subject. But individual man is from ignorance liable to many sufferings which he only learns in progress of time to lessen or avoid. His knowledge of his duties, as evinced in his practice, has been slowly acquired, is as yet very imperfect, and following the growth and develop

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