attained, a similar state of even partial recognition, that it is still a controversy whether they are capable of becoming subjects of science in the strict sense of the term; and among those who are agreed upon this point, there reigns the most irreconcileable diversity on almost every other. Here, therefore, if any where, the principles laid down in the preceding Books may be expected to be useful. "If on matters so much the most important with which the human intellect can occupy itself, a more general agreement is ever to exist among thinkers; if what has been pronounced the 'proper study of mankind,' is not destined to remain the only subject which philosophy cannot succeed in rescuing from empiricism—the same processes, through which the laws of many simple phenomena have by general acknowledgment been placed beyond dispute, must be consciously and deliberately applied to these more difficult inquiries. If there are some subjects on which the results obtained have finally received the unanimous assent of all who have attended to the proof, and others on which mankind have not yet been equally successful; on which the most sagacious minds have occupied themselves from the earliest date, and have never succeeded in establishing any considerable body of truths, so as to be beyond denial or doubt; it is by generalizing the methods successfully followed in the former inquiries and adapting them to the latter, that we may hope to remove this blot in the face of Science." 17. In another place Mr. Mill has given a more particular exemplification of the analogy between Natural and Moral Science-" Although the scientific arrangements of organic matter afford as yet the only complete example of the true principles of rational classification, whether as to the formation of groups or of series, these principles are applicable to all cases in which mankind are called upon to bring the various parts of any extensive subject into mental co-ordination. They are as much to the point when objects are to be classed for purposes of art or business as for those of science. The proper arrangement, for example, of a code of laws, depends on the same scientific conditions as the classifications in Natural History, nor could there be a better preparatory discipline for that important function than the study of the principles of a natural arrangeLogic, B. VI., c. 1. ment, not only in the abstract but in their actual application to the class of phenomena for which they were first elaborated, and which are still the best school for learning their use." And again-"These aberrations in medical theory have their exact parallel in politics." 2 18. Here, at last, we might hope that we had attained a solid foundation. The preceding extracts contain as explicit and distinct an acknowledgment as it is possible for language to do, that in Mr. Mill's opinion the Science of Society-of which Political Economy is one branch-is to be investigated by methods exactly analogous to those which have already been adopted, and led to such distinguished success in Physical Science, and that the only hope of raising Social Science to the rank of a Demonstrative Science is by doing so. And when Bacon, Newton, Butler, Locke, J. B. Say, Comte, Herschell, and Mill are unanimous that Economic Science, as one of the Moral Sciences, is an Inductive Science, we might hope that the question as to the method of investigation proper to it was finally set at rest. We have seen, indeed, that COMTE, one of the loudest and most pretentious asserters of the doctrine, had made, when put to the proof, the most ignominions fiasco ever made by a man of such pretentions and at the same time of such real knowledge. But we might naturally expect that Mr. Mill, who at one time was a disciple of Comte's, and who on this point so clearly maintained the same doctrine, would at last exemplify the doctrine in practice, and give us a treatise on Political Economy, really framed after the manner of a Physical Science, consciously and deliberately. II. Mr. Mill says 19. What, then, is our astonishment to read::- "With the consideration of the definition of a science is inseparably connected that of the philosophic method of the science; the nature of the process by which its investigations are to be carried on, its truths to be arrived at. "Now, in whatever science there are systematic differences of opinion-which is as much as to say in all the Moral or Mental Sciences, and in Political Economy among the rest; in whatever science there exist, among those who have attended to the 1 Logic, B. IV., c. 8, § 5. Logic, B. V., c. 6, § 5. subject, what are commonly called differences of principle, as distinguished from differences of matter of fact, or detail-the cause will be found to be a difference in their conceptions of the philosophic method of the sciences." Also:-"In the definition we have attempted to frame of the Science of Political Economy, we have characterised it as essentially an abstract science, and its method as the method à priori. Such is undoubtedly its character as it has been understood and taught by all its most distinguished teachers. It reasons, and as we contend it must necessarily reason, from assumptions, not from facts. It is built upon hypotheses, strictly analogous to those which, under the name of definitions, are the foundations of the other abstract sciences." " Again" This ought not to be denied by the Political Economist. If he deny it, then, and then only, he places himself in the wrong. The à priori method which is laid to his charge, as if his employment of it proved his whole science to be worthless, is, as we shall presently shew, the only method by which any truth can possibly be attained in any department of the Social Science!!" 3 Also:-"But we go farther than to affirm that the method à priori is a legitimate mode of philosophical investigation in the Moral Sciences-we contend that it is the only mode. We affirm that the method à posteriori, or that of specific experience, is altogether inefficacious in these sciences as a means of arriving at any considerable body of valuable truth; though it admits of being usefully applied in aid of the method à priori, and even forms an indispensable supplement to it." 4 20. Now, we simply place these extracts before our readers, and ask-Is it not astonishing that they should proceed from the same writer, who enjoys a reputation as a logician? "Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud, We shall postpone the consideration of the reasons alleged by Mr. Mill for maintaining this extraordinary doctrine, so plainly contradictory to what he himself had set forth in the previous extracts, until we have examined his assertion as to a matter of fact. He asserts that all the most distinguished Economists have treated it as an à priori science. We have already 1 Essays upon some unsettled questions of Political Economy, p. 141. 2 Ibid, p. 143. 3 Ibid, p. 145. ▲ Ibid, p. 146. shewn that this assertion is utterly contrary to fact. J. B. Say, as we have shewn, expressly declares it to be an experimental science, and says that it is entirely founded on facts, and so far from sanctioning the à priori method of treating Political Economy, he expressly condemns those who do so. He says:" Other considerations not less delicate relate to what precedes. Some writers of the eighteenth century, and of the dogmatic school of Quesnay, as well the English Economists of the school of David Ricardo, without employing algebraical formulæ evidently inapplicable to Political Economy, have wished to introduce into it a kind of reasoning, which as a general rule all sciences reject, which acknowledge no foundations but experience, I mean reasoning which rests on abstractions. * * * When we admit as a basis, instead of a well-observed fact, a principle which is only founded on disputation, we are in danger of imitating the schoolmen of the Middle Ages, who disputed about words instead of discussing facts, and who proved to be quite beside the truth." And he gives instances where he considers, and in one at least justly, Ricardo and McCulloch to have fallen into error by adopting this method, and he dwells on the mischief produced in the Science by adopting this method. Speaking of Quesnay, he says:"Instead of first observing the nature of things-namely, the way in which things really happen, classifying observations and educing general principles from them-they began by laying down abstract generalities, which they called Axioms, and which they taught were absolutely self-evident. They then tried to bring particular facts into accord with them, and deduced rules from them. This entangled them in the defence of maxims evidently contrary to good sense, and to the experience of ages." While fully acknowledging their excellence as men, and also the real services they performed to the State, he says:-" But, on the other hand, the Economists did harm by decrying several useful maxims, by making it be thought by their sectarian spirit, by the dogmatic and abstract language of most of their writings, by their oracular tone, that all those who employed themselves in such researches were only dreamers, whose theories, however good they might seem in books, were inapplicable in practice." He then points out that Adam Smith 1 Traité d'économie politique, p. 15. 2 Ibid, p. 24 3 Ibid, p. 25. pursued exactly the opposite method-namely, the inductive method of educing principles from facts:-"When we read Smith as he deserves to be read, we perceive that there was no Political Economy before him." Again:-"Before Smith many true laws had been brought forward. He was the first to shew why they were true. He did more: he has given the true method of pointing out errors: he has applied to Political Economy the new method of treating the Sciences, in not searching out their principles abstractedly, but in going to facts most constantly observed, to the general laws of which they are a consequence. As soon as a fact may have a cause, the spirit of system decides that it is the cause. The analytical spirit wishes to know why such a cause produces such an effect, and to satisfy itself that it could not have been produced by any other cause. Smith's work is a collection of demonstrations which have raised many propositions to the rank of undoubted principles, and have plunged a greater number in the gulf where vague ideas and hypotheses, extravagant imaginations, struggle a short time, before being swallowed up for ever."1 Thus we see that Mr. Mill's assertion that all the most distinguished Economists have considered Political Economy as an à priori science, and have treated it so, is entirely disproved. Whether we agree on all points with Say is another matter, but every one must admit him to be a distinguished Economist, and we see plainly that he not only declares, in the most emphatic language, that it is an experimental and an inductive science, but he condemns by anticipation the very doctrines Mr. Mill has put forth in the extracts given above, and points out the mischievous effect they had already produced. We entirely concur in and adopt these views of Say. So far from all the most distinguished Economists having adopted the à priori method, it is only Ricardo and his followers who have done so in this country, and, as we shall shew in the subsequent part of this work, with the most pernicious consequences. 21. Having thus shewn that Mr. Mill is completely in error in his allegations of fact, and contradictory to himself on the method of investigation proper to the subject, we shall now examine the reasons he alleges for his last-mentioned doctrine. He says "There is a property common to almost all the moral 1 Traité d'économie politique, p. 29. |