claims to be, harmonize with what we now know to be sciences, or bear to be tried as we now try sciences? And they are not sure of the answer.'

"In short, it comes to this: that, one hundred years after the first publication of the Wealth of Nations,' we find the state of the science to be almost chaotic. There is certainly less agreement now about what Political Economy is than there was thirty or fifty years ago. Under these circumstances, I will now draw your attention for a short time to the apparently rival sects which seem likely to arise from the break-up of the old Ricardian school.

"In the first place, it is impossible to ignore the fact, that there has been gradually rising into prominence a school of writers who take a very radical view of the reforms required in our science. They call in question the validity even of the deductive method on which Smith mainly relied. They hold that the science must be entirely recast in method and materials, and that it must take the form of an historical or archæological science. At the centenary dinner, this view of the matter was boldly stated by one of the most distinguished of European Economists, namely, M. de Laveleye. His own words, translated into English, will best explain his opinions:

"It is principally at this point that there has recently arisen a division in the ranks of Economists. Some, the old school, whom for want of a better name I will call the "Orthodox School," believe that every thing regulates itself by the effect of natural laws. The other school, which its adversaries have named the "Socialists of the Chair," the "Katheder Socialisten," but which we ought rather to call the "Historical School," or, as the Germans say, the "Realist School" this school holds that distribution is governed in part, doubtless, by free contract; but also, and still more, by civil and political institutions, by religious beliefs, by moral sentiments, by custom and historical tradition. You see that there opens itself here an immense field of studies; comprehending the relations of Political Economy with morals, justice, right, religion, history, and connecting it to the ensemble of social science. That, in my humble opinion, is the actual mission of Political Economy. This is the path pursued by nearly all German Economists, several of whom have a European reputation, such as Rau, Roscher, Knies, Nasse, Schäffle, Schmoller; in Italy, by a group of writers already well known, Minghetti, Luzzati, Forti; in France, by Wolowski, Lavergne, Passy, Courcelle-Seneuil, Leroy-Beaulieu; and in England by authors whom it is unnecessary to name or estimate here, because you know them better than I.""

Such is the sad picture of the condition of this great science. "At the end of one hundred years from the first publication of the Wealth of Nations,' we find," says Mr. Jevons, "the state of the science to be almost chaotic. There is certainly less agreement now about what Political Economy is than

...

there was thirty or fifty years ago. Rival sects seem likely to arise from the break-up of the old Ricardian" (Adam Smith) “school. . . . It must be allowed that there have been for some years back premonitory symptoms of disruption of the old orthodox school of Economists. Respect for the names of Mill and Ricardo seems no longer able to preserve unanimity. J. S. Mill himself, in the later years of his life, gave up one of the doctrines on which he placed much importance in his works." (Would that his life had been longer preserved!) "One Economist after another-Thornton, Cairnes, Musgrave, and others have protested against some one or other of the articles of the old Ricardian creed." These extracts are not more significant of the breaking up of the old school than is the disgust universally felt for it. "I am aware," says Jevons, "that Political Economists have always been regarded as coldblooded beings, devoid of the ordinary feelings of humanity. I believe that the general public would be happier in their minds for a little while if Political Economy could be shown up as an imposture, like the greater part of what is called 'Spiritualism.'" Happier" is a word far too weak to express the satisfaction which society would feel if those who have pestered it for a hundred years with their frivolous distinctions and inane talk, against which no seclusion, no bolts or bars, are proof, and who weigh like a nightmare upon the race, were never, as a class, to be heard of again. How great, therefore, must be the satisfaction of all to find that the centenary dinner, given in honor of the great apostle of the English system, became the melancholy occasion of its last obsequies! One does not know at which to be most struck, the sadness which weighed upon the Economists, or the still sadder irreverence of the greater part of those who surrounded the table, in whose thoughts Adam Smith had no more place than the "lost tribes." With the statesmen who did the chief part of the talking, Political Economy, as a science, was held to be pretty thoroughly functus officio. Mr. Lowe's melancholy refrain has already been given. Mr. Newmarch insisted upon a larger "negative development" of this science, by which the functions of the government were to be greatly abridged:

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"On one of the points," he said, " mentioned by Mr. Lowe, with respect to Political Economy in its relation to the future, I am sanguine enough to think that there will be what may be called a

6

large negative development' of Political Economy, tending to produce an important and beneficial effect; and that is such a development of Political Economy as will reduce the functions of government within a smaller and smaller compass. The full development of the principles of Adam Smith has been in no small danger for some time past; and one of the great dangers which now hangs over this country is that the wholesome spontaneous operation of human interests and human desires seems to be in course of rapid supersession by the erection of one government department after another, by the setting up of one set of inspectors after another, and by the whole time of Parliament being taken up in attempting to do for the nation those very things which, if the teachings of the man whose name we are celebrating today is to bear any fruit at all, the nation can do much better for itself."

Mr. Forster, on the other hand, a member of the government, and who had had some experience of the weakness of our race, would still further invoke legislative action in social economy:

"I am strongly of the contrary opinion," he said, "that we cannot undertake the laissez-faire principle in the present condition of our politics, or of parties in Parliament, or in the general condition of the country. I gather from Mr. Newmarch's remarks that he is an advocate of the old laissez-faire principle. Well, if we were all Mr. Newmarches, if we had nothing to deal with in the country but men like ourselves, we might do this. But we have to deal with weak people; we have to deal with people who have themselves to deal with strong people, who are borne down, who are tempted, who are unfortunate in their circumstances of life, and who will say to us, and say to us with great truth, What is your use as a Parliament, if you cannot help us in our weakness, and against those who are too strong for us?""

Mr. Forster opened a pretty wide field, and disclosed the full antagonism which prevails in the English schools. On the subject of the interposition of government, its members are as wide apart as the poles. A person experienced in affairs soon learns that the motives or principles which guide him are no criterion of those by which others, and in fact the masses, may be swayed; and he may well feel, whether wisely or no, that the innocent weak would have good ground for complaint, unless protected from the criminal or grasping strong. The "Wealth of Nations" is hardly the work to be appealed to as arbiter in questions such as these.

Mr. Jevons was also much struck with the contracted view

which seemed to be entertained by Mr. Gladstone as to the amount of work remaining to be accomplished by the Economists, and quoted him to the following effect:

"I am bound to say that this society has still got its work before it. . . . I do not mean to say that there is a great deal remaining to be done here in the way of direct legislation, yet there is something. It appears to me at least that, perhaps, the question of the currency is one in which we are still, I think, in a backward condition; our legislation having been confined in the main to averting great evils, rather than to establishing a system which, besides being sound, would be complete and logical. With that exception, perhaps, not much remains in the province of direct legislation.

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The following extracts from Mr. Jevons' address will show the extremities, both in thought and style, to which the English school is reduced:

"Passing now to a second aspect, Political Economy_will naturally be divided according as it is abstract or concrete. The theory of the science consists of those general laws which are so simple in nature and so deeply grounded in the constitution of man and the inner world, that they remain the same throughout all those ages which are within our consideration. But, though the laws are the same, they may receive widely different applications in the concrete. The primary laws of motion are the same, whether they be applied to solids, liquids, or gases, though the phenomena obeying these laws are apparently so different. Just as there is a general science of mechanics, so we must have a general science or theory of economy. Here, again, there is a difference of opinion. There are those who think that dealing as the science does with quantities, economy must necessarily be a mathematic science if it is any thing at all. There are those, on the other hand, who, like the late Professor Cairnes, contest, and some who even ridicule, the notion of representing truths relating to human affairs in mathematical symbols. It may be safely asserted, however, that if English Economists persist in rejecting the mathematical view of their science, they will fall behind their European contemporaries. How many English students, or even professors, I should like to know, have sought out the papers of the late Dr. Whewell, printed in the Cambridge Philosophical Transactions, in which he gives his view as to the mode of applying mathematics to our science? What English publisher, I may ask again, would for a moment entertain the idea of reprinting a series of mathematical works on Political Economy? Yet this is what is being done in Italy by Professor Gerolamo Boccardo, the very learned and distinguished editor of the Nuova Enciclopedia Italiana.' Professor Boccardo has also prefixed to the series à remarkable treatise of his own on

a

the application of the quantitative method to economic and social science in general. This series, which forms the third portion of the well-known Bibliotheca Economista,' will be completed with an Italian translation of the works of Professor Léon Walras, now Rector of the Academy of Lausanne, who has in recent years independently established the fact, that the laws of supply and demand, and all the phenomena of value, may be investigated algebraically and illustrated geometrically. From inquiries of this sort the curious conclusion emerges, that equilibrium of exchange of goods resembles in mathematical conditions the equilibrium of weights upon a lever of the first order. In the latter case, one weight multiplied by its arm must exactly equal the other weight multiplied by its arm. So, in an act of exchange, the commodity given multiplied by its degree of utility must equal the quantity of commodity received multiplied by its degree of utility. The theory of economy proves to be, in fact, the mechanics of utility and selfinterest."

In spite of the authority of Professor Léon Walras, now Rector of the Academy of Lausanne, supported by that of Mr. Jevons, we must be permitted to entertain grave doubts whether the laws of supply and demand, and all the phenomena of value, may be investigated algebraically, and illustrated geometrically." Neither does it "emerge" to us, that, admitting the fact that "a commodity given multiplied by its degree of utility must equal the quantity of commodity received multiplied by its degree of utility," all the laws of value are settled thereby; or that "the theory of Economy is thereby proved to be the mechanics of utility and selfinterest."

To continue:

"So much for the theory of Economy, which will naturally be one science, remaining the same throughout its applications, though it may be broken up into several parts; the theories of utility, of exchange, of labor, of interest, &c., partly corresponding to the old division of the science into the laws of consumption, exchange, distribution, production, and so forth. Concrete Political Economy, however, can hardly be called one science, but already consists of many extensive branches of inquiry. Currency, banking, the relations of labor and capital, those of landlord and tenant, pauperism, taxation, and finance, are some of the principal portions of applied Political Economy, all involving the same ultimate laws, manifested in most different circumstances. In a subject of such appalling extent and complexity as currency, for instance, we depend upon the laws of supply and demand, of consumption and production of commodities as applied to the precious metals or other materials of money. In the science of banking and the