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.

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 mathe matical 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

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 self

interest."

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."

"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

money market, we have a very difficult application of the same laws to capital in general. This separation of the concrete branches of the science is, however, sufficiently obvious and recognized, and I need not dwell further upon it. The general conclusion, then, to which I come is, that Political Economy must for the future be looked upon as an aggregate of sciences. A hundred years ago, it was very wise of Adam Smith to attempt no subdivision, but to expound his mathematical theory (for I hold that his reasoning was really mathematical in nature) in conjunction with concrete applications and historical illustrations. He produced a work so varied in interest, so beautiful in style, and so full of instruction, that it attracted many readers, and convinced those whom it attracted. But Economists are no more bound to go on imitating Adam Smith in the accidental features of his work than metaphysicians are bound to write in the form of Platonic dialogues, or poets in the style of the Shakespearean drama. With the progress of industry, how many hundreds, or even thousands, of trades have sprung up since Smith wrote! With the progress of knowledge, how many sciences have been created, and subdivided again and again! The science of electricity has been almost entirely discovered since 1776; yet now it has its abstract mathematical theories, its concrete applications, and its many branches; treating of frictional or static electricity, dynamic electricity or galvanism, electro-chemistry, electro-magnetism, magnetism, terrestrial magnetism, atmospheric electricity, and so forth. Within the same century, chemistry, if not born, has grown, and is now so vast a body of facts and laws that professors are appointed to teach different parts of it. Yet the Political Economist is expected to teach all parts of his equally extensive and growing science, and is lucky if he escape having to profess also the mental, metaphysical, and moral sciences generally."

In striking contrast, however, to the above, and to what was said by Englishmen at the dinner referred to, was the brief account given by M. de Laveleye, of the new Continental or "Realist School;" which holds "production and distribution to be governed in part by free contract, but also, and still more, by civil and political institutions, by religious beliefs, by moral sentiments, by customs and traditions, that morals, justice, right, religion, history, altogether go to make up the tout ensemble of social or political science." After naming those esteemed worthy to be enrolled in the new school, having for its basis the whole nature of man, and whose method is investigation, not assumption, he, with matchless politeness and irony, left it to the Englishmen present to add their own illustrious names to the list. Echo was silent; and will remain silent till Adam Smith, with his deductive method

and the school founded upon it, all ignorant of any higher force in human development than the selfish instincts of the race, are thrown into the common receptacle of the incongruous and useless rubbish of the past.

There is, however, a lower depth than even Mr. Jevons sounded, and that was touched by Mr. Bonamy Price, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Oxford, as will be seen by the following extracts from lectures delivered by him in that institution, and embodied in a work entitled the Principles of Currency."

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"Political Economy, in respect of the range of its subject-matter," says Mr. Price, "has no superior, if indeed it has an equal, among the sciences. It treats of wealth, of its production and of its distribution, and the larger part of human life is spent in the exercise of these two functions. Political Economy is often spoken of as a modern science; but it has existed in all ages, and amongst all civilized nations. Men at all times have occupied themselves with the creation of wealth according to certain rules and ideas; for no laborious employment can be extensively carried on without the existence of some notions as to the right way of working, and the most fitting methods for attaining the end desired. It is a mistake, though a very common one, to suppose that practical men, as they are called, are destitute of theory. The exact reverse of this statement is true. Practical men swarm with theories; none more so. They abound in views, in ideas, in rules, which they endow with the pompous authority of experience; and when new principles are proposed, none so quick as practical men to overwhelm the innovator with an array of the wisdom which is to be found in prevalent practice. I know of no place which is so entirely under the dominion of loudly corrected theories as the city. In some departments of Political Economy, the doctrines of merchants and bankers have subdued the whole land, and almost put a stop to all independent thought which should presume to contradict the established theories of men of business. Adam Smith's illustrious work is almost wholly devoted to the demolition of the huge superstructure of doctrine which traders had reared up on their practice. The difference which separates the man of science from the man of practice does not consist in the presence of general views and ideas on one side, and their absence on the other. Both have views and ideas. The distinction lies in the method by which these views have been reached; in the breadth and completeness of the investigation pursued; in the rigorous questioning of facts, and the careful digestion of the instruction they contain; in the co-ordination and the logical cohesion of the truths established.

"No science has suffered so severely at the hands of practical and empirical men as Political Economy. They have at all times

propounded and acted on doctrines of the most elaborate kind. The more directly engaged in business was the speaker, the more complicated, the more artificial, the more mysterious, have been the rules he laid down for the attainment of wealth. Monopolies were proclaimed to be the infallible means for creating good and trustworthy quality in manufacture. . . . Then, again, when the discovery of the New World enlarged geography with colonies of a novel kind, the practical man speedily stepped forward with his theory, and taught the statesman that the secret of the new and boundless wealth engendered by colonies lay in the exclusive appropriation of their trade by the mother country. His teaching was adopted by every civilized country, and became the recognized policy of all Europe. Great wars were waged in the name of the practical man's ideas: his views were supreme over all colonial relations.... The practical man's ascendency thus rose ever higher and higher, till it reached its culminating point in the famed mercantile theory, the crowning embodiment of the wisdom which practical prudence and experience had inspired. The precious metals were held up as the one supreme object of industrial ambition. . .

"I am constrained to acknowledge that Political Economy finds itself, even at this time of day, in a most unsatisfactory position. Two causes, it seems to me, have mainly brought about this result. The first and most influential is the singularly undefined character of the boundary line which encloses the subject-matter of Political Economy. The example set by the illustrious expounder of Political Economy has not been faithfully observed by his successors. In the Wealth of Nations,' the frontier line which separates Political Economy from cognate sciences is rarely transgressed. Adam Smith seldom runs away from his true subject, or mixes it up with foreign elements. His followers have too often written in a less philosophical spirit. Political Economy is infested with an incessant tendency to commingle with general politics. The confusion was natural: for wealth and finance form a large part of the business which occupies every government; and a philosophy which augmented the riches of a people, stimulated their industry, poured expanding streams into the national exchequer, and spread contentment with prosperity over the country, could not fail to look exceedingly like the science of good government. And so it is, in a sense; but still only within the limits of its appropriate province. But to identify Political Economy with statesmanship, with the science of government, to suppose that a great Political Economist is ex vi termini a great statesman, is as absurd as to identify the science of jurisprudence, or the building of ironclads, with politics, or to imagine that a great general is infallibly a scientific states man. This confusion has shown itself in other branches of knowl edge which are largely made use of by governments; but nowhere has it prevailed so widely or worked so much mischief as in Political Economy. Its name is unfortunate, and only too well calcu lated to precipitate its writers into this delusion. They never seem quite able to escape the impression that Political Economy is

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