.,■' ^ 1 c B s- i o 1 a ft 4- /' V; BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Benrg W. Sage 1891 -knp-^..j -^M-^M- Cornell University Library arV15665 On the importance of the study olecOT^^^ 3 1924 031 379 682 olin,anx Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031379682 ON THE IMPOETANCE OF THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AS A BEANCH OF EDUCATION FOE ALL CLASSES: A LECTURE DELIVEEED AT THE EOTAL ffiSTITUTION OF GEEAT BEITAm, BY / W. B. HODGSON, LL.D. ' Ignorance does not simply deprive us of advantages ; it leads us to work our own misery ; it is not merely a vacuum, void of know- ledge, but a plenam of positive errors, continually productive of imiiappiness. This remark was never more apposite than in the case of Political Economy.' — Samuel Bailey's Discourses, &c., p. 121. 1852. ' If a man begins to forget that he is a social being, a member of a body, and that the only truths which can avail him anything, the only truths which are worthy objects of his philosophical search, are those which are equally true for every man, which will equally avail every man, which he must proclaim, as far as he can, to every man, from the proudest sage to the meanest outcast, he enters, I believe, into a lie, and helps forward the dissolution of that society of which he is a member.' — Rev. C. Kingsley's Alexandria wnd her Schools. L. ii. p. 66. 1854. ' A man will never be just to others who is not just to himself, and the first requisite of that justice, is that he should look every obligation, every engagement, every duty in the face. This applies as much to money as to more serious affairs, and as much to nations as to men.' — Times, June 6, 1854. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AS A BEANCH OF EDUCATION FOE ALL CLASSES. TT was truly said in this roonij some weeks ago, -■- by one whose departure from London we must all regret — Professor Edward Forbes — that 'It is the nature of the human mind to desire and seek a law.' The higher desires of man, have not been left, any more than his lower, without their object and their fulfilment, and just as the bodily appetite desires food, while the earth yields stores of nourishment, — as the imagiuation craves for beauty, and beauty is on every side, so, responding to man^s desire for law, does all Nature bear the impress of law. Not to the ignorant or careless eye, however, does law anywhere reveal itself. The discovery of its traces is the student's rich and ever fresh reward. To men in general, the outward sense reports only a number of detached phenomena; their relations become gradually ap- parent to him only whose mental vision is acute [ 263 ] X 2 DE. HODGSON enoughj and whose gaze is steady enough, to behold them. Science, therefore, consists not in the accu- mulation of heterogeneous facts, — any more than the random up-piling of stones is architecture, — ^but in the detection of the principles which co-relate facts even the most dissimilar and anomalous, and of the order which hinds the parts into a whole. Science is, in brief, the pursuit of law ; and the history of science is the record of the steps by which man in this pur- suit rises through classifications, of which the last is ever more comprehensive than its predecessors, from the complexity of countless individuals to the sim- plicity of the groupe, and from the diversity of the many, at least towards the oneness of the universal. The discoveries, however, which it needed a Newton or a Cuvier to make, may be rendered intelligible in their results, if not always in their processes, to ordi- nary understandings ; and whether our knowledge be superficial or profound, the belief in the omnipresence of law, in at least the physical world, has long ago taken its place in the convictions of the least instructed man. Let any one, then, who can realize mentally the difierence between the aspect which the starry heavens bear to the quite ignorant beholder, and that which those same heavens present to the man most slightly acquainted with the discoveries of astronomy, or between the appearances of the vegetable world [ 264 J ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. before and after some acquaintance with Vegetable Physiologyj but who has never thoughtfully consi- dered the phenomena of industrial life — ^let such a one station himself, say on London Bridge, at high tide, and in the busy hour of day; let him watch the ever-flowing streams of human beings, each bound on his several errand, — the seemingly endless succession of vehicles, with their freight, animate and inanimate ; let him look down the river, and observe the number and variety of shipping, coming and departing from and to all parts of the world, remote or near ; let him observe, as he strolls onwards, the shops, and ware- houses, and wharfs, and arsenals, and docks, with their overflowing stores, the almost interminable lines of streets with houses of every size and kind, each tenanted by its respective occupants; the railway stations from which and to which go and come, hourly, thousands of human beings, and the produce of the industry of millions of human beings; the electric telegraph, transmitting from town to town — nay, from land to land — the outward symbols of thought, with almost the proverbial speed of the inward thought itself; let him consider that within the range of a few miles of ground that produces, directly, none of the necessaries of life,* are gathered together more * 'Moyhanger, a New-Zealander, who was brought to England, was struck with especial wonder, in his visit to London, at the mys- [ 265 ] DE. HODGSON than ajOOOjOOO of men^ women, and childreHj at the rate, in some parts, of 186,000 to the square mile ; let him ponder how it is that all these people are daily fed, and clothed, and lodged, — how it is that all these things have been produced and are maintained; let him further consider that this stupendous spectacle is but a sample of what is going on, with great varieties, in so many other regions of the world ; that people separated by thousands of miles of land and sea, who never saw each other, who, it may be, scarcely know of each other's existence, are busily providing for each other's wants, and each procuring his own sustenance by ministering to others' neces- sities or desires ; — and then let him, without at all losing sight of the too obvious evil mised up with aU this, seriously ask himself, is this vast field of con- templation the theatre also of law, which binds the several parts together; or is it a mere giddy and fortuitous dance of discordant and jostling atoms — in a word, a huge weltering chaos, waiting the fiat of some Monsieur Cabet or Baboeuf to reduce it to order, and convert it into a cosmos, by persuading or com- tery, as it appeared to him, how such an immense population could be fed ; as he saw neither cattle nor crops. Many of the Londoners, who would perhaps have laughed at the savage's admiration, would probably have been found never to have even thought of the mechanism which is here at work.'^ — Archbishop Whately: Irdrod, Led. to PolU. Econ. L. iv. p. 97. Second Edition. 1832. [ 266 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. pelling the several atoms to adopt some cunningly devised principle of so-called 'organization of labour ?' To this question Economic Science professes, at least, to supply the answer; and if science be the piu'suit of law, and deserve the title in proportion to its success in that pursuit, the claims of Economic Science must be tested by the nature of the reply it gives. It may occur to some who hear me that the term LAW is not applicable in the same sense or way to the various classes of phenomena which I have casually indicated. In the first, — the region of astronomy, — LAW suggests the idea of some mighty force which irresistibly compels motions on the grandest scale ; in the second, — ^the vegetable world, — it suggests rather a mere principle of arrangement, according to which certain unresisting bodies are distributed; while in the third, — the Economic World of Man, — a vast difference appears between it and the other two, inasmuch as we have here a multitude of independent intelligences and wills, acting consciously and volun- tarily from within, in every variety of direction, and often in seeming opposition to each other. This difficulty merits a consideration, serious if brief. Be- tween the first and second the difference is not real, but only apparent. The growth of a plant is as wonderful, — as grand an exercise of power as the revo- [ ^6t J DE. HODGSON lution of a planet ; and gravitation, as we call it, no more than growth, is in itself a power ; both are alike expressions and results of that will which is in the universe the only real power — the only true cause. Our very word order has a double sense — arrange- ment and command : so natural is it for us to identify the one with the other, and to believe that arrange- ment or system exists only by command or law. And, ia truth, throughout all things, however diverse the special phenomena, whether it be the sweep of a comet, or the budding of a flower, we can recognise still only a principle or method of arrangement as the result of will ; and it is because these are so closely and invariably connected in our minds that we are so apt to use the word law sometimes for the one, and sometimes for the other, personifying Law, just as we do Providence in ordinary speech. The real difficulty, however, lies in the third case, that is, the subject immediately before us. Having seen the primd facie and analogical improbability of the notion that the economic world is lawless, the question arises — in what way does law operate amid so many seemingly independent and conflicting individualities? I have no desire, and there is happily no need, for long or subtle disquisition. I would merely submit a consideration in itself quite simple, but fraught, if I mistake not, with the most [ 268 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. important practical results. In the purely inorganic world, law operates irresistibly, and command and obedience are strictly coincident, co-extensive, and identical. In the motions of the heavenly bodies, for example, there is no eccentricity in the popular sense of the term ; even the orbit of a comet, between whose successive reappearances many decades of years and whole generations of men pass away, is absolutely known — eclipses with the longest intervals are certainly foretold. The same fact holds in the organized but inanimate world, as in the world both inanimate and unorganized. As we ascend in the scale, and enter on the animate creation, we find a like fixity and uniformity provided for to a very large extent by that most marvellous faculty — Instinct, which guides almost infallibly the lower orders of animals, which maintains an almost precise sameness among the most distant generations, and conducts all surely and unconsciously to the end of their being. But Man is a being vastly more complex in his nature; he, too, has instincts, but these form a much smaller proportion of his whole faculty ;* with aU that the lower orders of being have, he has much * ' It would seem that it is in the proportion which their instincts and intelligence bear to each other that the diCFerenoe between the mind of man and that of other animals chiefly consists. Reasoning is not peculiar to the former, nor is instinct pecuhar to the latter. ' — Psychological Inquiries. By B. 0. B. London. 1854. 1*. t86. [ 269 ] DE. HODGSON more besides — moral faculties, reason, and will, both the latter differing vastly in degree, if not in kind, from those of any other creature. The part which he has to play in creation is proportionally complex ; and here it is that perplexity, and discord, and con- fusion begin to appear, or at least chiefly manifest themselves. It is this surface confusion which hides from us the central and pervading Law, and makes it difficult to trace its operation. The laws or con- ditions, however, which determine human well-being, are really as fixed and absolute as are the laws of planetary motion; but man, though so constituted as to desire and seek his well-being, has not an in- fallible perception of that in which it consists, or of the means by which this end is to be attained. We find throughout, this distinction between man and the lower animals. Thus other animals are gifted by nature with the clothing suitable to their con- dition, and it even varies in colour and thickness according to the seasons. Man alone has with effort to construct what clothing he requires ; so, more or less, is it with food ; so is it with shelter. Is this an inferiority on the part of man ? Surely not ; for it is by this very discipline that his higher faculties are called into play, and enlarged, and strengthened. What appears a penalty is, in reality, a blessiag.- Nature's very provision for the comfort of bird or [ 270 1 ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. beast seems, at the same time, the sentence of inca- pacity for improvement. Man, however (I speak now of the individual), is progressive, being capable of improvement; and he is stimulated to improve- ment because his wants are not supplied for him, but he is compelled to supply them for himself, and his desires ever grow with the means of their gratifi- cation. The whole universe is thus, in truth, a great educational organization — a great school, — for the calling out and the direction, of what powers are in man latent. But his progress is not a smooth advance from good to better ; his way lies through evils of many kinds — evils attendant inseparably on defective knowledge, and ill-regulated desires. Law, which in the physical universe operates vsi-formly, here operates, so to speak, VL-formly ; the law wears, Janus -like, two faces ; but it is one law nevertheless. It assumes, however, a twofold sanction, reward for obedience, punishment for disobedience, each being but the complement and corollary of the other. Thus the pallid face and irritable nerves of the sedentary student, the ruddy cheek and iron muscles of the ploughman, — the trembling hand and blood- shot eyes of the drunkard, the steady pulse and clear open countenance of the temperate man, — are the results not of two antagonistic laws, but of one law, vindicating its majestic universality in the one [ 271 ] DR. HODGSON case not less than in the other. So is it with the stagnant and pestilential swamp as contrasted with the cultivated plain; the ruined vUlage with the thriving town ; the land of inhabitants few but poorj with the land of inhabitants many and rich. It is this difference, accordingly, which in the human sphere translates Law into Duty, and the Must of the Physical World into the Ought of the Moral. Wordsworth, the most philosophical of poets, has not failed to detect their kinship, however, when, in his noble ' Ode to Duty,' he says : — Flowers laugh before thee on their bede, And fiagrance in thy footing treads : Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, And the most ancient heavens through Thee ai-e fresh and sia-ong. Good, then, being the great end of aU the estab- lished conditions of our life, evil is, and must ever be, the result of their violation. As Paley has said that no nerve has ever been discovered whose func- tion lies in the giving of pain, so, in all things, pain or evil follows the breach, not the observance, of a law. But this very pain or evil is not in its end vindictive, or simply punitive ; its aim is reforma- tion for the future, not merely punishment for the past. The child burns its finger in the candle-flame, cuts its hand with a knife, makes a false step and falls, and profits all its life through by the lessons it has gained. And so the exhaustion of mind or [ 272 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. body from over-exertion, the headache from intem- perance, are Nature's solemn warnings, tending powerfully to prevent future transgression. Man's successes and his failures are both, in different ways, instructive ; both help him in his career. But Man is progressive not only as an individual, but as a race. Here, still more, is his superiority to all other animals apparent. He is, in some mea- sure, the heir of the discoveries, the inventions, the thoughts, and the labours, of all foregoing time; and each man has, in some measure, for his helper, the results of the accumulated knowledge of the world. But the transmission of experience and knowledge from generation to generation is the fundamental condition of progress throughout the successive ages of the life of mankind. To a large extent, of course, we cannot but profit from the labour of our predecessors ; all those products, and instru- ments, and agencies, which we style ' civilisation,' our roads, our railways, our canals, our courts of law, our houses of legislature, and a thousand other embodiments of the combined and successive efforts of many generations, are our inheritance by birth ; but the very guidance and employment of these for their improvement, or even for their mainte- nance, require ever increased knowledge and intelli- gence. The higher the civilisation that a commu- [ 273 ] DE. HODGSON nity has attained, the more, not the less, necessary is it that its members, as one race succeeds another, should be enlightened and informed. No inheri- tance of industrial progress can dispense with indi- vidual inteUigence and judgment, any more than the accumulation of books can save from the need of learning to read and write. But thousands of human beings, bom ignorant, are left to repeat tinguided the same experiments, and to incur the same failures and penalties as their parents, — as their ancestors. Where these stumbled, or slipped, and fell, they too stumble, or slip, and fall, rising again perhaps, but not uninjured by the fall. Nature teaches, it is true, by penalty as well as by reward ; but it is surely wise, as far as may be, to anticipate in each case this rough teaching, to aid it by rational explanation, and to confine it within safe bounds. The world, doubtless, advances in spite of all. * That industrial progress is what it is, proves that the amount of observance of law is, on the whole, largely in excess of its violation ; were it otherwise, society would retrograde, and humanity would perish. This predominance of good results from the very consti- tution of hnman nature and of the world, by which ' ' There is this difference between the body politic and the phy- sical frame. Life is ' a harp of thousand strings, that dies if one be gone ;' but the life of society is still living and tuneful, though many strings be broken.' — Times, June 8, 1854. [ ^H ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. the individual, working even unconsciously and for his own ends, and learning even by failurej achieves a good wider than that he contemplates, and by which progress, in spite of delay and fluctuation, is main- tained alike in the individual and the race. But how shall the evil which yet mars and deforms our civilisation be abated, if not removed, while progress is made more rapid, and sure, and equable ? Both depend alike on increased observance of law ; and it is by diffusing knowledge of its existence and opera- tioH that observance of law is rendered more general and less precarious. If, then, we would convert not only disobedience into obedience, but obedience blind, unconscious, and precarious, into obedience conscious, intelligent, and habitual, we must teach all to understand the nature of the laws on which the universal wellbeing depends, and train all in those habits which facilitate and secure the observance of those laws.* Assuming, then, that in the industrial or economic sphere the laws of human wellbeing are as fixed as in any other, and that what measure of wellbeing we anywhere behold is the result of obedience, con- scious or unconscious, to those laws, we ought next to inquire what those laws are. As a preliminary, let us take a hasty survey of the steps by which * Vide Appendix. DR. HODGSON any people ascends from barbarism to civilisatioflj from destitution to comfort, from poverty to wealth. From the review alike of good and of evil, we shall be able to extract the principles which run through- out, and which both good and evil concur to attest. In barbarous countries we find men scattered in small numbers over wide extent of territory, living by hunting or fishing, or both combined ; every man supplies his own wants directlj ; he makes his own bow and arrows ; he kills a buffalo for himself ; with hides stripped and dressed by himself, he constructs his own robe or tent ; he lives from hand to mouth, feasting voraciously to-day, then starving till another supply of food can be obtained ; ever on the verge of famine, and eking out a precarious subsistence by robbery and murder, which he calls war. AH but the strong perish in early years, and the average duration of life is low. If we contemplate the pastoral life instead of that of hunting and fishing, still we find that large tracts of country are needed for the maintenance of few people. K the earth be at all cultivated, it is with the rudest implements, and the produce is proportionally scanty. So long as each man is entirely occupied in providing for his own wants, progress is impossible. So soon, how- ever, as by the gradual and slow introduction of better implements, and the acquirement of greater [ 276 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. skill, agriculture becomes more productive, and the labour of one man becomes sufficient for the support of more than one, of some, of many ; the first condi- tion of progress is realised, and the labour of some or many is now set free for other occupations. Food and clothing, fuel and shelter, are the first neces- saries of life. But instead of every man preparing all these for himself directly, instead of every man making for himself all that he requires, gradually one man begins to construct one article, or set of articles only, while another devotes himself to another, with a consequent great increase of productiveness in each case, from increased skill and economy of " time ; in other words, the division of labour is begun. But so soon as the industry of the community is thus divided, and that of each thus restricted, as each still requires all the articles which before he constructed for himself, he can obtain them only from those who employ themselves in their produc- tion ; and this he can do only by giving some of his own product as an equivalejit, in other words, by ex- change. This transaction gives meaning to the term value, which denotes simply the amount of commodi- ties that can be procured in exchange for any other commodity. Division of labour and exchange are thus simultaneous in their origin. From the intro- duction of exchange, industrial progress gains a fresh [ 277 ] Y DE. HODGSON life. Industry having been thus rendered moi productive than before^ subsistence is now provide for a larger number of persons than before. Th reward of industry increasing with its productive ness, ingenuity is stimulated to the invention of im proved methods, and of improved instruments calle tools, or, as they become more complicated an powerful, machines, though a machine is ia principl only a tool ; and the very argument which is good if good at aU, against a steam-plough, is good agains the common plough, or a hoe, or a spade, or a staki hardened in the fire. Population having meantime increased, the lan( available for production becomes more and mor fully appropriatedj and as one portion is more fertile or more advantageously situated than another, i becomes more advantageous to pay a portion of thi produce for the right to cultivate a more productivi soU, than to cultivate an inferior soil even fo: nothing; e.g., to pay ten measiu"es of grain for a soi which produces fifty measures, than nothing fo: a soU which produces, say thirty or thirty-fivej anc hence arises what we call rent. But, meantimi also, the productiveness of industry having. becom( ever greater in proportion to the consumption of it produce, the process of accumulation goes on, an( the unconsumed results of previous labour, which I ^78 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. however various their kinds, we term wealth, swell to larger proportions. But this wealth is not equally- possessed by .all; one man, from superior skOl, or intelligence, or economy, or other causes, coming to possess more than others, while some, it may be, possess none at all. Mere labour, however, without the residts of foregone labour, embodied in some form, can accomplish little; while the results of foregone labour, in whatever form embodied, need fresh labour in order to become still more productive. Thus, e.g., a spade is a result of past labour; without it the labourer could accomplish little ; and, on the other hand, the spade, without a labourer to wield it, would be unproductive. Now, the spade here repre- sents that portion of wealth which is devoted to further production, and which is called capital. Capital and labour are thus indispensable to each other. They may exist in different hands, or in the same; but they must co-exist, and co-operate. Thus — if we suppose them to be in different hands — the owner of the spade, whom we may call the capitalist, may undertake to give the labourer a fixed compen- sation for his labour aided by the spade (an amount which will more or less exceed, and can in no case fall below, what the labourer without the spade can earn), reserving for himself any surplus that may arise after that labour is paid. In this case, the [ ^79] Y 2 DR. HODGSON lalDourer's reward is called wages; the capitalist's reward is called profit. Or the capitalist may lend the spade to the labourer for a fixed return (which will be somewhat less than^ and which cannot exceed, the difference in the labourer's productiveness, caused by the spade), the labourer claiming as his own all that he can realise over and above what he pays. In this case, the labourer's return, whatever it may be called, is partly wages and partly profit, while the capitalist's return is termed interest, or much better, usance, an obsolete English word, for it is really what is paid for the use of capital in any form. K the capital and labour be in the same hands, e.g., if the labourer own the spade he uses, the joint return ever consists of the two items here discriminated. As industry extends and wealth increases, it is early found necessary to provide for the security of property; for the suppression of violence and fraud; and for the settlement of disputes that will here and there arise, even without evil intention on either side. Hence all the machiaery of courts of justice, and of government, from its highest to its lowest functionary. As these, though not in themselves directly producers, are indispensable to production, and exist for the welfare of all, they must be main- tained at the expense of aU; hence comes taxation [ ^80 J ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. of various kinds, which it is the business of the legislature to impose justly, and in the way least likely to fetter industry, and prevent increase of wealth. So far as we have hitherto seen, exchanges have as yet been effected by direct giving and taking of commodity for commodity, or, as it is termed, barter; but great and serious difi&culties attend this system, difficulties ever more deeply felt as exchanges multiply, and become more various; the baker may not want the shoemaker's shoes, if the latter want his bread; but the latter may not want as much bread as equals the value of a pair of shoes; and payment by a half or a third of a pair of shoes is impossible. A medium of exchange, accordingly, is introduced; usually the precious metals, as they are called, the very word implying one of their fitnesses for the task — viz., that in a smaU bulk they contain great value. The non-liability to decay; capability of division vrithout loss; comparative exemption from fluctuations of supply; and facility of recognition, are among their other claims. Exchange, thus facilitated by the adoption of a medium which all are ready to receive, and by which most minute proportions of value may be easily represented, proceeds with vastly increased rapidity; and value being thus measured habitually in money, we have the new [ *8i ] DR. HODGSON element of price. Thougli money in itself is but a very small portion of the capital, and still less of the total wealthj of a nation, it so habitually repre- sents every kind of capital and wealth, that it conveniently becomes a synonyme for both, not, however, without some risk of mental confusion and error as the result. Exchanges becoming thus continually more fre- quent and complicated, it is found convenient and advantageous, on the principle of the division of labour, that a class of men should devote themselves to conduct the business of exchange solely, the work of production being left to others. By the intro- duction of merchants, who do not themselves produce, a greater amount of production is attained, on the whole, than would be possible if all both produced and exchanged without their intervention. • But, for facility and frequency of exchange, even at home, rapidity, and ease, and safety of communication are indispensable ; good roads, swift conveyances, canals, and ultimately railways arise, with their ad- jimcts of carriers and couriers, and post-establish- ments, and tielegraphs of ever greater ingenuity and efficiency. Exchange, which was at first confined within the limits pf one country, soon extends to other countries, with an immense advantage to all, for all are thus [ ^8^ ] OS ECONOMIC SCIENCE. made partakers ia the productions of each, which are more and more diverse according to their diversity of climate. Foreign commerce, with all that it involves of ships, and docks, and warehouses, is the most powerful stimulus to home industry. But ex- change, whether at home or abroad, is, in all cases, when analyzed, simply each man's giving something that he wants less, for something else that he wants more. As geographical knowledge and means of transit are increased, numbers pass from one country to another ; from countries densely to those less densely peopled ; from countries where land is all appropriated, to those where it is still unclaimed; from countries where capital and labour are comparatively unpro- ductive, to those where both are more amply re- warded; new fields being thus perpetually opened up for human industry, and increased enjoyment provided by fresh and ever augmented interchange, both for those who go and for those who stay. But long ere this, as yet the highest, stage of pro- gress has been reached, the precious metals them- selves have been found incompetent to discharge the full duty of exchange; and paper money, or duly vouched promises to pay money, is introduced with an ever more corapUcated machinery of bank-notes and bills of exchange, for the management of which [ ^83 ] DE. HODGSON class of transactions a still further division of labour is introduced by means of ba.nkerSj bill-brokers^ and the other agents by whom what we call compre- hensively CREDIT is carried on. But life and property are subject to contingencies which involve serious lossj and which it is impossible always to prevent. It is discovered that the evil results to individuals, which would be ruinous to one, may, by combination, be distributed over many. Hence insurances against fire, against death, against disaster : at sea, against haU-storms and diseases among cattle, against railway accidents^ and even against fraud on the part of clerks or other assistants, all of which are based on calculation of averages, this again being based on the conviction that a certain regularity prevails among events even the most anomalous and irregular. And thus, step by step, by a strictly natural course, does the work of industrial progress go on, till we witness its gigantic results in our own time and our own land — results of which the great Crystal Palace (the opening of which was not in- aptly coincident with the day fixed for this exposi- tion of the principles whose triumph it exemplifies) may be justly regarded as the crowning and most various illustration — raised, as it has been, by volun- tary combination, on strictly economic groimds, and C 284 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. embracing within itself, in one vast space, ex- amples of the productions of the labour, the inge- nuity, the fancy, the skill, the science of all ages and of every land. In this inevitably brief and incomplete sketch of the industrial progress of the world, not only has much been omitted, but it is to be observed that the steps do not always follow each other in precisely the same order, and that much that is here recorded, perforce, successively, takes place simultaneously. It is not possible here or now to extract from even this most hasty sketch the merely theoretic principles which it involves. This is the business of a long course of lectures,, and it is not,, besides, my purpose to expound Economic Science itself, any further than may be indispensable to show its importance as a branch of general instruction. Let ns rather look at some of the great practical lessons that may be deduced from it for the guidance of individual conduct. Everything, then, that we or others possess, is more or less the result of human, that is, of indi- vidual, industry. It is observable that not where nature itself is most prolific is human labour the most productive ; so true is it that necessity is the mother of invention and of industry as well. Truly has Rousseau remarked, ' In the south, men consume [ ^8s ] DE. HODGSON little' (he might have said produce little) ' on a grateful soil; in the north, men consume much/ (and of course produce much) ' on a soil ungrateftd.'* Where man has most done for him, he often does least for himself; and though his labours must he seconded by the productiveness of Nature, the latter is really more dependent on the former than the former on the latter. Now this law holds true of the future as well as of the present or the past. Every human being must subsist on the produce of his own industry, or on that of some one else. Industry, then, is the first duty of him who would be honourably independent. But it is not by present labour, any more than by future, that any man is really sustained. While the crop is growing, for example, the labourer is fed by the grain of former harvests. Now, if the produce of labour were consumed as fast as it is produced, not only would progress be impossible, but life itself would be endangered, and would ere long cease. Hence the duty of what is called, in its narrower sense, economy, or the frugal and prudent consumption of what has been, produced. Disasters, too, will arise, which no human wisdom can prevent, but against whose conse- quences it may provide. The very progress of industry involves displacement of labour, though it is not true * Emile. Liv. I. [ 286 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. that labour is so superseded, as the phrase is. The invention of printing threw amanuenses out of their old employment^ though it soon employed a thou- sand men instead of one. During all such transi- tionSj it is only by previous savings that those thus affected can be maintained till they can adapt them- selves to the change. Again^ the early years of every human being are incapable of industrial effort, and the child must be maintained by the previous labour of others. Upon whom this duty fairly falls, whether on some abstraction that we call the State, or society, or on the parents of the child to whom his being is due, is a question which needs less to be asked than merely to be suggested here. Again, the years of labour are limited ; the evening of that night approaches in which no man can work, and here is another call on the proceeds of past industry. The very old, as well as the very young, must be supported alike by foregone labour ; in the case of the young, it must be by the labour of others ; in the case of the old, it must be either by their own previous labour, or by that of their children now grown up, or by that of society at large — ^which way is best is surely not doubtful. During the years of active life itself, sickness will sometimes invade, throwing men often for long periods on the resources of the past. Hence the necessity of forethought as [ ^87 1 DR. HODGSON regards equally the future of others whom affection and duty alike commend to our care, and our own, when the days of decay and weakness shall arrive. Now, forethmigM involves judgment, and diligence, and self-denial, i . As to judgment. Earnings may be saved, but if injudiciously invested, they may be lost. To take a simple case, — ^hoarded potatoes are a more precarious economy than hoarded grain ; and so throughout where savings are invested through banks, or building societies, or railway shares, or in any other way. The division of labour itself calls for ever fresh exercise of judgment. So long as each man produces all that he wants for himself, he knows precisely what he wants, and how much ; but so soon as labotir is divided, each man produces not what he wants himself, but what others want, or are supposed to want. If, then, any one produce by mistake articles which others do not want, or of a quality, or to an extent at variance with the demand, he suffers serious loss, it may be ruin. 3. As to diligence. Without this, labour is little different from idleness. But mere labour, however diligent, can accomplish little unless guided by intelligence, for which, as the demands of society increase, there is an ever louder call. Knowledge, then, is indis- pensable to the attainment of any beyond the lowest results of industry. The more we know of the [ 288 J ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. nature of that on which^ and by whichj and in which, and for ■which, we work, the more hkely, nay cer- tain, is our work to turn to good account. This knowledge, when embodied in practice and confirmed by it, becomes skill. The very tools and machines which some fancy supersede human labour and skill, are the results of both, and they render the former infinitely more productive, and call for ever more of the latter for their improvement, if not for their actual guidance. 3. As regards self-denial. One of its most important forms is temperance, without which labour, especially of the higher kinds, is precarious, it may be impossible. As society advances, the re- lations of man to his fellows become more and more numerous and complex. Credit, as it is well called, holds a larger and larger place, and reliance on each other's faith becomes more and more important. Honesty, accordingly, whether in its lower forms, such as punctuality, or in its higher, to which we give the name integrity, is thus an indispensable con- dition of human progress. Were the exceptions to this condition to become much more frequent, the bonds of human society would be proportionally loosened, and civilisation would go backward. In , scarcely a subordinate degree are civility, courtesy, mutual forbearance, and willingness to oblige, neces- sary to oil the wheels of the social machiue, which, [ 289 J DR. HODGSON without these, would move but slowly and creakingly along. These things we all need in our own case ; and to be received, they must be given. It is only in so far as all these qualities of dih- gencOj and economy, and sidll, and forethought, and intelligence, and temperance, and integrity, and courtesy, have been manifested, that wealth has been created, and that society in any age or country has advanced. It is just in so far as these have been neglected that poverty, and misery, and evil, of every kind, abound. Such are some of the chief practical lessons of Economic Science when rightly studied. And win any one ask, * Are these mere truisms the boasted results of economic teaching ?' In reply, much may be said. What is a truism to one mind, say to all here, may be really unknown to thousands beyond these walls. In such subjects, again, the profoundest truth is ever the simplest. It is its very simplicity that blinds us to its value and com- prehensiveness. Further, we are so easily familiarized with the mere names of duties, and so accustomed to assent with the lips to their obligation, that we neglect to consider either their basis or their prac- tical working. We go on daily assenting to truths we daily violate ; it is not uncommon to lecture on ventilation in rooms whose atmosphere is stifling ; to eulogize economy in the midst of reckless expendi- t 350 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. ture ; and health is sometimes injured by very dili- gence in the study of its laws. "What men all -want is not merely the discovery and promulgation of new truthj however useful, but the freshening up of old truths long ago admitted. The coias which we carry about with us, and which pass continually from hand to hand, have had the sharpness of their edges worn off, their legend all but effaced. We need to have them cast anew into the mint of thought, and re-stamped with their original 'image and super- scription.^ Rote-teaching is pernicious in morals not less than in merely intellectual matters. The explanation of a law, its demonstration, should ever go- hand in hand with its inculcation. For the sake of those who may say, or at least think, ' AU this we knew long ago,' let me use an illustration from the quite parallel case of Physiology. In my younger days I was accustomed to hear much vague talk about air and exercise; on all hands I heard that nothing was so good as exercise and fresh air. Well, so long as the restless activity of boyhood lasted, there was less need for instruction on this head; boys take fresh air and exercise in bhnd obedience to a blessed law of their nature. But when youth came on, and intellect became more mature, and books began to push cricket from its throne, all the rumour about air and exercise was quite inoperative [ ='9' ] DR. HODGSON to prevent long days and late nights of sedentary position, of confinement in close rooms, of hard work of the brain, while the circulation of the blood was impeded, the lungs laboured, the muscles lost their energy, and the skin its freedom of transpiration and its vigour to resist agencies from without, When, like most of you, I listened in delight to the beautiful expositions of my immediate predecessor, perhaps I was not alone in thinking that, had we all been taught in early life the economy of the lungs, and heart, and blood-vessels, and brain, — had we been shown that the blood which nourishes the body must be purified by frequent contact with the outer air ; that for this purpose it passes frequently through the lungs, receiving from the air fresh life, while its impurities are thrown off; that in the process of breathing, the air is rapidly deteriorated and ren- dered unfit to sustain life, constant renovation being thus required j that by muscular compression consequent on exercise, the circulation is quickened, as well as the breathing, so that the blood is thus more rapidly purified, the effete particles of matter are more quickly removed, and our bodies in truth more frequently and healthfully renewed, — ^we should many of us have been spared much suffering and much loss of power arising necessarily from violation of the vital laws. And so with Economic Science. .[ 292 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. It is of no avail to repeat by rote phrases about industry^ and temperance, and frugality, &c. The results of the observance and of the violation of those duties, as exemplified in the actual working of social life, must be clearly shown, and so enforced that the knowledge shall be wrought into the very tissue and substance of the mind, never to perish while life lasts, so that all things shall be brought to the test of the principles thus incorporated with the intellect itself. Further, in the case of both sciences alike, mere teaching, or addressing of the intellect, even if that be convinced, is not all, or enough. Trainmg must accompany teaching ; the formation of habits must go on with the clearing of the intellectual vision. I speak not of schools alone, or of homes alone ; in both must the embryo man be accustomed, as well as told, to do what is right. He who has once learned by habit the delight and the advantage of daily ablution of the whole body, or of daily exercise in all weathers, in the open air, will not easily abandon or interrupt either of these habits. And so with industry and the rest. Every fresh act of obedience is no longer, as it were, the effort of a distinct volition, but an almost automatic repetition of an act first commanded by reason. This conversion of the voluntary into the spontaneous is the true guarantee for perseverance in [ ==93 ] z DE. HODGSON any line of conduct, the excellence of which has been already recognised by the understanding. The analogy between the Physiological and the Economic Sciences, both in their nature and in their present position, seems to me to hold throughout. Thus ignorance does not in either confer any exemp- tion from the evils attending the breach of any law, however it may be admitted in extenuation at the bar of human jiistice. The child who takes arsenic for sugar, dies as surely as the wilful suicide. The youth launched on this busy world without any of the knowledge here indicated, finds Greek iambics, and even conic sections, of no guidance in its indus- trial relations, and he suffers and fails accordingly. What is the inference ? That ignorance should be removed, and evil prevented, by early teaching, rather than left to the bitter regimen of experience. Coleridge has finely compared experience to the stem lights of a vessel, which illuminate only the track over which it has passed. It is for us rather to fix the light of knowledge on the prow, to illu- mine the course which the ship has yet to take. It would surely be a great gain were all offences against economic law reduced to the category of wilful dis- obedience^ ia spite of knowledge ; for such, I firmly beheve, are, especially at the outset, vastly the minority. [ 294 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Again : Health, much as it depends on individual ohservance of its laws, is greatly dependent on their ohservance by others also. The profligate parent transmits a feeble and sickly organization to his child; just as opposite conduct tends to the opposite result. The pestilence which foulness in one part of a city has bred, extends to other parts ; and the con- sequences of the offence spread far beyond the original offender. So, economically, does each man suffer for others' transgressions besides his own. The idleness, and wastefulness, and intemperance of parents entail hunger, and raggedness, and every form of misery, on the unhappy children. The indus- trious, and provident, and honest members of the community are stinted in their means for the sup- port of the idle, and improvident, and dishonest, and for their own protection against the depredations of those who seek to live by others' labour rather than their own. No law of our existence is more sure than this. It is idle to cavil or complain. Let us rather see how the recognition of this law should affect us. What is the practical inference? It is that the interests of humanity are one ; that through- out mankind there is, in French phrase, a solidarity, which renders each responsible, in some measure, for the rest. The policy of selfish isolation is, therefore, vain, as well as sinful. We suffer from our neglect [ 295 ] z 2 DB. HODGSON of the well-being of our fellow-men. The gaol fever, which the gross negligence of prison authorities pro- duced ia former days, slew the juryman in the box, and even the judge upon the bench. And it is not in purse alone, or even chiefly, that we suffer from the existence of the destitute, or the depraved. The great mountain of human evil throws its dark, cold shadow on every one of us ; in such an atmosphere our own moral nature droops and. pines; and just proportioned to the mental elasticity which attends every successful effort to spread good around us, is the numbing and hardening pressure of that great mass of vice and misery which we feel ourselves im- potent to relieve. One more analogy I would briefly note. We know how common quack medicines are. Why is this ? Because, through ignorance of physiological laws, people are silly enough to believe that any nostrum can exist potent to repair, as by a magic spell or incantation, the evil results of their own neglect of health and its conditions. To such people, talk about air and exercise, and washing, and regular diet, and early hours, and temperance, and alterna- tion of labour and rest, is very uninteresting and commonplace. To a similar class of persons, dis- course on diligence and economy, and forethought and integrity, is very dull. ' What is the use of all r 296 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. your chemistry/ said the old lady, ' if you cannot take the stain out of my silk gown ?' And by tests not less narrow and erroneous are the teachings of science, whether economical or physiological, often tried. But a change is coming over the public estimate of the latter, at least in this respect. Pre- vention is being ever more thought of than cure; or, in technical phrase, the prophylactic claims, and now receives, more attention than the therapeutic portion of the physician's art. Pure water, and fresh air and light are now, almost for the first time, really recognized as the fundamental and indispen- sable conditions of health; and baths, and drains, and ventilators, and wash-houses, are fast encroach- ing on the domain of the blister and the lancet, the pill and the black draught. Now, what systems of the treatment of disease are to Sanitary Phy- siology, Poor-laws and Charitable Institutions and Criminal Legislation are to Economic Science. It aims at preventing the evils which those seek to deal with as they arise. The attempt may never quite succeed; but its success wUl be exactly pro- portioned to the vigour and unanimity with which it is made. It seeks to treat the source of the disease, rather than the mere symptoms. It is only as the former is removed that the latter will disappear. By all means let no palliative be ne- [ 297 1 DR. HODGSON glected in the meantime, but let no cure be expected therefrom. Efforts to perfect systems of poor-laws, or criminal laws, however excellent or useful, must be abortive, because the very existence of the evils which these address is abnormal ; and it is for the removal of these wens and blotches on the social system that we must strive, not for their mere abate- ment by topical applications, or the rendering of them symmetrical and trim. Wisdom and Benevolence here meet, and are at one.* Yet persons are not wanting who meet our desire that Economic Science should be taught to all, and especially to the young, by the cry that ' it tends to make men selfish.' In reply, I wQl not content myself with saying, in the words of Shakspere, ' Self- love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.^ I go much further, and assert that this teaching, if pro- perly conducted, has precisely the opposite tendency. Its great purpose is, to show how the community is enriched by the industry of the individual, and how the value of individual industry is measured by its result in enriching the community. It whoUy dis- owns and condemns every mode of enriching the individual at the general expense, or even without * In the text I have merely pointed out analogy. Here let me hint at dependence. la not the economic difficulty the main ob- stacle to sanitary arrangements ? [ 298 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. the general advantage. Thus, the merchant who hrings a commodity, say tea, from a country where it is cheap to one where it is dear, and gains a profit by the transaction, fulfils the conditions of Economic Science. He serves at once the community in which he lives by bringing an article from a place where it is less, to a place where it is more, wanted ; and the community with which he trades by giving them in exchange for the article they sell something that they value more. But the man who enriches himself at the gaming-table, or by other means more or less resembling the picking of pockets, does injury, not service, to the community. He is wholly out of the pale of Economic Science ; he may be a chevalier d'industrie, in the French sense, but Economic Science disowns his industry, and condemns him as a wasteful consumer of what others have produced. It teaches every man to look on himself as a portion of society, and widens, not narrows, his views of his own calling. And here I cannot but express my deep regret that one to whom we all owe, and to whom we all pay, so much gratitude, and affection, and admiration, for all he has written and done in the cause of good — I mean Mr. Charles Dickens — should have lent his great genius and name to the discrediting of the subject whose claims I now advocate. Much as I am grieved, however, I am not much surprised, for men. [ 299 ] DE. HODGSON of purely literary culture, with keen and kindly sym- pathies which range them on what seems the side of the poor and weak against the rich and strong, and, on the other hand, with refined tastes, which are shocked by tl^^nsolence of success and the ostenta- tion incident to newly-acquired wealth, are ever most apt to faU into the mistaken estimate of this subject which marks most that has yet appeared of his new tale, Hard Times. Of wilful misrepresentation we know him to be incapable ; not the less is the mis- representation to be deplored. We have heard of a young lady who compromised between her desire to have a portrait of her lover, and her fear lest her parents should discover her attachment, by having the portrait painted very unlike. "What love did in the case of this young lady, aversion has done in the case of Mr. Dickens, who has made the portrait so unlike, that the best friends of the original cannot detect the resemblance. His descriptions are just as like to real Economic Science as ' statistics' are to ' stutterings,' two words which he makes one of his characters not very naturally confound. He who misrepresents what he ridicules, does, in truth, not ridicule what he misrepresents. Of the lad Bitzer, he says, in No. 218 oi Household Words: — Having satisfied himself, on his father's death, that his mother had a right of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young econo- [ 300 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. mist had asserted that right for her with such a steadfast adherence to the principle of the case, that she had been shut up in the work- house ever since. It must be admitted that he allowed her half a pound of tea a year, which was weak in him : first, because all gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperize the recipient ; and, secondly, because his only reasonable transaction in that commodity would have been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give, and to sell it for as much as he could possibly get ; it having been clearly ascertained by philosophers that in this is comprised the whole duty of man — not a part of man's duty, but the whole. — (p. 335.) Here Economic Science^ which so strongly enforces parental Antj, is given out as discouraging its moral if not economic correlative — filial duty. But where do economists represent this maxim as the whole duty of man ? Their business is to treat of man in his industrial capacity and relations ; they do not presume to deal with his other capacities and rela- tions, except by showing what must he done in their sphere to enable any duties whatever to be dis- charged. Thus it shows simply that without the exercise of qualities that need not be here named again, man cannot support those dependent onhim, or even himself. If it do not establish the obligation, it shows how only the obligation can be fulfilled. Let me once more recur to physiology for an illus- tration. The duty of preserving one's own life and health will not be gainsaid. Physiology enforces this duty by showing how it must be fulfilled. But, if one's mother were to fall into the sea, are we to be told that physiology forbids the son to leap into the [ 3- J DR. HODGSON ■wavesj and even peril his own health and life in the effort to save her who gave him birth ? Physiology does not command this, it is true ; this is not its sphere ; but this, at least, it does, — it teaches and trains to the fullest development of strength and activity, that so they may be equal for every exigency — even one so terrible as this ; and so pre- cisely with Economic Science. Again, we are told it discourages marriage : — ' Look at me, ma'am,' says Mr. Bitzer. ' I don't want a wife and family. Why should they V ' Because they are improvident,' said Mrs. Sparsit. , ' Yes, ma'am, that's where it is. If they were more provident, and less perverse, ma'am, what would they do ? They would say, 'While my hat covers my family,' or ' while my bonnet covers my family,' as the case might be, ma'am, ' I have only one to feed, and that's the person I most like to feed. ' — {p. 336.) Does this mean that men or women ought to rush blindly into the position of parents, without thinking or caring whether their children can be supported by their industry, or must be a burden on that of society at large ? If not, on what ground is prudent hesitation, in assuming the most solemn of all human responsibilities, a subject for ridicule and censure? Is the condition of the people to be improved by greater or by less laxity in this respect ? But not merely are we told that this teaching (which, by the way, scarcely exists in any but a very few schools), tends to selfishness, and the merging of [ 302 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. the commTiiiity in the individual; it has, it seems, also, a quite opposite tendency to merge the indi- vidual in the community, by accustoming the mind to dwell wholly on averages. Thus, if in a city of a million of inhabitants, twenty -five are starved to death annually in the streets, or if of 100,000 persons who go to sea, 500 are drowned, or burned to death, we are led to believe that Economic Science disregards these miseries, because they are exceptional, and because the average is so greatly the other way ! Now, though in comparison of two countries, or two periods, such averages are indispensable. Economic Science practically teaches everywhere to analyze the collective result into its constituent elements, — iu a word, to individualize. It teaches, for example, that every brick, and stone, and beam of this build- ing, of this street, of this city, has been laid by some individual pair of hands j and it urges every man to work for himself, and to render his own industry ever more productive, surely not to rest in idle contemplation of the average of industry throughout the land. It is his duty to swell, not to reduce that average. So with prosperity. I am quite unable to see what tendency the knowledge of that average can have to discourage the eflfort to increase it. Besides, it is a fundamental error to confound mere statistics Vidth economic science, which deals with [ 303 ] DE. HODGSON facts only to establish their connections by way of cause and effect, and to interpret them by law. But were it otherwise, with what justice can eco- nomic instruction be charged with destroying imagi- nation, by the utilitarian teaching of ' stubborn facts.' Why should either exclude the other ? I can see no incompatibility between the two.* By all means let us have poetry, but first let us have our daily bread, even though man is not fed by that alone. It is the Poet Rogers who says, in a note to his poem on Italy, ' To judge at once of a nation, we have only to throw our eyes on the markets and the fields. If the markets are well supplied, and the fields well culti- vated, all is right. If otherwise, we may say, and say truly, these people are barbarous or oppressed.' Destitution must be removed for the very sake of the higher culture. If we would have the tree fling its branches widely and freely into the upper air, its roots must be fixed deeply and firmly in the earth. But enough of this subject, on which I have entered with pain, and only from a strong sense of duty. The public miad alas ! is not enlightened enough to render such writing harmless. * On this score, I have personally no misgivings. Seventeen years ago, I delivered and published a lecture, in which I urged the exer- cise of the imagination, or aesthetic culture, in the youthful training of all classes. My convictions are at least as strong now as they were then. [ 304 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Hitherto, I have spoken only of those great prin- ciples, and the duties flowing therefrom, which per- vade the whole subject. But if these principles are the most comprehensive, there are very many others which, in the practical affairs of life, it is most important thoroughly to understand, and which it is the peculiar business of Economic Science to ex- pound. It is an error to suppose that in matters touching men's '^ business and bosoms,' even though of daily and hourly recurrence, instruction is not needed, and that ' common sense ' is a sufficient guide. Alas ! common sense is widely different from proper sense. It is precisely in these subjects that error most extensively prevails, and that it is most pernicious where it does prevail. In matters far removed from ordinary life and experience, pure ignorance is possible, perhaps; and, in comparison, little mischievous. But in those which concern us all and at aU times, it is alike impossible to be purely ignorant and to be ignorant with impunity. If the miad have not right notions developed at first, it will certainly have wrong ones. Hence we may say of knowledge what Sheridan Knowles says of virtue : ' Plant virtue early ! Give the floiver the chance you suffer to the weed!' The minds of most men are a congeries of maxims, and notions, and opinions, and rules, and theories [305 ] DE. HODGSON picked up here and there, now and then, some sound, others unsound, each often quite inconsistent with the rest, but which are to them identified with the whole hody of truth, and which are the standard by which they try all things. This fact explains a remark in a recent school report, that it is far easier to make this science intelligible to children than to their parents ; — ^no doubt, just as it is easier to btdld on an unoccupied ground^ than on one overspread by ruins. And so, not only is it possible to teach this subject to the young ; but it is to the young that we must teach it, if we would have this teaching most effective for good. For farther evidence of the general need for this kind of instruction, it sufiices to look around us, and test some of the opinions prevalent lately or even now. And here there is much of interest that might be said, did time permit, of still prevail- ing errors regarding strikes, and machinery, and wages, and population, and protection, and taxation, and expenditure, and competition, and much more besides. But into this field my limits forbid me even to enter. Let me, however, refer you to a most admirable series of lessons on The Phenomena of Industrial lAfe, and the Conditions of Industrial Success* which has recently appeared under the editorship of that zealous educationist, the Dean of * Price 2s. Groombridge, Paternoster Row. [ 306 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Hereford. The appearance of this bookj and the recognition of this subject in the last Report of the National School Society, are cheering signs that the omissions of past ages in our school systems on this head are not destined much longer to continue. The programme of this lecture speaks of the importance of Economic Science to all classes. It wotdd be a serious error to suppose that its advantage is confined wholly, or even chiefly, to those who depend on daily labour for daily bread. Even were it so, in the midst of frequent and rapid changes of position, the rich man becomiag poor, as well as the poor man becoming rich, this kiad of teaching would still be important for all classes. But the capitalist not less, it may be said even more, than the labourer, needs instruction. He has been styled the captain of industry ; it is for him to marshal, and equip, and organise, and pay its forces, and to guide their march. Any mistake on his part must be widely injurious. The wise employment of capital is a most momentous question; for it determines the direction of the industry of millions, and affects the prosperity of all coming time. From the class of the rich, too, are our legislators chiefly chosen. To them this kind of knowledge is important just ia proportion as, in their case, ignorance or error is most pernicious. Of the aristocracy of our day, were old Burton living [ 307 J DR. HODGSON now, he would scarcely say what he said of those of his own time : ' They are like our modern Frenchmen^ that had rather lose a pound of blood in a single combat, than a drop of sweat in any honest labour.'* The contagion of industry has spread to them; and idleness is less than ever confounded with nobility. But there is ample room for further progress. If wealth, even economically considered, involve in- creased responsibility, it calls the more loudly for enlightenment and guidance. Again, on the side of expenditure, or consumption, does this subject especially concern the rich. As supply ever follows demand, it is by this that pro- duction is mainly guided. Shall it run in the direction of sensuality and self-indulgence, or shall it flow in better and more useful channels? Me- morable are the words of Lord Byron in his later days in Greece : — The mechanics and working classes who can maintain their families are, in my opinion, the happiest body of men. Poverty is wretchedness ; but it is perhaps to be preferred to the heartless, unmeaning dissipation of the higher orders. I am thankful I am now entirely clear of this, and my resolution to remain clear of it for the rest of my life is immutable.i' At this most suggestive topic I can barely hint. * Anatomy of Mdamcholy. + Last Days of Lord Byron. By W. Parry, 1825. p. 205. [ 308 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Much beside I am forced wholly to omit. But I must not pass in total silence the claims of this subject on the attention of the other sex. For- tunately, little needs be said within this Institu- tion, of whose audience at lectures on every subject ladies form perhaps not the smallest, and certainly not the least attentive portion. Surely I shall not be told that a superficial sketch, such as mine, is for them unobjectionable, but that the serious study of the science is, in their case, to be discountenanced. If any kind of knowledge can do harm to any living being, it is just this very superficial knowledge. It is like the twilight which, holding of day on the one hand, and of night on the other, mocks the senses with distorted appearances which thicker darkness would hide, but which a broader daylight would dispel. In truth, women have a special interest in this subject. The part they play in industrial pursuits depends much on conventional circumstances, and varies in various countries; but in all, their influence in the region of expenditure is vastly great. Who shall say how deeply the welfare of famiHes and of society at large is involved in this ? Again, the domain of charity is peculiarly feminine ; and the benevolent impulse, ever so ready to spring up, needs to be guided to the prevention, rather than to the relief, or what is too often, in fitter phrase, the [ 309 ] A A DE, HODGSON indirect increase of misery. Well does Thomas Carlyle (no friend of the dismal science, as he loves to call it), in his quaint, odd way, exclaim : — What d, reflection it is that we cannot bestow on an unworthy man any particle of our benevolence, our patronage, or whatever resource is ours, — ^without withdrawing it, and all that will grow of it, from one worthy, to whom it of right belongs ! We cannot, I say ; impossible ; it is the eternal law of things. Incompetent Duncan M'Pastehom, the hapless incompetent mortal to whom I give the cobbling of my boots, — and cannot find in my heart to refuse it, the poor drunken wretch having a wife and ten children ; he loitJidraws the job from sober, plainly competent and meritorious Mr. Sparrowbill, generally short of work, too ; discourages Sparrow- bill; teaches hini that he, too, may as well drink and loiter and bungle ; that this is not a scene for merit and demerit at aU, but for dupery, and whining flattery, and incompetent cobbling of every description, — clearly tending to the ruin of poor Sparrowbill ! What harm had Sparrowbill done me that I should so help to ruin him ? And I couldn't save the insalvable Mr, Pastehom : I merely yielded him, for insufficient work, here and there a half-crown, which he oftenest drank. And now Sparrowbill also is drinking !* Between the Lady Bountiful of olden times, with her periodical distributions of coals and blankets, and simples and cowslip wine, who regarded the poor as her pets, her peculiar luxury, of which, did they cease to be mendicants, she would be cruelly deprived, — and the Mrs. Jellyby, whose long-ranged benevolence shoots in a parabolic curve far over what is near, to descend on what is remote, hurrying past and above St. Giles or Whitechapel, and * Model Prisom, p. 24 ; Latter-Day Pamphlets, No. 2. [310 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. exploding on 'Borrioboola Gha;' between these widely distiact forms of what is called ia both alike Charity, there is room and there is need for women of judgment as clear as their sympathy is earnest, who can think for themselves, as well as feel for others ; who shall not so do good that evil may come, but rather help the feeble to self-help, and, while they raise the fallen, look maialy to ' forestalling' others ' ere they come to fall/ Up to this point I have spoken solely of one class of advantages attending the teaching of Economic Science. But, as you have been told oftener than once during this course, the teaching of every .branch of knowledge has, in diflferent degrees, two sorts of advantage; ist, in increasiag man's outward resources; and, as a means of mental discipline and inward culture. Of the second of these advantages I can now say but little. It is wholly unimportant to discuss the comparative claims of different subjects in this respect. The difference among them is, perhaps, rather of kind than of degree. Mathe- matics discipUne one set of powers, metaphysics another; or in so far as both exercise the same powers, it is in different ways. I claim no monopoly, I arrogate no superiority. I simply assert the educational value of this subject, with- out prejudice to any other, and aU the more [3" ] DK. HODGSON strongly, because it has been and is so sadly neglected. Snrely, those subjects which have the most direct and powerful bearing on human well- being, and which treat of some of the most import- ant relations between man and man, cannot be edu- cationally less efficient than other studies which concern man less closely and directly. And I leave it to you who have heard even this most imperfect and hurried exposition, to judge whether it can fail to be a most improving mental exercise to sift such questions as the relations and laws of price, of capital and labour, and wages and profits, and interest and rent, and to trace to their origin, and foUow to their results, the fluctuations afiecting all these in our own and other countries, in our own and other times. As regards the other sex, on this ground, at least, there can be no doubt, even if the former admitted of hesitation. To women and to men, this discipline is alike valuable : for women it is even more necessary; for men are inevitably brought more into contact with the world and its affairs, and so have the defects of their early teaching in part corrected. It is well, at the same time that the understanding is exercised, to foster an interest in human welfare by an enlarged comprehension of its conditions. We hear little now of the policy or propriety of confining woman's studies to super- [3x2 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIEifCE. ficial accomplishment. It were an error, scarcely less serious, to confine them to inquiries which leave the individual isolated from the race. Let me not, in conclusion, be supposed to ignore, because I would not invade, other, and (by com- mon consent) the most sacred grounds on which the moral aspects of this subject may be viewed. Let the duties on which human welfare, even indus- trially considered, is dependent, be enforced else- where, by reasons too high for discussion here. But surely this groimd, at least, is in common to religious sects of every variety of creed and name. Surely it is a solemn and cogent consideration that the very fabric of our social being is held together by moral laws, and that the man who violates them, outlaws himself, as it were, from the social domain, and rouses into armed hostility a thousand agencies which might and wOuld otherwise fight upon his side. Not only the profligate, the gambler, the swindler, and the drunkard, but the idle, the reck-' less, the unpunctual, the procrastinating, find here a bitter but wholesome condemnation ; and the very science which is ignorantly charged with fostering selfishness, teaches every man to estimate his labours by their tendency to promote the general good. Nor is it imimpressive, as regards even what Words- worth so finely calls [ 313 ] DR. HODGSON The vmreasoninff progress of the world,* to watch how the social plan is carried on by the composition of so many volitional forcesj each bent on its own aims. ' The first party of painted savages/ it has been well said, ' who raised a few huts upon the Thames, did not dream of the London they were creating, or know that in lighting the fire on their hearth they were kindling one of the great foci of Time,' . . . 'All the grand agencies which the progress of mankind evolves are formed in the same un- conscious way. They are the aggregate result of countless single willsj each of which, thinking merely of its own end, and perhaps fully gaining it, is at the same time enlisted by Providence in the secret service of the world.'f If law be indeed the expres- sion of an intelligent and benevolent will, reverence and obedience towards the great Lawgiver must surely be fostered (mark, I do not say created) by the study of his laws, and the contrasted results of their observ- ance and their violation. And, finally, as regards that practical religion whose testing finiit is effort for the good of man,- — a study which shows so clearly that human welfare is involved in obedience to fixed laws, and that obedience, to be reliable, must be based on * ' In the unreasoning progress of the world A wiser spirit is at work for us, A better eye than ours.' — Wordsworth. + J&nes Martineau. [ 3H J ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. knowledge of their existence and authority, must surely stimulate the extension of this needful know- ledge among aU classes of the people. In this hght, it is abundantly apparent that, sacred as is the duty of acquiring knowledge, the duty of diflFusing it is not less sacred ; and that knowledge is no exception to the divine precept — ' It is more blessed to give than to receive.' Appeitdix, p. 275. Political Economists, with but slight exception, have neglected to urge universal Teaching and Training in the Economic laws as THE condition indispensable for the most beneficial working of those laws themselves. Misled by physical analogies, e.g., between the relation of supply and demand, and the rising and falling of water as it seeks its level, they have failed practically to recognise that human motives and human will are ever the key-stone in the arch which bridges over the interval between economic cause and effect. To Mr. Samuel Bailey belongs (so far as I know,) the credit of having first clearly established this truth — simple as it is — in his Essay on The Uniformity of Ocmsation, published in 1829. The same writer in his Discourse on Political Economy, (1852, p. rog), thus writes : ' The object of Political Economy is not to ascertain all the laws by wliich wealth is produced and distributed, but only one class of them, namely, the moral or mental lams, or in other words, those lams of hwma/n, natwe, on which the economical condition of nations depends.' It may be doubted, however, whether even Mr. Bailey has aufiiciently insisted on the great practical inference from his own doctrine — the necessity, for all men — of instruction in the nature of those laws. Yet here lies the answer to those who point to the manifold misery co-incident with our civilization, whether they con- tent themselves (like Mr. Carlyle) with angry protests against 'Laissez faire, laisaez aller,' or go on, with the French and other [ 31S 1 DR. HODGSON 01S ECONOMIC SCIENCE. SooialistB to build up schemes for the entire re-constmction of the Economic World — schemes which would substitute centralized com- pulsion for indiyidual agency, separate or combined, with a tendency more or less direct, more or less avowed, to Communism, (or the abolition of property and of family,) as their idtimate result. The ignorant abuse of human freedom, however, is a reason why men should be instructed, not why they should be enslaved. Let but enlightenment keep pace with liberty, and it will be found that intelligence within will succeed where compulsion from without must fail ; and that the free action of the instructed individual is the true guarantee for the well-being of the community. To reduce this conviction to practice no one has yet done so much as Mr. Wilham Ellis — ^the munificent patron of the Birkbeck Schools.* No one has laboured so zealously as he — To render with these precepts less The sum of human ■Wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind.'f * See EdMcation as a Means of Preventing Destitution, &c. By William Ellis, Author of Outlines of Social Mcanamy, &c. London: Smith and Elder. 1851. + Btbon's Prometheus. [ 316 ]