the science of speculative politics, but a branch of that science. It
does not treat of the whole of man's nature as modified by the social
state, nor of the whole conduct of man in society. It is concerned with
him solely as a being who desires to possess wealth, and who is capable
of judging of the comparative efficacy of means for obtaining that end.
It predicts only such of the phenomena of the social state as take place
in consequence of the pursuit of wealth. It makes entire abstraction of
every other human passion or motive; except those which may be regarded
as perpetually antagonizing principles to the desire of wealth, namely,
aversion to labour, and desire of the present enjoyment of costly
indulgences. These it takes, to a certain extent, into its calculations,
because these do not merely, like other desires, occasionally conflict
with the pursuit of wealth, but accompany it always as a drag, or
impediment, and are therefore inseparably mixed up in the consideration
of it. Political Economy considers mankind as occupied solely in
acquiring and consuming wealth; and aims at showing what is the course
of action into which mankind, living in a state of society, would be
impelled, if that motive, except in the degree in which it is checked by
the two perpetual counter-motives above adverted to, were absolute ruler
of all their actions. Under the influence of this desire, it shows
mankind accumulating wealth, and employing that wealth in the production
of other wealth; sanctioning by mutual agreement the institution of
property; establishing laws to prevent individuals from encroaching upon
the property of others by force or fraud; adopting various contrivances
for increasing the productiveness of their labour; settling the division
of the produce by agreement, under the influence of competition
(competition itself being governed by certain laws, which laws are
therefore the ultimate regulators of the division of the produce); and
employing certain expedients (as money, credit, &c.) to facilitate the
distribution. All these operations, though many of them are really the
result of a plurality of motives, are considered by Political Economy as
flowing solely from the desire of wealth. The science then proceeds to
investigate the laws which govern these several operations, under the
supposition that man is a being who is determined, by the necessity of
his nature, to prefer a greater portion of wealth to a smaller in all
cases, without any other exception than that constituted by the two
counter-motives already specified. Not that any political economist was
ever so absurd as to suppose that mankind are really thus constituted,
but because this is the mode in which science must necessarily proceed.
When an effect depends upon a concurrence of causes, those causes must
be studied one at a time, and their laws separately investigated, if we
wish, through the causes, to obtain the power of either predicting or
controlling the effect; since the law of the effect is compounded of the
laws of all the causes which determine it. The law of the centripetal
and that of the tangential force must have been known before the motions
of the earth and planets could be explained, or many of them predicted.
The same is the case with the conduct of man in society. In order to
judge how he will act under the variety of desires and aversions which
are concurrently operating upon him, we must know how he would act under
the exclusive influence of each one in particular. There is, perhaps, no
action of a man's life in which he is neither under the immediate nor
under the remote influence of any impulse but the mere desire of wealth.
With respect to those parts of human conduct of which wealth is not even
the principal object, to these Political Economy does not pretend that
its conclusions are applicable. But there are also certain departments
of human affairs, in which the acquisition of wealth is the main and
acknowledged end. It is only of these that Political Economy takes
notice. The manner in which it necessarily proceeds is that of treating
the main and acknowledged end as if it were the sole end; which, of all
hypotheses equally simple, is the nearest to the truth. The political
economist inquires, what are the actions which would be produced by this
desire, if, within the departments in question, it were unimpeded by any
other. In this way a nearer approximation is obtained than would
otherwise be practicable, to the real order of human affairs in those
departments. This approximation is then to be corrected by making proper
allowance for the effects of any impulses of a different description,
which can be shown to interfere with the result in any particular case.
Only in a few of the most striking cases (such as the important one of
the principle of population) are these corrections interpolated into the
expositions of Political Economy itself; the strictness of purely
scientific arrangement being thereby somewhat departed from, for the
sake of practical utility. So far as it is known, or may be presumed,
that the conduct of mankind in the pursuit of wealth is under the
collateral influence of any other of the properties of our nature than
the desire of obtaining the greatest quantity of wealth with the least
labour and self-denial, the conclusions of Political Economy will so far
fail of being applicable to the explanation or prediction of real
events, until they are modified by a correct allowance for the degree of
influence exercised by the other cause.
Political Economy, then, may be defined as follows; and the definition
seems to be complete:--
"The science which traces the laws of such of the phenomena of society
as arise from the combined operations of mankind for the production of
wealth, in so far as those phenomena are not modified by the pursuit of
any other object."
But while this is a correct definition of Political Economy as a portion
of the field of science, the didactic writer on the subject will
naturally combine in his exposition, with the truths of the pure
science, as many of the practical modifications as will, in his
estimation, be most conducive to the usefulness of his work.
* * * * *
The above attempt to frame a stricter definition of the science than
what are commonly received as such, may be thought to be of little use;
or, at best, to be chiefly useful in a general survey and classification
of the sciences, rather than as conducing to the more successful pursuit
of the particular science in question. We think otherwise, and for this
reason; that, with the consideration of the definition of a science, is
inseparably connected that of the _philosophic method_ of the science;
the nature of the process by which its investigations are to be carried
on, its truths to be arrived at.
Now, in whatever science there are systematic differences of opinion
--which is as much as to say, in all the moral or mental sciences, and
in Political Economy among the rest; in whatever science there exist,
among those who have attended to the subject, what are commonly called
differences of principle, as distinguished from differences of
matter-of-fact or detail,--the cause will be found to be, a difference
in their conceptions of the philosophic method of the science. The
parties who differ are guided, either knowingly or unconsciously, by
different views concerning the nature of the evidence appropriate to the
subject. They differ not solely in what they believe themselves to see,
but in the quarter whence they obtained the light by which they think
they see it.
The most universal of the forms in which this difference of method is
accustomed to present itself, is the ancient feud between what is called
theory, and what is called practice or experience. There are, on social
and political questions, two kinds of reasoners: there is one portion
who term themselves practical men, and call the others theorists; a
title which the latter do not reject, though they by no means recognise
it as peculiar to them. The distinction between the two is a very broad
one, though it is one of which the language employed is a most incorrect
exponent. It has been again and again demonstrated, that those who are
accused of despising facts and disregarding experience build and profess
to build wholly upon facts and experience; while those who disavow
theory cannot make one step without theorizing. But, although both
classes of inquirers do nothing but theorize, and both of them consult
no other guide than experience, there is this difference between them,
and a most important difference it is: that those who are called
practical men require _specific_ experience, and argue wholly _upwards_
from particular facts to a general conclusion; while those who are
called theorists aim at embracing a wider field of experience, and,
having argued upwards from particular facts to a general principle
including a much wider range than that of the question under discussion,
then argue _downwards_ from that general principle to a variety of
specific conclusions.
Suppose, for example, that the question were, whether absolute kings
were likely to employ the powers of government for the welfare or for
the oppression of their subjects. The practicals would endeavour to
determine this question by a direct induction from the conduct of
particular despotic monarchs, as testified by history. The theorists
would refer the question to be decided by the test not solely of our
experience of kings, but of our experience of men. They would contend
that an observation of the tendencies which human nature has manifested
in the variety of situations in which human beings have been placed, and
especially observation of what passes in our own minds, warrants us in
inferring that a human being in the situation of a despotic king will
make a bad use of power; and that this conclusion would lose nothing of
its certainty even if absolute kings had never existed, or if history
furnished us with no information of the manner in which they had
conducted themselves.
The first of these methods is a method of induction, merely; the last a
mixed method of induction and ratiocination. The first may be called the
method _à posteriori;_ the latter, the method _à priori_. We are aware
that this last expression is sometimes used to characterize a supposed
mode of philosophizing, which does not profess to be founded upon
experience at all. But we are not acquainted with any mode of
philosophizing, on political subjects at least, to which such a
description is fairly applicable. By the method _à posteriori_ we mean
that which requires, as the basis of its conclusions, not experience
merely, but specific experience. By the method _à priori_ we mean (what
has commonly been meant) reasoning from an assumed hypothesis; which is
not a practice confined to mathematics, but is of the essence of all
science which admits of general reasoning at all. To verify the
hypothesis itself _à posteriori_, that is, to examine whether the facts
of any actual case are in accordance with it, is no part of the business
of science at all, but of the _application_ of science.
In the definition which we have attempted to frame of the science of
Political Economy, we have characterized it as essentially an _abstract_
science, and its method as the method _à priori_. Such is undoubtedly
its character as it has been understood and taught by all its most
distinguished teachers. It reasons, and, as we contend, must necessarily
reason, from assumptions, not from facts. It is built upon hypotheses,
strictly analogous to those which, under the name of definitions, are
the foundation of the other abstract sciences. Geometry presupposes an
arbitrary definition of a line, "that which has length but not breadth."
Just in the same manner does Political Economy presuppose an arbitrary
definition of man, as a being who invariably does that by which he may
obtain the greatest amount of necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries,
with the smallest quantity of labour and physical self-denial with which
they can be obtained in the existing state of knowledge. It is true that
this definition of man is not formally prefixed to any work on Political
Economy, as the definition of a line is prefixed to Euclid's Elements;
and in proportion as by being so prefixed it would be less in danger of
being forgotten, we may see ground for regret that this is not done. It
is proper that what is assumed in every particular case, should once for
all be brought before the mind in its full extent, by being somewhere
formally stated as a general maxim. Now, no one who is conversant with
systematic treatises on Political Economy will question, that whenever a
political economist has shown that, by acting in a particular manner, a
labourer may obviously obtain higher wages, a capitalist larger profits,
or a landlord higher rent, he concludes, as a matter of course, that
they will certainly act in that manner. Political Economy, therefore,
reasons from _assumed_ premises--from premises which might be totally
without foundation in fact, and which are not pretended to be
universally in accordance with it. The conclusions of Political Economy,
consequently, like those of geometry, are only true, as the common
phrase is, _in the abstract_; that is, they are only true under certain
suppositions, in which none but general causes--causes common to the
_whole class_ of cases under consideration--are taken into the account.
This ought not to be denied by the political economist. If he deny it,
then, and then only, he places himself in the wrong. The _à priori_
method which is laid to his charge, as if his employment of it proved
his whole science to be worthless, is, as we shall presently show, the
only method by which truth can possibly be attained in any department of
the social science. All that is requisite is, that he be on his guard
not to ascribe to conclusions which are grounded upon an hypothesis a
different kind of certainty from that which really belongs to them. They
would be true without qualification, only in a case which is purely
imaginary. In proportion as the actual facts recede from the hypothesis,
he must allow a corresponding deviation from the strict letter of his
conclusion; otherwise it will be true only of things such as he has
arbitrarily supposed, not of such things as really exist. That which is
true in the abstract, is always true in the concrete with proper
_allowances_. When a certain cause really exists, and if left to itself
would infallibly produce a certain effect, that same effect, _modified_
by all the other concurrent causes, will correctly correspond to the
result really produced.
The conclusions of geometry are not strictly true of such lines, angles,
and figures, as human hands can construct. But no one, therefore,
contends that the conclusions of geometry are of no utility, or that it
would be better to shut up Euclid's Elements, and content ourselves with
"practice" and "experience."
No mathematician ever thought that his definition of a line corresponded
to an actual line. As little did any political economist ever imagine
that real men had no object of desire but wealth, or none which would
not give way to the slightest motive of a pecuniary kind. But they were
justified in assuming this, for the purposes of their argument; because
they had to do only with those parts of human conduct which have
pecuniary advantage for their direct and principal object; and because,
as no two individual cases are exactly alike, no _general_ maxims could
ever be laid down unless _some_ of the circumstances of the particular
case were left out of consideration.
But we go farther than to affirm that the method _à priori_ is a
legitimate mode of philosophical investigation in the moral sciences: we
contend that it is the only mode. We affirm that the method _à
posteriori_, or that of specific experience, is altogether inefficacious
in those sciences, as a means of arriving at any considerable body of
valuable truth; though it admits of being usefully applied in aid of the
method _à priori_, and even forms an indispensable supplement to it.
There is a property common to almost all the moral sciences, and by
which they are distinguished from many of the physical; this is, that it
is seldom in our power to make experiments in them. In chemistry and
natural philosophy, we can not only observe what happens under all the
combinations of circumstances which nature brings together, but we may
also try an indefinite number of new combinations. This we can seldom do
in ethical, and scarcely ever in political science. We cannot try forms
of government and systems of national policy on a diminutive scale in
our laboratories, shaping our experiments as we think they may most
conduce to the advancement of knowledge. We therefore study nature under
circumstances of great disadvantage in these sciences; being confined to
the limited number of experiments which take place (if we may so speak)
of their own accord, without any preparation or management of ours; in
circumstances, moreover, of great complexity, and never perfectly known
to us; and with the far greater part of the processes concealed from our
observation.
The consequence of this unavoidable defect in the materials of the
induction is, that we can rarely obtain what Bacon has quaintly, but not
unaptly, termed an _experimentum crucis_.
In any science which admits of an unlimited range of arbitrary
experiments, an _experimentum crucis_ may always be obtained. Being able
to vary all the circumstances, we can always take effectual means of
ascertaining which of them are, and which are not, material. Call the
effect B, and let the question be whether the cause A in any way
contributes to it. We try an experiment in which all the surrounding
circumstances are altered, except A alone: if the effect B is
nevertheless produced, A is the cause of it. Or, instead of leaving A,
and changing the other circumstances, we leave all the other
circumstances and change A: if the effect B in that case does _not_ take
place, then again A is a necessary condition of its existence. Either of
these experiments, if accurately performed, is an _experimentum crucis_;
it converts the presumption we had before of the existence of a
connection between A and B into proof, by negativing every other
hypothesis which would account for the appearances.
But this can seldom be done in the moral sciences, owing to the immense
multitude of the influencing circumstances, and our very scanty means of
varying the experiment. Even in operating upon an individual mind, which
is the case affording greatest room for experimenting, we cannot often
obtain a _crucial_ experiment. The effect, for example, of a particular
circumstance in education, upon the formation of character, may be tried
in a variety of cases, but we can hardly ever be certain that any two of
those cases differ in all their circumstances except the solitary one of
which we wish to estimate the influence. In how much greater a degree
must this difficulty exist in the affairs of states, where even the
_number_ of recorded experiments is so scanty in comparison with the
variety and multitude of the circumstances concerned in each. How, for
example, can we obtain a crucial experiment on the effect of a
restrictive commercial policy upon national wealth? We must find two
nations alike in every other respect, or at least possessed, in a degree
exactly equal, of everything which conduces to national opulence, and
adopting exactly the same policy in all their other affairs, but
differing in this only, that one of them adopts a system of commercial
restrictions, and the other adopts free trade. This would be a decisive
experiment, similar to those which we can almost always obtain in
experimental physics. Doubtless this would be the most conclusive
evidence of all if we could get it. But let any one consider how
infinitely numerous and various are the circumstances which either
directly or indirectly do or may influence the amount of the national
wealth, and then ask himself what are the probabilities that in the
longest revolution of ages two nations will be found, which agree, and
can be shown to agree, in all those circumstances except one?
Since, therefore, it is vain to hope that truth can be arrived at,
either in Political Economy or in any other department of the social
science, while we look at the facts in the concrete, clothed in all the
complexity with which nature has surrounded them, and endeavour to
elicit a general law by a process of induction from a comparison of
details; there remains no other method than the _à priori_ one, or that
of "abstract speculation."
Although sufficiently ample grounds are not afforded in the field of
politics, for a satisfactory induction by a comparison of the effects,
the causes may, in all cases, be made the subject of specific
experiment. These causes are, laws of human nature, and external
circumstances capable of exciting the human will to action. The desires
of man, and the nature of the conduct to which they prompt him, are
within the reach of our observation. We can also observe what are the
objects which excite those desires. The materials of this knowledge
every one can principally collect within himself; with reasonable
consideration of the differences, of which experience discloses to him
the existence, between himself and other people. Knowing therefore
accurately the properties of the substances concerned, we may reason
with as much certainty as in the most demonstrative parts of physics
from any assumed set of circumstances. This will be mere trifling if the
assumed circumstances bear no sort of resemblance to any real ones; but
if the assumption is correct as far as it goes, and differs from the
truth no otherwise than as a part differs from the whole, then the
conclusions which are correctly deduced from the assumption constitute
_abstract_ truth; and when completed by adding or subtracting the effect
of the non-calculated circumstances, they are true in the concrete, and
may be applied to practice.
Of this character is the science of Political Economy in the writings of
its best teachers. To render it perfect as an abstract science, the
combinations of circumstances which it assumes, in order to trace their
effects, should embody all the circumstances that are common to all
cases whatever, and likewise all the circumstances that are common to
any important class of cases. The conclusions correctly deduced from
these assumptions, would be as true in the abstract as those of
mathematics; and would be as near an approximation as abstract truth can
ever be, to truth in the concrete.
When the principles of Political Economy are to be applied to a
particular ease, then it is necessary to take into account all the
individual circumstances of that case; not only examining to which of
the sets of circumstances contemplated by the abstract science the
circumstances of the case in question correspond, but likewise what
other circumstances may exist in that case, which not being common to it
with any large and strongly-marked class of cases, have not fallen under
the cognizance of the science. These circumstances have been called
_disturbing causes_. And here only it is that an element of uncertainty
enters into the process--an uncertainty inherent in the nature of these
complex phenomena, and arising from the impossibility of being quite
sure that all the circumstances of the particular case are known to us
sufficiently in detail, and that our attention is not unduly diverted
from any of them.
This constitutes the only uncertainty of Political Economy; and not of
it alone, but of the moral sciences in general. When the disturbing
causes are known, the allowance necessary to be made for them detracts
in no way from scientific precision, nor constitutes any deviation from
the _à priori_ method. The disturbing causes are not handed over to be
dealt with by mere conjecture. Like _friction_ in mechanics, to which
they have been often compared, they may at first have been considered
merely as a non-assignable deduction to be made by guess from the result
given by the general principles of science; but in time many of them are
brought within the pale of the abstract science itself, and their effect
is found to admit of as accurate an estimation as those more striking
effects which they modify. The disturbing causes have their laws, as the
causes which are thereby disturbed have theirs; and from the laws of the
disturbing causes, the nature and amount of the disturbance may be
predicted _à priori_, like the operation of the more general laws which
they are said to modify or disturb, but with which they might more
properly be said to be concurrent. The effect of the special causes is
then to be added to, or subtracted from, the effect of the general ones.
These disturbing causes are sometimes circumstances which operate upon
human conduct through the same principle of human nature with which
Political Economy is conversant, namely, the desire of wealth, but which
are not general enough to be taken into account in the abstract science.
Of disturbances of this description every political economist can
produce many examples. In other instances the disturbing cause is some
other law of human nature. In the latter case it never can fall within
the province of Political Economy; it belongs to some other science; and
here the mere political economist, he who has studied no science but
Political Economy, if he attempt to apply his science to practice, will
fail. [11]
As for the other kind of disturbing causes, namely those which operate
through the same law of human nature out of which the general principles
of the science arise, these might always be brought within the pale of
the abstract science if it were worth while; and when we make the
necessary allowances for them in practice, if we are doing anything but
guess, we are following out the method of the abstract science into
minuter details; inserting among its hypotheses a fresh and still more
complex combination of circumstances, and so adding _pro hác vice_ a
supplementary chapter or appendix, or at least a supplementary theorem,
to the abstract science.
Having now shown that the method _à priori_ in Political Economy, and
in all the other branches of moral science, is the only certain or
scientific mode of investigation, and that the _à posteriori_ method,
or that of specific experience, as a means of arriving at truth, is
inapplicable to these subjects, we shall be able to show that the latter
method is notwithstanding of great value in the moral sciences; namely,
not as a means of discovering truth, but of verifying it, and reducing
to the lowest point that uncertainty before alluded to as arising from
the complexity of every particular case, and from the difficulty (not to
say impossibility) of our being assured _à priori_ that we have taken
into account all the material circumstances.