counsels are entitled. It gives instruction on wealth; but wealth is not the highest object, much less the one supreme end of human life. Wealth is only an instrument; its value consists in what it effects for its possessor. It provides him with satisfactions and enjoyments; the nature and quality of those enjoyments are the criterion of its worth. A far nobler and keener gratification may be had from the reading of a book, which a little wealth could have procured, than from a multitude of mere luxuries. There are better things than to be rich: there are others, by the side of which riches ought to count as nothing. Men have sacrificed their wealth and their lives rather than perform a false, dishonouring, or irreligious action, and their memory has been hallowed with enduring respect. Hence that knowledge respecting wealth which Political Economy proclaims can claim that rank only which belongs to one single department of human life. Political Economy must be regarded as making, so to speak, a report on the appropriate methods for obtaining a single limited object. It gives that report to the mind of a being who receives similar reports from other portions of his nature. It is for him, for the whole man, to judge how far he will put in practice the advice given. By the laws of his mental and moral constitution, he is not only urged but bound to erect a tribunal within himself which shall judge of the relative rights to command attached to different ends. Political Economy may be able to show that a society constructed on Communistic principles will be poorer than one founded on unrestricted individual liberty; the Communist is authorised to reply that this is a question which falls under the jurisdiction

of Political Philosophy, and that the best social condition is higher and more imperative than the best economical. Nor will anything be gained by enlarging the boundary of Political Economy, as so many writers attempt to do, and absorbing into it Political Philosophy. Political Economy, by its very nature, is not up to such a task; its range would be unmanageable, and there would always remain the fatal certainty that other objects of human life would carry greater weight and higher authority than the acquisition of wealth. The ultimate result would be that Political Economy would not receive the consideration which is its due.

So much in the way of introductory observations; let us now pass on to the teaching of Political Economy.

It speaks of Wealth. With Mr Mill, we may hold the popular idea of the nature of wealth to be sufficient for the objects of Political Economy. It is as determinate, as Mr Mill remarks, as practical purposes require. But one caution must be laid great stress on. It is inevitable that some nice questions should arise as to the limits up to which this conception of wealth may be pushed, the more especially as it is absolutely necessary to examine doctrines which scientific refiners have laid down as to what is, and what is not wealth. Let us clearly remember that whether these questions can be answered only imperfectly or not at all, it matters not; no injury will be done to the character or ability of Political Economy. If practical purposes are satisfied, all the rest is of little consequence.

Mr Mill thinks otherwise. He accepts the popular idea, but he soon starts off in keen pursuit of science,

He lays down the principle, on which he is followed by Professor Fawcett, that things for which nothing can be obtained in exchange, however useful or necessary they may be, are not wealth in the sense used in Political Economy. What warrant of fact or reasoning can be alleged for fastening on Political Economy so marvellous and so arbitrary an assertion? Useful things not wealth! what is wealth but a collection of useful things? What better description can be given of it? Yet these useful things, however much they may minister to existence, to comfort, to enjoyment, if it is found out that no one is desirous of giving something in exchange for them, are instantly dismissed out of the category of wealth. They must be placed, I presume, in a new class, specially constructed for them. They are only useful and delightful things: every one has enough of them without buying them of others; they are not wealth. But the moment they are deficient and something is offered to procure them, as by the touch of a conjuror they are converted into wealth. A great African chief, whose tribe are his slaves, and who lives in complete isolation from the rest of mankind, has no wealth, upon this definition: he has no Political Economy. His slaves get their necessaries, like his horses; he has magnificent possessions, luxuries of every kind, but no wealth. There is not a single market in his dominions. Climate-sun, air, and water-are not wealth; no one buys them. A country is none the richer for a good climate, though that climate may work wonders for it in producing saleable wealth. The bright rays of the sun raise splendid wines in France, magnificent crops of cotton in India and America-but these

perty, as a common cart transfers weights. Who ever preached that a nation could not have too many carts or too many ploughs? that it was always good to procure carts without end? Did it require the voice of a grand deductive science to make men perceive the nature and necessary limitation of tools? There may be, nay are, multitudes of people who are not aware that money is nothing but a tool-to make known this fact is all that is really needed to kill the Mercantile Theory. A little intelligent observation is perfectly sufficient without calling in science.

The Malthusian theory again is often appealed to as a splendid product of deductive science; but what is the essence of this theory but the well-known fact that human beings, like all other animals, have a power of multiplying faster than their food, and that if they do so multiply very unpleasant consequences must arise? Again we encounter here only a simple act of intelligent perception. Malthus has only insisted on and illustrated this fact, mainly against a very current theory that God does not send children without providing for them. The fine words about arithmetical and geometrical ratios are merely idle writing. So also is it with one of the most all-prevailing rules of Political Economythe law of supply and demand. As a practical fact, it has been known to all mankind ever since there has been trade. It is no novelty to men and nations who have never heard that there is such a thing as Political Economy, that if more goods are made than are wanted, they will be sold at a lower price, or not sold at all; and that on the other hand, if bread is scarce from a bad harvest or in a besieged town, it will become exces

sively dear. Equally familiar is the truth to untutored minds that if a man wishes to have a thing he must pay There is little else in the econo

for the making of it. mical discussions of supply and demand but expansions and applications of these very obvious and instinctively observed facts. To call them scientific principles is nothing but inflated language.

In all these instances the true nature of Political

Economy stands out clear. It is the application of common sense to familiar processes. It explains their nature and manner of working. It analyses and thinks out practices which are universal, except when thwarted by artificial theory. The information which it acquires by observation and analysis, it puts together in a systematic form. Its teaching is contained in a body of methodical knowledge, which presents to the inquirer the chief facts and the real essence of these natural processes; he is made to understand them, each singly for itself, and all of them together as a connected whole. The production and distribution of wealth are operations of the widest range, and are made up of many and often complicated parts, but they are capable of being grouped and viewed as a united whole. But there is no strict science in all this, no deduction, step by step, from a few first principles, nor any construction of economical laws by induction. I can find no true economical law in Political Economy, unless such truths as that a man must labour if he means to keep himself alive, or that he must prepare beforehand seed and tools if he desires to obtain a supply of corn, are to be invested with the dignified title of scientific laws. What are called economic laws by most writers are mere