The remedy is to remove the cause of the decaying influence of writers of distinguished ability and of great ardour in the study of this subject. Their error must be dispelled there must be a change of method. But is there error? they will reply. Political Economy is a science, and if it is a science, the scientific treatment is the true one and must in the end prevail. The question then must be faced-Is Political Economy a science? To obtain an answer a prior inquiry must be met: What is Political Economy?

It is scarcely possible to put a more difficult question. An accurate and precise answer to it has never yet been given, and never will be. Adam Smith's great work is entitled "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." This description has led to the definition commonly given of Political Economy, as the science of the production and distribution of wealth. Wealth, then, is its subject, what it speaks of; but what is wealth? Here, again, we have a question as hard and puzzling as ever. In his first sentence, Adam Smith seems to explain wealth as "the necessaries and conveniences of life which a nation annually consumes." Vague enough, most assuredly; but then Adam Smith never attempted to frame a scientific definition of wealth; he used the word in its popular sense, as a well-known thing. It never occurred to him that he had taken up a science, and must treat it as such.

Mr Mill feels quite differently. All through his treatise he regards Political Economy as a science: his method always aspires to be scientific; yet even at starting he gives up all scientific definition of wealth.

He distinctly takes as the foundation of his exposition of the principles of Political Economy the popular, unexplored, current definition of wealth. "Every one has a notion," he remarks, "sufficiently correct, of what is meant by wealth." His reason for this sufficiency is remarkable. Enquiries which relate to wealth are in no danger of being confounded with those relating to any other of the great human interests. All know that it is one thing to be rich, another thing to be enlightened, brave, or humane. Mr Mill does not tell us what wealth-the thing he has to explain-is; he bids us ask the first man we meet in the street, what are riches? that is sufficient. Hardly for making a science out of

it surely.

After this we can easily understand the feeling of Professor Perry of Williams College, United States. He flings away the word wealth in anger. In his, in many respects, very able work, "The Elements of Political Economy," he declares it to have been the "bane of Political Economy. It is the bog whence most of the mists have arisen which have beclouded the whole subject. From its indefiniteness and the variety of associations it carries along with it in different minds, it is totally unfit for any scientific purpose whatever. It is simply impossible on such an indefinite word as this at the foundation to build up a complete science of Political Economy. Men may think, and talk, and write, and dispute to weariness, but until they come to use words with definiteness and mean the same thing by the same word, they reach comparatively few results, and make but little progress.' "Hence," he concludes, "happily there is no need to use this word;" for which

he substitutes service. In this I am unable to agree with him. Wealth is the word which belongs to the world which Political Economy addresses. The remedy of what the Professor complains of is to abandon the idea of science, and to use the expression wealth in its popular and practical signification. Men do not want scientific utterances from Political Economists, and if they did they would never get them—but practical explanations of every-day operations.

If we pass on from wealth itself to its production, we shall find that we are getting deeper into vagueness and absence of science. By the unanimous admission of all writers those operations which directly produce wealth are outside of Political Economy altogether. Political Economy does not profess to teach the farmer when to sow his seed, what manure to apply, what rotation of crops to adopt, and yet these are the very things which produce, which bring forth, the crop of wheat, which is the wealth desired. Nor does it explain to the makers of iron, or of woollen or cotton cloths, or of ships, how to manufacture these things. These are all the great processes which create wealth, and bring it into being; but obviously Political Economy does not embrace all the arts, or attempt to explain the proper way of producing goods. How then is Political Economy to be called the science of the production of wealth, when that very production of wealth, in its plain and most extensive sense, clearly does not belong to it? A definition of a science sums up its subject: How is it possible to speak of a science when avowedly by far the largest part of the matter included in its definition does not come under its consideration? If Political Economy

is a science, the question must be answered: Of what is it the science? Of the production of wealth it certainly is not.

But Political Economy has found a distinguished champion to vindicate its right to be accounted a science. At the Centennial meeting of the Political Economy Club, of which mention has already been made, the task of explaining the nature of the work of Adam Smith, and enforcing his title to the admiration and gratitude of mankind was entrusted to Mr Lowe, and no one could speak with higher authority. On that occasion Mr Lowe undertook to show that Adam Smith was the founder of a great science, and that that science was Political Economy. He claims for Adam Smith, "the power of having raised Political Economy to the dignity of a true science, the merit, the unique merit among all men who ever lived in the world, of having founded a deductive and demonstrative science of human actions and conduct: the merit in which no man can approach him, that he was able to treat subjects of the kind with which Political Economists deal by the deductive method." Beyond doubt a deductive science of human actions is unique amongst men, and wonderful indeed is the discovery that this demonstrative science of human conduct should be precisely Political Economy. One would wish to know what are the axioms and definitions which by syllogistic reasoning were developed into that model of scientific treatment, "The Wealth of Nations." Mr Lowe finds no difficulty in telling us. He builds his proof on two grounds.

1. Adam Smith, the father of this deductive science,

"

was in the habit of saying in the course of his writings -men do so and so, which means in his way of writing, men do so and so, and men will do so and so to the end of the chapter." "The test of science," he tells us, "is prevision or prediction. By foretelling human actions and conduct with certainty, Adam Smith created a deductive and demonstrative science, now called Political Economy."

But where is a single certain prediction of human conduct to be found in his writings which proves him to have been the creator of a science? Men are presumed to be keen in the pursuit of riches, and to be sure to act always for their interest, but, unhappily, they are found not to do so and so, even here, to the end of the chapter. They rush into ruinous wars from passion. They know that the way to be rich is to labour, and they prefer idleness. Whole nations like better to bask in the sun than to take the trouble to accumulate wealth. They are well aware that the tradesmen with whom they deal oppress them with unjust prices; they will not be at the pains to seek out the shops where good commodities are to be had at fair rates, thus making the boasted economical principle of competition to be anything but universal. Saving they would confess to be the foundation of wealth and the security for old age; they spend all they can on drink. Governments and peoples have been taught the reasonableness and profitableness of Free Trade: they persist in Protection. "The Wealth of Nations" was written to paint the folly of the Mercantile Theory, and few educated men in England would like to confess their belief in it; but it lives on nevertheless with indestructible vitality. It reigns