Admitting the justice of the principle, other considerations to be taken into account: (1) variability of term 'luxuries' as between different classes of men and different times; (2) a satisfaction of a primary want, a step upward in the path of civili- zation; (3) Free Exchange daily bringing within the reach of the million what were formerly the These considerations, pointing to the beneficence and levelling influence of wealth accumulating under a system of Free Exchange, suggest the necessity of a limit to the Description of the nature of this Justice of the exemption of the lower Difficulty of fixing the scale of gradua- tion for the higher incomes 266 Next, is graduation satisfactory in M. Leroy-Beaulieu in favour of a Mr. Goschen and M. Leroy-Beaulieu quoted to show how large a propor- tion of the national income of civilized countries is in the hands Unproductive nature of progressive taxation-if excessive, it tends to defeat its object; if moderate, little more productive than uniform or Both fears and hopes with regard to this principle of taxation exag- gerated. If used for equalizing Lawson; of Curran v. Treleaven. Conclusion that the statute of 1875 leaves a very absolute power in the (b) The Criminal Law as defined by its scope and authority considered; possibility of its application in the case of Gibson v. Lawson; the ex- emption contained in section 3 of the statute of 1875 considered The remedy of the Civil Law. The McGregor, Gow & Co. The case of The decisions in these two cases con- trasted; suggestion that they are not governed by the same rule; probability that they will either 290, 291 I. ON THE SCIENCE OF ECONOMICS AND ITS RELATION TO FREE EXCHANGE AND SOCIALISM, ALL persons who are interested in the so-called science of Economics know only too well the melancholy and deplorable state into which it has fallen. It is such a chaos of contradictions that very many persons refuse to believe that there is any such science at all1. The cause of this lamentable confusion is that there are fundamental concepts of it, which are wholly irreconcileable with each other, just as there have been in the earlier and imperfect stages of most other sciences, such as astronomy, optics, and many others. A science is a body of phenomena all relating to a single fundamental general concept. Thus dynamics is the science which treats of the laws governing the phenomena of force; optics is the science of the laws governing the phenomena of In 1870 Stanley Jevons, after having read my works then published, as he has very handsomely acknowledged in his preface, spoke of Political Economy as the shattered science—an expression which has acquired a certain popular vogue. Long previous to this, in 1856, when I had occasion to study the works on Economics then current in their relation to credit and banking, I had pointed out their defects, and said, in the Introduction to Vol. II of my Theory and Practice of Banking: 'We have no hesitation in saying that the whole system of Political Economy, as laid down by Ricardo and developed by Mr. John Stuart Mill, is utterly and radically bad'-which gave prodigious offence at the time. I also said: 'The time has come when all Political Economy must be rewritten.' After thirtyeight years people are beginning to find out that this is true. |