ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. CHAPTER I. THEIR NATURE AND THE METHOD OF PROOF. 1. It is hardly possible to discuss the bearing of economic principles on recent legislation without a preliminary inquiry as to the nature of these principles themselves, and the amount of certainty which we may claim for them. There has in recent years been an increasing impatience of the dogmas of political economists, and a growing disinclination to listen to the criticisms they have to urge, since the public at large are sceptical of the value of the economic principles on which this criticism depends. Nor can it be denied that economists may be partly to blame for the discredit into which their doctrines have fallen, for they have not always been careful to keep in view the precise character of the principles they had to enounce or the limits within which these are valid. The axioms of mathematics are universal in character: no two straight lines enclose a space; and they are necessary in the sense that the lucid statement of this fact carries conviction with it, and requires no further demonstration. But no economical principles have this character of being true for all times and places alike, for the ages of custom as well as the era of com petition-they are neither universal nor necessary. They only become approximately true as statements of the facts of actual life under certain social conditions; since they are to some extent at least contingent on circumstances of place and time, they cannot be taken as self-demonstrating but require to be proved and as that proof has to be drawn from experience we are forced to travel over a long course before we reach a point from which we can establish our principles soundly and thus survey recent legislation to good purpose. 2. Economic principles are obviously concerned with human conduct: they are not merely brain-spun theories which are framed for the sake of acquiring a better understanding of the universe of which we form a part, but they are put forward by men who are interested in the attainment of an object, and desire to see how it may be best accomplished: and thus they are in the widest sense of the word practical: they may perhaps be difficult to put in practice, and we may find it hard to bring actual conduct into accord with them; they may seem ill-adapted for our present circumstances, but for all that since they have reference to what people do, and not merely to what they know or think, the principles of Political Economy are always practical principles. And to say they are practical principles is only to say that they have to do with stating the appropriate means to Economists do not lay down what men ought to aim at, do not picture a highest ideal of human life, nor delineate in fullest detail the chief end of man, but they accept a certain end as one that men in general regard as worthy of their earnest effort, and try to exhibit the course which it is best worth while to pursue in order that that end may be attained; and thus they put forward a reasoned treatment of the fittest means of obtaining wealth. It is unnecessary to discuss the precise meaning of this word at present. Some writers have used it in a very narrow sense, others in a wider one as synonymous with material welfare; but even if we take it in its widest meaning we should be unable to regard it as including the whole circle of human ambitions and aspirations. Material welfare, whether national or personal, is not the noblest object of human struggling: for one thing we cannot put it forward thus exclusively and alone without limiting our contemplation of human life and duty to the present world, and dismissing all thought of a future existence there have been times when the current of thought has run towards the other extreme, and men have so fixed their regard on a world to come as to underestimate the duty of subduing the world that now is. It is enough to protest however that all pursuit of the ideal elements in life, in science and art as truly as in religion, is excluded if welfare, even in its widest common sense signification, is taken as the sole ideal of human life. We may thus see that even when we interpret it most widely, the end which Economy sets before itself cannot be considered as the sole or absolute end of human life: to many it may appear the most important of all the ends towards which human action is consciously directed, and no attempt need be made at present to estimate its relative importance; it is sufficient, however, to record a warning against the onesidedness which would result if we were tempted to set welfare forward as the sole end of life, and therefore to regard a science which studies the means of attaining welfare as laying down principles which may govern all sides of human conduct. However |