Chapter XIII: Book I: chap. 10) (4)

This being the real nature of capital, it follows that there are two kinds of true production, always going on in an active State; one of seed, and one of food; or production for the Ground, and for the Mouth; both of which are by covetous persons thought to be production only for the granary; whereas the function of the granary is but intermediate and conservative, fulfilled in distribution; else it ends in nothing but mildew, and nourishment of rats and worms. And since production for the Ground is only useful with future hope of harvest, all _essential_ production is for the Mouth; and is finally measured by the mouth; hence, as I said above, consumption is the crown of production; and the wealth of a nation is only to be estimated by what it consumes.

The want of any clear sight of this fact is the capital error, issuing in rich interest and revenue of error among the political economists. Their minds are continually set on money-gain, not on mouth-gain; and they fall into every sort of net and snare, dazzled by the coin-glitter as birds by the fowler's glass; or rather (for there is not much else like birds in them) they are like children trying to jump on the heads of their own shadows; the money-gain being only the shadow of the true gain, which is humanity.

The final object of political economy, therefore, is to get good method of consumption, and great quantity of consumption: in other words, to use everything, and to use it nobly; whether it be substance, service, or service perfecting substance. The most curious error in Mr. Mill's entire work (provided for him originally by Ricardo) is his endeavour to distinguish between direct and indirect service, and consequent assertion that a demand for commodities is not demand for labour (I. v. 9, _et seq._). He distinguishes between labourers employed to lay out pleasure grounds, and to manufacture velvet; declaring that it makes material difference to the labouring classes in which of these two ways a capitalist spends his money; because the employment of the gardeners is a demand for labour, but the purchase of velvet is not.[59] Error colossal as well as strange. It will, indeed, make a difference to the labourer whether we bid him swing his scythe in the spring winds, or drive the loom in pestilential air; but, so far as his pocket is concerned, it makes to him absolutely no difference whether we order him to make green velvet, with seed and a scythe, or red velvet, with silk and scissors. Neither does it anywise concern him whether, when the velvet is made, we consume it by walking on it, or wearing it, so long as our consumption of it is wholly selfish. But if our consumption is to be in any wise unselfish, not only our mode of consuming the articles we require interests him, but also the _kind_ of article we require with a view to consumption. As thus (returning for a moment to Mr. Mill's great hardware theory[60]): it matters, so far as the labourer's immediate profit is concerned, not an iron filing whether I employ him in growing a peach, or forging a bombshell; but my probable mode of consumption of those articles matters seriously. Admit that it is to be in both cases "unselfish," and the difference, to him, is final, whether when his child is ill, I walk into his cottage and give it the peach, or drop the shell down his chimney, and blow his roof off.

[59] The value of raw material, which has, indeed, to be deducted
from the price of the labour, is not contemplated in the
passages referred to, Mr. Mill having fallen into the
mistake solely by pursuing the collateral results of the
payment of wages to middlemen. He says:--"The consumer does
not, with his own funds, pay the weaver for his day's work."
Pardon me; the consumer of the velvet pays the weaver with
his own funds as much as he pays the gardener. He pays,
probably, an intermediate ship-owner, velvet merchant, and
shopman; pays carriage money, shop rent, damage money, time
money, and care money; all these are above and beside the
velvet price (just as the wages of a head gardener would be
above the grass price); but the velvet is as much produced
by the consumer's capital, though he does not pay for it
till six months after production, as the grass is produced
by his capital, though he does not pay the man who mowed and
rolled it on Monday, till Saturday afternoon. I do not know
if Mr. Mill's conclusion--"the capital cannot be dispensed
with, the purchasers can"--has yet been reduced to practice
in the City on any large scale.

[60] Which, observe, is the precise opposite of the one
under examination. The hardware theory required us to
discharge our gardeners and engage manufacturers; the velvet
theory requires us to discharge our manufacturers and engage
gardeners.

The worst of it, for the peasant, is, that the capitalist's consumption of the peach is apt to be selfish, and of the shell, distributive;[61] but, in all cases, this is the broad and general fact, that on due catallactic commercial principles, _somebody's_ roof must go off in fulfilment of the bomb's destiny. You may grow for your neighbour, at your liking, grapes or grapeshot; he will also, catallactically, grow grapes or grapeshot for you, and you will each reap what you have sown.

[61] It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in
Europe that it is entirely capitalists' wealth which
supports unjust wars. Just wars do not need so much money to
support them; for most of the men who wage such, wage them
gratis; but for an unjust war, men's bodies and souls have
both to be bought; and the best tools of war for them
besides; which makes such war costly to the maximum; not to
speak of the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, between
nations which have not grace nor honesty enough in all their
multitudes to buy an hour's peace of mind with: as, at
present, France and England, purchasing of each other ten
millions sterling worth of consternation annually (a
remarkably light crop, half thorns and half aspen
leaves,--sown, reaped, and granaried by "the science" of the
modern political economist, teaching covetousness instead of
truth). And all unjust war being supportable, if not by
pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these
loans are repaid by subsequent taxation of the people, who
appear to have no will in the matter, the capitalists' will
being the primary root of the war; but its real root is the
covetousness of the whole nation, rendering it incapable of
faith, frankness, or justice, and bringing about, therefore,
in due time, his own separate loss and punishment to each
person.

It is, therefore, the manner and issue of consumption which are the real tests of production. Production does not consist in things laboriously made, but in things serviceably consumable; and the question for the nation is not how much labour it employs, but how much life it produces. For as consumption is the end and aim of production, so life is the end and aim of consumption.

I left this question to the reader's thought two months ago, choosing rather that he should work it out for himself than have it sharply stated to him. But now, the ground being sufficiently broken (and the details into which the several questions, here opened, must lead us, being too complex for discussion in the pages of a periodical, so that I must pursue them elsewhere), I desire, in closing the series of introductory papers, to leave this one great fact clearly stated. THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.

A strange political economy; the only one, nevertheless, that ever was or can be: all political economy founded on self-interest[62] being but the fulfilment of that which once brought schism into the Policy of angels, and ruin into the Economy of Heaven.

[62] "In all reasoning about prices, the proviso must be
understood, 'supposing all parties to take care of their
own interest.'"--Mill, III. i. 5.

"The greatest number of human beings noble and happy." But is the nobleness consistent with the number? Yes, not only consistent with it, but essential to it. The maximum of life can only be reached by the maximum of virtue. In this respect the law of human population differs wholly from that of animal life. The multiplication of animals is checked only by want of food, and by the hostility of races; the population of the gnat is restrained by the hunger of the swallow, and that of the swallow by the scarcity of gnats. Man, considered as an animal, is indeed limited by the same laws: hunger, or plague, or war, are the necessary and only restraints upon his increase,--effectual restraints hitherto,--his principal study having been how most swiftly to destroy himself, or ravage his dwelling-places, and his highest skill directed to give range to the famine, seed to the plague, and sway to the sword. But, considered as other than an animal, his increase is not limited by these laws. It is limited only by the limits of his courage and his love. Both of these _have_ their bounds; and ought to have: his race has its bounds also; but these have not yet been reached, nor will be reached for ages.

In all the ranges of human thought I know none so melancholy as the speculations of political economists on the population question. It is proposed to better the condition of the labourer by giving him higher wages. "Nay," says the economist, "if you raise his wages, he will either drag people down to the same point of misery at which you found him, or drink your wages away." He will. I know it. Who gave him this will? Suppose it were your own son of whom you spoke, declaring to me that you dared not take him into your firm, nor even give him his just labourer's wages, because if you did, he would die of drunkenness, and leave half a score of children to the parish. "Who gave your son these dispositions?"--I should inquire. Has he them by inheritance or by education? By one or other they _must_ come; and as in him, so also in the poor. Either these poor are of a race essentially different from ours, and unredeemable (which, however often implied, I have heard none yet openly say), or else by such care as we have ourselves received, we may make them continent and sober as ourselves--wise and dispassionate as we are--models arduous of imitation. "But," it is answered, "they cannot receive education." Why not? That is precisely the point at issue. Charitable persons suppose the worst fault of the rich is to refuse the people meat; and the people cry for their meat, kept back by fraud, to the Lord of Multitudes.[63] Alas! it is not meat of which the refusal is cruelest, or to which the claim is validest. The life is more than the meat. The rich not only refuse food to the poor; they refuse wisdom; they refuse virtue; they refuse salvation. Ye sheep without shepherd, it is not the pasture that has been shut from you, but the presence. Meat! perhaps your right to that may be pleadable; but other rights have to be pleaded first. Claim your crumbs from the table, if you will; but claim them as children, not as dogs; claim your right to be fed, but claim more loudly your right to be holy, perfect, and pure.

[63] James v. 4. Observe, in these statements I am not taking
up, nor countenancing one whit, the common socialist idea of
division of property; division of property is its
destruction; and with it the destruction of all hope, all
industry, and all justice: it is simply chaos--a chaos
towards which the believers in modern political economy are
fast tending, and from which I am striving to save them. The
rich man does not keep back meat from the poor by retaining
his riches; but by basely using them. Riches are a form of
strength; and a strong man does not injure others by keeping
his strength, but by using it injuriously. The socialist,
seeing a strong man oppress a weak one, cries out--"Break
the strong man's arms"; but I say, "Teach him to use them to
better purpose." The fortitude and intelligence which
acquire riches are intended, by the Giver of both, not to
scatter, nor to give away, but to employ those riches in the
service of mankind; in other words, in the redemption of the
erring and aid of the weak--that is to say, there is first
to be the work to gain money; then the Sabbath of use for
it--the Sabbath, whose law is, not to lose life, but to
save. It is continually the fault or the folly of the poor
that they are poor, as it is usually a child's fault if it
falls into a pond, and a cripple's weakness that slips at a
crossing; nevertheless, most passers-by would pull the child
out, or help up the cripple. Put it at the worst, that all
the poor of the world are but disobedient children, or
careless cripples, and that all rich people are wise and
strong, and you will see at once that neither is the
socialist right in desiring to make everybody poor,
powerless, and foolish as he is himself, nor the rich man
right in leaving the children in the mire.

Strange words to be used of working people: "What! holy; without any long robes nor anointing oils; these rough-jacketed, rough-worded persons set to nameless and dishonoured service? Perfect!--these, with dim eyes and cramped limbs, and slowly wakening minds? Pure!--these, with sensual desire and grovelling thought; foul of body, and coarse of soul?" It may be so; nevertheless, such as they are, they are the holiest, perfectest, purest persons the earth can at present show. They may be what you have said; but if so, they yet are holier than we, who have left them thus.

But what can be done for them? Who can clothe--who teach--who restrain their multitudes? What end can there be for them at last, but to consume one another?

I hope for another end, though not, indeed, from any of the three remedies for over-population commonly suggested by economists.

These three are, in brief--Colonization; Bringing in of waste lands; or Discouragement of Marriage.

The first and second of these expedients merely evade or delay the question. It will, indeed, be long before the world has been all colonized, and its deserts all brought under cultivation. But the radical question is not how much habitable land is in the world, but how many human beings ought to be maintained on a given space of habitable land.

Observe, I say, _ought_ to be, not how many _can_ be. Ricardo, with his usual inaccuracy, defines what he calls the "natural rate of wages" as "that which will maintain the labourer." Maintain him! yes; but how?--the question was instantly thus asked of me by a working girl, to whom I read the passage. I will amplify her question for her. "Maintain him, how?" As, first, to what length of life? Out of a given number of fed persons how many are to be old--how many young; that is to say, will you arrange their maintenance so as to kill them early--say at thirty or thirty-five on the average, including deaths of weakly or ill-fed children?--or so as to enable them to live out a natural life? You will feed a greater number, in the first case,[64] by rapidity of succession; probably a happier number in the second: which does Mr. Ricardo mean to be their natural state, and to which state belongs the natural rate of wages?

[64] The quantity of life is the same in both cases; but it
is differently allotted.

Again: A piece of land which will only support ten idle, ignorant, and improvident persons, will support thirty or forty intelligent and industrious ones. Which of these is their natural state, and to which of them belongs the natural rate of wages?

Again: If a piece of land support forty persons in industrious ignorance; and if, tired of this ignorance, they set apart ten of their number to study the properties of cones, and the sizes of stars; the labour of these ten, being withdrawn from the ground, must either tend to the increase of food in some transitional manner, or the persons set apart for sidereal and conic purposes must starve, or some one else starve instead of them. What is, therefore, the natural rate of wages of the scientific persons, and how does this rate relate to, or measure, their reverted or transitional productiveness?

Again: If the ground maintains, at first, forty labourers in a peaceable and pious state of mind, but they become in a few years so quarrelsome and impious that they have to set apart five, to meditate upon and settle their disputes; ten, armed to the teeth with costly instruments, to enforce the decisions; and five to remind everybody in an eloquent manner of the existence of a God;--what will be the result upon the general power of production, and what is the "natural rate of wages" of the meditative, muscular, and oracular labourers?

Leaving these questions to be discussed, or waived, at their pleasure, by Mr. Ricardo's followers, I proceed to state the main facts bearing on that probable future of the labouring classes which has been partially glanced at by Mr. Mill. That chapter and the preceding one differ from the common writing of political economists in admitting some value in the aspect of nature, and expressing regret at the probability of the destruction of natural scenery. But we may spare our anxieties, on this head. Men can neither drink steam, nor eat stone. The maximum of population on a given space of land implies also the relative maximum of edible vegetable, whether for men or cattle; it implies a maximum of pure air; and of pure water. Therefore: a maximum of wood, to transmute the air, and of sloping ground, protected by herbage from the extreme heat of the sun, to feed the streams. All England may, if it so chooses, become one manufacturing town; and Englishmen, sacrificing themselves to the good of general humanity, may live diminished lives in the midst of noise, of darkness, and of deadly exhalation. But the world cannot become a factory, nor a mine. No amount of ingenuity will ever make iron digestible by the million, nor substitute hydrogen for wine. Neither the avarice nor the rage of men will ever feed them, and however the apple of Sodom and the grape of Gomorrah may spread their table for a time with dainties of ashes, and nectar of asps,--so long as men live by bread, the far away valleys must laugh as they are covered with the gold of God, and the shouts of His happy multitudes ring round the winepress and the well.

Nor need our more sentimental economists fear the too wide spread of the formalities of a mechanical agriculture. The presence of a wise population implies the search for felicity as well as for food; nor can any population reach its maximum but through that wisdom which "rejoices" in the habitable parts of the earth. The desert has its appointed place and work; the eternal engine, whose beam is the earth's axle, whose beat is its year, and whose breath is its ocean, will still divide imperiously to their desert kingdoms, bound with unfurrowable rock, and swept by unarrested sand, their powers of frost and fire: but the zones and lands between, habitable, will be loveliest in habitation. The desire of the heart is also the light of the eyes. No scene is continually and untiringly loved, but one rich by joyful human labour; smooth in field; fair in garden; full in orchard; trim, sweet, and frequent in homestead; ringing with voices of vivid existence. No air is sweet that is silent; it is only sweet when full of low currents of under sound--triplets of birds, and murmur and chirp of insects, and deep-toned words of men, and wayward trebles of childhood. As the art of life is learned, it will be found at last that all lovely things are also necessary:--the wild flower by the wayside, as well as the tended corn; and the wild birds and creatures of the forest, as well as the tended cattle; because man doth not live by bread only, but also by the desert manna; by every wondrous word and unknowable work of God. Happy, in that he knew them not, nor did his fathers know; and that round about him reaches yet into the infinite, the amazement of his existence.

Note, finally, that all effectual advancement towards this true felicity of the human race must be by individual, not public effort. Certain general measures may aid, certain revised laws guide, such advancement; but the measure and law which have first to be determined are those of each man's home. We continually hear it recommended by sagacious people to complaining neighbours (usually less well placed in the world than themselves), that they should "remain content in the station in which Providence has placed them." There are perhaps some circumstances of life in which Providence has no intention that people _should_ be content. Nevertheless, the maxim is on the whole a good one; but it is peculiarly for home use. That your neighbour should, or should not, remain content with _his_ position, is not your business; but it is very much your business to remain content with your own. What is chiefly needed in England at the present day is to show the quantity of pleasure that may be obtained by a consistent, well-administered competence, modest, confessed, and laborious. We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek--not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession; and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace.

Of which lowly peace it is written that "justice and peace have kissed each other;" and that the fruit of justice is "sown in peace of them that make peace"; not "peace-makers" in the common understanding--reconcilers of quarrels; (though that function also follows on the greater one;) but peace-Creators; Givers of Calm. Which you cannot give, unless you first gain; nor is this gain one which will follow assuredly on any course of business, commonly so called. No form of gain is less probable, business being (as is shown in the language of all nations--[Greek: polein] from [Greek: pelo], [Greek: prasis] from [Greek: perao], venire, vendre, and venal, from venio, etc.) essentially restless--and probably contentious;--having a raven-like mind to the motion to and fro, as to the carrion food; whereas the olive-feeding and bearing birds look for rest for their feet: thus it is said of Wisdom that she "hath builded her house, and hewn out her seven pillars;" and even when, though apt to wait long at the doorposts, she has to leave her house and go abroad, her paths are peace also.

For us, at all events, her work must begin at the entry of the doors: all true economy is "Law of the house." Strive to make that law strict, simple, generous: waste nothing, and grudge nothing. Care in nowise to make more of money, but care to make much of it; remembering always the great, palpable, inevitable fact--the rule and root of all economy--that what one person has, another cannot have; and that every atom of substance, of whatever kind, used or consumed, is so much human life spent; which, if it issue in the saving present life, or gaining more, is well spent, but if not, is either so much life prevented, or so much slain. In all buying, consider, first, what condition of existence you cause in the producers of what you buy; secondly, whether the sum you have paid is just to the producer, and in due proportion lodged in his hands;[65] thirdly, to how much clear use, for food, knowledge, or joy, this that you have bought can be put; and fourthly, to whom and in what way it can be most speedily and serviceably distributed: in all dealings whatsoever insisting on entire openness and stern fulfilment; and in all doings, on perfection and loveliness of accomplishment; especially on fineness and purity of all marketable commodity: watching at the same time for all ways of gaining, or teaching, powers of simple pleasure; and of showing "hoson en asphodelph geg honeiar"--the sum of enjoyment depending not on the quantity of things tasted, but on the vivacity and patience of taste.

[65] The proper offices of middlemen, namely, overseers (or
authoritative workmen), conveyancers (merchants, sailors,
retail dealers, etc.), and order-takers (persons employed to
receive directions from the consumer), must, of course, be
examined before I can enter farther into the question of
just payment of the first producer. But I have not spoken
of them in these introductory papers, because the evils
attendant on the abuse of such intermediate functions result
not from any alleged principle of modern political economy,
but from private carelessness or iniquity.

And if, on due and honest thought over these things, it seems that the kind of existence to which men are now summoned by every plea of pity and claim of right, may, for some time at least, not be a luxurious one:--consider whether, even, supposing it guiltless, luxury would be desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at our sides the suffering which accompanies it in the world. Luxury is indeed possible in the future--innocent and exquisite: luxury for all, and by the help of all; but luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant; the cruelest man living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfold. Raise the veil boldly; face the light; and if, as yet, the light of the eye can only be through tears, and the light of the body through sackcloth, go thou forth weeping, bearing precious seed, until the time come, and the kingdom, when Christ's gift of bread, and bequest of peace shall be Unto this last as unto thee; and when, for earth's severed multitudes of the wicked and the weary, there shall be holier reconciliation than that of the narrow home, and calm economy, where the Wicked cease--not from trouble, but from troubling--and the Weary are at rest.

ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY:

CONTRIBUTED TO "FRASER'S MAGAZINE" IN 1862 AND 1863, BEING A SEQUEL TO PAPERS WHICH APPEARED IN THE "CORNHILL MAGAZINE," UNDER THE TITLE OF "UNTO THIS LAST."

I.

MAINTENANCE OF LIFE; WEALTH, MONEY, AND RICHES.

As domestic economy regulates the acts and habits of a household, political economy regulates those of a society or State, with reference to its maintenance.

Political economy is neither an art nor a science,[66] but a system of conduct and legislature, founded on the sciences, directing the arts, and impossible, except under certain conditions of moral culture.

By the "maintenance" of a State is to be understood the support of its population in healthy and happy life; and the increase of their numbers, so far as that increase is consistent with their happiness. It is not the object of political economy to increase the numbers of a nation at the cost of common health or comfort; nor to increase indefinitely the comfort of individuals, by sacrifice of surrounding lives, or possibilities of life.

[66] The science which in modern days had been called Political
Economy is in reality nothing more than the investigation of
the phenomena of commercial operations. It has no connexion
with political economy, as understood and treated of by the
great thinkers of past ages; and as long as it is allowed
to pass under the same name, every word written by those
thinkers--and chiefly the words of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero,
and Bacon--must be either misunderstood or misapplied. The
reader must not, therefore, be surprised at the care and
insistence with which I have retained the literal and earliest
sense of all important terms used in these papers; for a word
is usually well made at the time it is first wanted; its
youngest meaning has in it the full strength of its youth;
subsequent senses are commonly warped or weakened; and as a
misused word always is liable to involve an obscured thought,
and all careful thinkers, either on this or any other subject,
are sure to have used their words accurately, the first
condition, in order to be able to avail ourselves of their
sayings at all, is a firm definition of terms.

The assumption which lies at the root of nearly all erroneous reasoning on political economy--namely, that its object is to accumulate money or exchangeable property--may be shown in few words to be without foundation. For no economist would admit national economy to be legitimate which proposed to itself only the building of a pyramid of gold. He would declare the gold to be wasted, were it to remain in the monumental form, and would say it ought to be employed. But to what end? Either it must be used only to gain more gold, and build a larger pyramid, or to some purpose other than the gaining of gold. And this other purpose, however at first apprehended, will be found to resolve itself finally into the service of man--that is to say, the extension, defence, or comfort of his life. The golden pyramid may perhaps be providently built, perhaps improvidently; but, at all events, the wisdom or folly of the accumulation can only be determined by our having first clearly stated the aim of all economy, namely, the extension of life.

If the accumulation of money, or of exchangeable property, were a certain means of extending existence, it would be useless, in discussing economical questions, to fix our attention upon the more distant object--life--instead of the immediate one--money. But it is not so. Money may sometimes be accumulated at the cost of life, or by limitations of it; that is to say, either by hastening the deaths of men, or preventing their births. It is therefore necessary to keep clearly in view the ultimate object of economy, and to determine the expediency of minor operations with reference to that ulterior end. It has been just stated that the object of political economy is the continuance not only of life, but of healthy and happy life. But all true happiness is both a consequence and cause of life; it is a sign of its vigour, and means of its continuance. All true suffering is in like manner a consequence and cause of death. I shall therefore, in future, use the word "Life" singly: but let it be understood to include in its signification the happiness and power of the entire human nature, body and soul.

That human nature, as its Creator made it, and maintains it wherever His laws are observed, is entirely harmonious. No physical error can be more profound, no moral error more dangerous than that involved in the monkish doctrine of the opposition of body to soul. No soul can be perfect in an imperfect body; no body perfect without perfect soul. Every right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty on person and face; every wrong action and foul thought its seal of distortion; and the various aspects of humanity might be read as plainly as a printed history, were it not that the impressions are so complex that it must always in some cases--and, in the present state of our knowledge, in all cases--be impossible to decipher them completely. Nevertheless, the face of a consistently just, and of a consistently unjust person, may always be rightly discerned at a glance; and if the qualities are continued by descent through a generation or two, there arises a complete distinction of race. Both moral and physical qualities are communicated by descent, far more than they can be developed by education (though both may be destroyed for want of education), and there is as yet no ascertained limit to the nobleness of person and mind which the human creature may attain, by persevering observance of the laws of God respecting its birth and training. We must therefore yet farther define the aim of political economy to be "the multiplication of human life at the highest standard." It might at first seem questionable whether we should endeavour to maintain a small number of persons of the highest type of beauty and intelligence, or a larger number of an inferior class. But I shall be able to show in the sequel, that the way to maintain the largest number is first to aim at the highest standard. Determine the noblest type of man, and aim simply at maintaining the largest possible number of persons of that class, and it will be found that the largest possible number of every healthy subordinate class must necessarily be produced also.

The perfect type of manhood, as just stated, involves the perfections (whatever we may hereafter determine these to be) of his body, affections, and intelligence. The material things, therefore, which it is the object of political economy to produce and use (or accumulate for use), are things which serve either to sustain and comfort the body, or exercise rightly the affections and form the intelligence.[67] Whatever truly serves either of these purposes is "useful" to man, wholesome, healthful, helpful, or holy. By seeking such things, man prolongs and increases his life upon the earth.

[67] It may be observed, in anticipation of some of our future
results, that while some conditions of the affections are
aimed at by the economist as final, others are necessary to
him as his own instruments: as he obtains them in greater or
less degree his own farther work becomes more or less
possible. Such, for instance, are the fortifying virtues,
which the wisest men of all time have, with more or less
distinctness, arranged under the general heads of Prudence,
or Discretion (the spirit which discerns and adopts
rightly); Justice (the spirit which rules and divides
rightly); Fortitude (the spirit which persists and endures
rightly); and Temperance (the spirit which stops and refuses
rightly); or in shorter terms still, the virtues which teach
how to consist, assist, persist, and desist. These outermost
virtues are not only the means of protecting and prolonging
life itself, but they are the chief guards or sources of the
material means of life, and are the visible governing powers
and princes of economy. Thus (reserving detailed statements
for the sequel) precisely according to the number of just
men in a nation, is their power of avoiding either intestine
or foreign war. All disputes may be peaceably settled, if a
sufficient number of persons have been trained to submit to
the principles of justice. The necessity for war is in
direct ratio to the number of unjust persons who are
incapable of determining a quarrel but by violence. Whether
the injustice take the form of the desire of dominion, or of
refusal to submit to it, or of lust of territory, or lust of
money, or of mere irregular passion and wanton will, the
result is economically the same;--loss of the quantity of
power and life consumed in repressing the injustice, as well
as of that requiring to be repressed, added to the material
and moral destruction caused by the fact of war. The early
civil wars of England, and the existing war in America, are
curious examples--these under monarchical, this under
republican institutions--of the results of the want of
education of large masses of nations in principles of
justice. This latter war, especially, may perhaps at least
serve for some visible, or if that be impossible (for the
Greeks told us that Plutus was blind, as Dante that he was
speechless), some feelable proof that true political economy
is an ethical, and by no means a commercial business. The
Americans imagined themselves to know somewhat of
money-making; bowed low before their Dollar, expecting
Divine help from it; more than potent--even omnipotent. Yet
all the while this apparently tangible, was indeed an
imaginary Deity;--and had they shown the substance of him to
any true economist, or even true mineralogist, they would
have been told, long years ago,--"Alas, gentlemen, this that
you are gaining is not gold,--not a particle of it. It is
yellow, and glittering, and like enough to the real
metal,--but see--it is brittle, cat-gold, 'iron firestone.'
Out of this, heap it as high as you will, you will get so
much steel and brimstone--nothing else; and in a year or
two, when (had you known a little of right economy) you
might have had quiet roof-trees over your heads, and a fair
account at your banker's, you shall instead have to sleep
a-field, under red tapestries, costliest, yet comfortless;
and at your banker's find deficit at compound interest." But
the mere dread or distrust resulting from the want of inner
virtues of Faith and Charity among nations, is often no less
costly than war itself. The fear which France and England
have of each other costs each nation about fifteen millions
sterling annually, besides various paralyses of commerce;
that sum being spent in the manufacture of means of
destruction instead of means of production. There is no more
reason in the nature of things that France and England
should be hostile to each other than that England and
Scotland should be, or Lancashire and Yorkshire; and the
reciprocal terrors of the opposite sides of the English
Channel are neither more necessary, more economical, nor
more virtuous than the old riding and reiving on opposite
flanks of the Cheviots, or than England's own weaving for
herself of crowns of thorn from the stems of her Red and
White Roses.

On the other hand, whatever does not serve either of these purposes,--much more whatever counteracts them,--is in like manner useless to man, unwholesome, unhelpful, or unholy; and by seeking such things man shortens and diminishes his life upon the earth. And neither with respect to things useful or useless can man's estimate of them alter their nature. Certain substances being good for his food, and others noxious to him, what he thinks or wishes respecting them can neither change their nature, nor prevent their power. If he eats corn, he will live; if nightshade, he will die. If he produce or make good and beautiful things, they will "recreate" him (note the solemnity and weight of the word); if bad and ugly things, they will "corrupt" or break in pieces--that is, in the exact degree of their power, kill him. For every hour of labour, however enthusiastic or well intended, which he spends for that which is not bread, so much possibility of life is lost to him. His fancies, likings, beliefs, however brilliant, eager, or obstinate, are of no avail if they are set on a false object. Of all that he has laboured for, the eternal law of heaven and earth measures out to him for reward, to the utmost atom, that part which he ought to have laboured for, and withdraws from him (or enforces on him, it may be) inexorably that part which he ought not to have laboured for. The dust and chaff are all, to the last speck, winnowed away, and on his summer threshing-floor stands his heap of corn; little or much, not according to his labour, but to his discretion. No "commercial arrangements," no painting of surfaces nor alloying of substances, will avail him a pennyweight. Nature asks of him calmly and inevitably, What have you found, or formed--the right thing or the wrong? By the right thing you shall live; by the wrong you shall die.

To thoughtless persons it seems otherwise. The world looks to them as if they could cozen it out of some ways and means of life. But they cannot cozen IT; they can only cozen their neighbours. The world is not to be cheated of a grain; not so much as a breath of its air can be drawn surreptitiously. For every piece of wise work done, so much life is granted; for every piece of foolish work, nothing; for every piece of wicked work, so much death. This is as sure as the courses of day and night. But when the means of life are once produced, men, by their various struggles and industries of accumulation or exchange, may variously gather, waste, restrain, or distribute them; necessitating, in proportion to the waste or restraint, accurately so much more death. The rate and range of additional death is measured by the rate and range of waste, and is inevitable;--the only question (determined mostly by fraud in peace, and force in war) is, Who is to die, and how?

Such being the everlasting law of human existence, the essential work of the political economist is to determine what are in reality useful and life-giving things, and by what degrees and kinds of labour they are attainable and distributable. This investigation divides itself under three great heads--first, of Wealth; secondly, of Money; and thirdly, of Riches.

These terms are often used as synonymous, but they signify entirely different things. "Wealth," consists of things in themselves valuable; "Money," of documentary claims to the possession of such things; and "Riches" is a relative term, expressing the magnitude of the possessions of one person or society as compared with those of other persons or societies.

The study of Wealth is a province of natural science:--it deals with the essential properties of things.

The study of Money is a province of commercial science:--it deals with conditions of engagement and exchange.

The study of Riches is a province of moral science:--it deals with the due relations of men to each other in regard of material possessions; and with the just laws of their association for purposes of labour.

I shall in this paper shortly sketch out the range of subjects which will come before us as we follow these three branches of inquiry.