ART. II.-PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Principles of Political Economy, with some of their applications to Social Philosophy. By J. S. Mill. THE work on which we are about to comment, seems to us unavoidably to present great difficulties to a reviewer. The admirable qualities of mind displayed in it, and the extensive research out of which it has sprung, make it necessary for the critic to practise a humility, to which he is perchance but little accustomed. Moreover the great size of the work, the number of valuable discussions which it contains, and, more than all, the great importance of almost the whole of its subject-matter, exact from us a difficult selection of topics, in order that our article may not be unpleasing to our readers or altogether unworthy of the work under review. The course which we shall take will be first to mark Mr. Mill's position among economical and, so far as a few words will go, among general thinkers and after this introduction to select a single large class of considerations, viz., those bearing on the condition of the labouring classes: and to devote our attention to these exclusively. We choose this branch of the subject, not only because of its own intrinsic interest, but also because it contains a large proportion of Mr. Mill's peculiar and characteristic ideas. He is the first among great English Economists who has ventured to maintain, that the present division of the industrial community into labourers and capitalists is neither destined nor adapted for a long-continued existence: that a large production of wealth is much less important than a good distribution of it: that a state of industry in which both capital and population are stationary is as favourable to national well-being as one in which they are advancing that fixed customs are perpetually modifying the effects which unrestrained competition would of itself inevitably produce: that a large body of peasant proprietors is usually a source of great national advantage : and that a system of Emigration on a great scale would be productive of much benefit to the English peasantry by raising their habitual standard of comfort, and therefore putting a check on the reckless increase of a miserable population. These propositions (which are not all that might be set down) will be enough to prove that the subject we have selected for discussion with Mr. Mill contains a sufficient number of his peculiar opinions, and therefore asking our readers to acquiesce in our selection of a special topic, we shall pass on to the general and introductory portion of our article. In the preface to his work Mr. Mill states that he wishes his work to comprise both the theoretic exposition of purely economical doctrine, and also the extraneous considerations most necessary for its correct application to the real world in which we have to live and act. This he says, because he habitually bears in mind that Political Economy is founded on certain assumptions of which it is very convenient to trace out the consequences separately, but which being seldom accurately true, and being often very wide of the mark, will lead logically to consequences that it may be hazardous to apply without correction to the actual condition of mankind. Thus it is perpetually assumed that men will always buy what they want as cheaply as they can; whereas in matter of fact, vanity, liberality and indolence are perpetually preventing purchasers from beating down prices to the full extent of their ability. The existence of such exceptional considerations distributes economists into two classes. What we may call common-sense thinkers have always seen that these extraneous influences were very important matters for their attention wherever actual practice was at all concerned. Adam Smith for example is the most striking specimen of this class of thinkers. He is very eminent in making short inductions from admitted facts, and in applying them with consistency and skill. He is not eminent for precision of statement or for microscopic accuracy of thought: but he is in general very successful in rather vague descriptions of conspicuous phenomena, and in tracing them back to the most influential of their proximate causes. It is evident that a mind so habitually starting with observed fact would be unlikely to neglect important agencies or to bind itself by purely hypothetical assumptions. Ricardo on the other hand is the most important of what may be called the abstract thinkers on the philosophy of wealth. He sets out from certain primitive assumptions, and from these he proceeds to evolve all his results by mere deduction. He but rarely comes into contact with the actual world at all: but frames a hypothetical one which exists nowhere out of his own imagination. Accordingly his views of his subject must be called deep rather than wide: explaining a little very well, but leaving much without remark: giving a little truth which it was difficult to arrive at, rather than a comprehensive summary of all the principles that modify the phenomena which he is considering. In reference to these peculiarities of their minds, it is certainly very remarkable that Adam Smith should have been a recluse student, during his whole life almost exclusively with abstractions, and that Ricardo, who is so eminently an abstract thinker, should have been bred up in actual business, and should have attained his powers of deductive reasoning without any early philosophical discipline. It would certainly have been expected, if we had not known how little outward circumstances avail against the intrinsic aptitudes of a strong mind, that Adam Smith would have looked on nature principally "through the spectacles of books," and that Ricardo would have taken that general, vague, but in the main sufficient, judgment upon matters of fact which is generally called " common sense," and which alone among the higher intellectual gifts is habitually exercised in every-day practical life. In that part of his preface to which we just now alluded, Mr. Mill has substantially expressed his intention of conciliating the two modes of dealing with his subject; that is, of combining the abstract deduction and logical accuracy which are exemplified in Ricardo with that largeness of view and thorough acquaintance with diversified matters of fact for which the "Wealth of Nations" is so eminently remarkable. And this great undertaking he has, so far as we can judge, admirably accomplished. The principal applications of abstract science are here treated of with a fulness of information, an impartiality of judgment, and a command over general principles, any one of which would have by itself been enough to make the work take rank as one of eminent merit, and to the union of which we have never seen anything in an economical writer, even approximating equal. No great subject within the range of Political Economy appears to us to have been wholly omitted, and if we acknowledge that all the larger considerations which we could wish for, are not on all occasions introduced, we also admit that minds trained in different schools of thought, and seeing life generally under a somewhat different aspect, must inevitably form conflicting judgments as to what was, and what was not, relevant to particular social problems. We are bound to add, that in almost all cases there is evidence that Mr. Mill has given much and earnest attention to all the kinds of argument which seemed to him capable of being opposed to his opinions. Nor with the exception of the 'System of Logic' have we read any contemporary publication in which the desire for the mere discovery of truth was either so strong in itself or so immensely preponderant over every other consideration. The false colours of prejudice and passion have no place in an intellect so thoroughly achromatic. We feel it, therefore, to be almost presumption in us to attempt, as we promised, a description, even in the most general way, of Mr. Mill's position in the list of general thinkers. Yet it seems to us incumbent on the critic of such a man to try his hand at some such task. Mr. Mill has treated with first-rate ability of subjects which involve a discussion of many problems which concern most intimately the highest interests of man; and if we give a notion of the place he appears to us to occupy among important thinkers, it will be seen why, in some instances, we differ from him, and agree with those whom we should place higher on the scale of worth. Mr. Mill then belongs we think to the Aristotelic or unspiritual order of great thinkers. A Philosopher of this sort starts always from considerations of pure intellect. He never assumes the teachings of conscience: he never, that is, treats as primordial facts, either the existence of a law of duty independent of consequences, nor a moral government of the world, nor a connection either between virtue and a reward, or between sin and retribution. He may have a great mastery over trains of reasoning, a great skill in applying comprehensive principles to complicated phe nomena; he may have robust sense like Locke or Adam Smith, a power of exhausting a subject like Aristotle or Bentham, or subtlety like the former, or definiteness in scheming like the latter: but whatever be his merits or deficiencies, this remains as his great characteristic, that the light of his intellect is exactly what Bacon calls "dry light;" it is "unsteeped in the humours of the affections:" it rests on what is observed to be: it never grounds itself on any inward assurance of what ought to be: it disregards what Butler calls the "presages of conscience," and attends only to the senses and the inductive intellect. In Physical Science and even in Metaphysics, the views of such men may be extensive, subtle or profound: in Politics also they may and often will excel, in tracing the different kinds of administrative machinery: they will in general be excellent judges of means, though not well fitted to appreciate what a thinker of a different order would be apt to consider, the highest ends of Government: in morals their views will in general be vague and not seldom erroneous, for their conscience is not luminous enough to give them vivid or well-defined convictions on the subject of duty and on religion it is well if their tone be not that of Protagoras : Ὦ γενναῖοι παῖδές τε καὶ γέροντες, δημη γορεῖτε συγκαθεζόμενοι, Θέους τε εἰς τὸ μέσον ἄγοντες οὓς ἐγὼ ἔκ τε τοῦ λέγειν καὶ τοῦ γράφειν περὶ αὐτῶν ὡς εἰσὶν ἢ ὡς οὐκ εἰσὶν ἐξαίρω. : Such are the leading characteristics attaching to the school of thinkers, of whom Locke and Aristotle are perhaps the most attractive representatives, and among whom Auguste Comte is assuredly the least valuable specimen compatible with any remarkable ability. It would lead us too far from our subject to explain at length, that the extreme opposite of that School of thinkers is to be found in the School of Plato, and Butler, and Kant, who practically make the conscience the ultimate basis of all certainty who infer from its inward suggestion the moral government of the world; the connection between shame and fear, and between sin and retribution: from whose principles it may perhaps be deduced, that the ground for trusting our other faculties is the duty revealed by conscience, of trusting those of them essential to the performance of the task assigned by God to |