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Econ 423.12.32,5

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HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
MAR 27 1952

COPYRIGHT, 1900,

BY THE COLONIAL PRESS.

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

HERE are very few scientific books whose permanent place in literature seems so well established as that of John Stuart Mill's "Principles of Political Economy." Even though it be true that Adam Smith was a more suggestive writer, Malthus a more original one, Ricardo a more logical one-the fact yet remains that Mill knew how to sum up the discoveries of all three, and give them coherence in the popular mind. His greatness lay not in the discovery of new truths for future generations, but in the full expression of present truths on which the men of his own generation were relying. Whatever changes may be made in economic theory as a whole, Mill's book will always have monumental importance as a record of the particular economic theories which inspired the political development of the first half of the nineteenth century. Whatever we may think of its soundness as an analysis of human conduct, there can be no question of its surpassing value as a historic document. Perhaps it gives an imperfect or false picture of the way in which men act; but there is no doubt that it gives a wondrously perfect and true picture of the way in which intelligent men in the middle of the nineteenth century supposed themselves to act.

The best introduction to Mill's book is an account of the influences under which it was conceived. For, just as the Elizabethan drama depended on its audience for no small part of its inspiration, and reflected in its character the spirit of Drake and Raleigh, no less than that of Marlowe or Shakespeare, so the Victorian economics was inspired by the nineteenth-century English public and reflected the spirit of those statesmen, who in the first half of that century, had laid the foundation for English commercial empire.

Mill's "Political Economy" was issued in 1848. Not quite three-quarters of a century had elapsed since the appearance of the only other book on the same subject which has rivalled it

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in public influence-Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations." The contrast between the two books is instructive; all the more so because of a certain similarity of character between their authors. Both Mill and Smith combined the training of the philosopher with the taste for practical affairs. Each valued theory as a means of influencing political and commercial activity; each, in studying the motives for such activity, found that his theory gave him a wider vision than that of his fellowBut Smith's vision was that of the prophet; Mill's, that of the philosophic historian. Smith was forced to prepare a way for his theories; Mill spoke to an audience prepared to welcome such theories as the embodiment of human wisdom. Since Smith's day, his reasonings had been worked out in practice by two generations of English statesmen; they had formed the basis of the activity of men like Canning and Huskisson, Cobden and Peel; they had been verified by legislative successes of unexampled brilliancy. Among the champions of this progress Mill's whole life had been passed. His father had been a leader of the first generation; he himself had fought in all the battles of the second, and had been honorably associated with its political life. He had been a participant in that great struggle which resulted in the abolition of an erroneous system of public charity; in a reform which had placed the national currency on a sound basis; in the establishment of free trade as England's fundamental policy; and in the development of a system of colonial empire more enlightened in principle and more beneficent in its results than any which the world had ever seen. To an audience dazzled by these successes came John Stuart Mill, accredited by the share which he had already borne in producing them, and still more decisively accredited by his success in formulating the ideas which underlay these political movements as part of a comprehensive scheme of social philosophy.

It was a dangerous position for a mortal man to hold. Had Mill been less great, it would probably have destroyed his chances of permanent influence. The man who is the universally accredited master of one generation is apt to be correspondingly discredited in the next-perhaps even more so than he deserves. The same age and conditions which produced a Mill in political economy, produced a Mendelssohn in music and a Macaulay in belles-lettres; men who knew almost

everything which the past had to give, and suspected little or nothing of the future. "I only wish I were as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything,” sighed old Lord Melbourne, who had seen too many things to believe that all the wisdom of the world was culminating in a single generation. The future has wreaked its revenge on those who tried to ignore it. Mendelssohn is perhaps as much underestimated as he once was overestimated; Macaulay's cocksureness has led people to apply to his writings the well-known epigram, "Other things being equal, I always prefer a lively liar to a dull one."

Mill treated the future with more respect and has received correspondingly better treatment from it in return. There are few men, indeed, who have stood the test of popularity as well as he. He was preserved from its most insidious dangers by possessing in the very highest degree the two qualities of reverence and sympathy. A course of education such as is described in his "Autobiography," which with a lesser man might have stifled both these feelings, served, with him, only to make them more independent of external circumstances. His sympathy kept him from complacent optimism; his reverence prevented him from being puffed up by the flattery of any human audience or from accepting its judgments as final. And if, here and there, the book is marked by a somewhat magisterial tone-as in the celebrated passage where its author says that in the fundamental laws of value there is little or nothing left for subsequent writers to remodel-the wonder is, not that such assumptions of authority should occur, but that they should occur so rarely.

While thus avoiding many of the temptations incident to his position as a master, Mill was able to make good use of its advantages. He has the sureness of touch of a man who knows his audience. He does not have to begin, as did Adam Smith, with historical disquisitions which would prepare the minds of his readers for the strong meat of his system. He finds them at once prepared and hungry. The conception of public or national wealth, which Smith had to create, lies ready at Mill's hand for analysis. To Smith's readers, wealth naturally meant a sum of money values; and he has to take constant pains to disabuse them of this idea. To Mill's readers, it means something much more than this. Familiar as they

are with the masterly speeches of Peel and Cobden, they have been taught to distrust the purely mercantile theories of national policy, and to regard the nation's wealth as an aggregate of commodities available for human happiness. How these commodities are produced, how they are distributed, how they are exchanged-these are the topics which form the theme of Mill's investigation. He had but to analyze data which were given him by the dominant social philosophy of England in his day. He brought to this analysis not only a power of arrangement but also a breadth of view superior to that of any of his contemporaries; yet it was from those contemporaries that he took without question the conceptions with which he dealt. His predicates were his own; his subjects were, for the most part, taken from the current and almost commonplace thought of his day.

How strong and at the same time how subtle was the influence of those current conceptions can perhaps best be seen in the works of men who, like Carlyle or Kingsley, attempted to take a position hostile to Mill. Underlying the thought of these writers, there is the sound and healthful idea that material wealth ought not to be elevated to the position of an independent entity, dissevered from the happiness of those who are to enjoy it. But it would seem that neither of them really formulated this protest in valid shape. Instead of rejecting Mill's conceptions, they inveighed against his conclusions. Like him, they took their subjects ready made; like him they made their own predicates; but, being possessed of less than his power in logic and patience in study, their predicates were less correct than his. And what is seen in Kingsley or Carlyle is seen also in Lassalle and Marx.

Nearly a generation elapsed before any very vital criticism was directed against Mill's methods and assumptions. It is true that the writers of the "historical school," first in Germany and then in England and America, made great show of protest. But their divergence from Mill was far less than appeared on the surface. They complained that Mill had taken certain institutions and modes of action peculiar to his day, and treated them as though they existed for all time. A very able example of this sort of criticism is Bagehot's "Postulates of English Political Economy." But this does not go to the root of the matter. The weak point in the political economy

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