and equally indispensable, to the existence of rent: they are the premisses from which the theory is deduced. It is for the political economist to prove, first, that the premisses are true in fact; and, secondly, that they account for the phenomenon; but when this is done, his business is ended. He does not attempt to explain the physical laws on which the qualities of the soil depend ; and no more does he undertake to analyze the nature of those feelings of self-interest in the minds of the landlord and tenant which regulate the terms of the bargain. He regards them both as facts, not to be analyzed and explained, but to be ascertained and taken account of; not as the subject-matter, but as the basis of his reasonings. If further information be desired, recourse must be had to other sciences: the physical fact he hands over to the chemist or the physiologist; the mental to the psychological or the ethical scholar.

In the considerations just adduced, we may perceive what the proper limits are of economic inquiry -at what point the economist, in tracing the phenomena of wealth to their causes and laws, may properly stop and consider his task as completed, his problem as solved. It is precisely at that point at which in the course of his reasonings he finds himself in contact with some phenomenon not economic, with some physical or mental fact, some political or social institution. So soon as he has traced the phenomena of wealth to causes of this order, he has reached the proper goal of his researches ; and such causes, therefore, are properly regarded as 'ultimate' in relation

to economic science. Not that they may not deserve, and admit of, further analysis and explanation, but that this analysis and explanation is not the business of the economist, is not the specific problem which he undertakes to solve.1

The position of Political Economy, as just described, may be illustrated by that of Geology in relation to the sciences of Mechanics, Chemistry, and Physiology. The complex phenomena presented by the constitution of the earth's crust form the subject-matter of the science of the geologist; they are the complex result of mechanical, chemical, and physiological laws, and the business of the geologist is to trace them to these causes; but having done this, his labours as a geologist are at an end the further investigation of the problem belongs not to Geology, but to Mechanics, Chemistry, and Physiology.

§ 2. The premisses, or ultimate facts, of Political Economy being thus drawn alike from the world of matter and from that of mind, it remains that I should indicate the character of those facts, physical and mental, from which the conclusions of the science are derived; in other words, that I should show in what manner the facts which are pertinent to economic investigations are to be distinguished from those which are not. The answer to this question must in general be determined by considering what the science proposes to accomplish. This, as you are aware, is the discovery of the laws of the production and distribu

tion of wealth. The facts, therefore, which constitute the premisses of Political Economy are those which influence the production and distribution of wealth; and in order that the science be absolutely perfect, so that an economist might predict the course of economic phenomena with the same accuracy and certainty with which an astronomer predicts the course of celestial phenomena, it would be necessary that these premisses should include every fact, mental and physical, which influences the phenomena of wealth.

It does not, however, seem possible that this degree of perfection should ever be attained. In Political Economy, as in all those branches of inquiry which include amongst their premisses at once the moral and physical nature of man, the facts to be taken account of are so numerous, their character so various, and the laws of their sequence so obscure, that it would seem scarcely possible to ascertain them all, much less to assign to each its exact value. And even if this were possible, the task of tracing these principles to their consequences, allowing to each its due significance, and no more than its due significance, would present a problem so complex and difficult as to defy the powers of the most accomplished reasoners.

But although this is so, and although, therefore, neither Political Economy nor any of the class of inquiries to which it belongs may ever be expected to reach that perfection which has been attained in some of the more advanced physical sciences, yet this does not forbid us to hope that, by following in our economic investigations the same course which has

been pursued with such success in physical science, we may attain, if not to absolute scientific perfection, at least to the discovery of solid and valuable results.

The desires, passions, and propensities which influence mankind in the pursuit of wealth are, as I have intimated, almost infinite; yet amongst these there are some principles of so marked and paramount a character as both to admit of being ascertained, and when ascertained, to afford the data for determining the most important laws of the production and distribution of wealth, in so far as these laws are affected by mental causes. To possess himself of these is the first business of the political economist; he has then to take account of some leading physiological facts connected with human nature; and, lastly, to ascertain the principal physical characteristics of those natural agents of production on which human industry is exercised. Thus he will consider, as being included amongst the paramount mental principles to which I have alluded, the general desire for physical well-being, and for wealth as the means of obtaining it; the intellectual power of judging of the efficacy of means to an end, along with the inclination to reach our ends by the easiest and shortest means, mental facts from which results the desire to obtain wealth at the least possible sacrifice he will further duly weigh those propensities which, in conjunction with the physiological conditions of the human frame, determine the laws of population; and, lastly, he will take into account the physical qualities of the soil and of those other natural agents on which the labour and

:

ingenuity of man are employed. These facts, whether mental or physical, he will consider, as I have already stated, not with a view to explain them, but as the data of his reasoning, as leading causes affecting the production and distribution of wealth.

But it must not be thought that, when these cardinal facts have been ascertained and their consequences duly developed, the labours of the political economist are at an end, even supposing that his treatment of them has been exhaustive and his reasoning without a flaw. Though the conclusions thus arrived at will, in the main, correspond with the actual course of events, yet great and glaring discrepancies will frequently occur. The data on which his speculations have been based include indeed the grand and leading causes which regulate the production and distribution of wealth, but they do not include all the causes. Many subordinate influences (subordinate, I mean, in relation to the ends of Political Economy) will intervene to disturb, and occasionally to reverse, the operation of the more powerful principles, and thus to modify the resulting phenomena. The next step, therefore, in his investigations, will be to endeavour as far as possible to ascertain the character of those subordinate causes, whether physical or mental, political or social, which influence human conduct in the pursuit of wealth, and these, when he has found them and is enabled to appreciate them with sufficient accuracy, he will incorporate amongst the premisses of the science, as data to be taken account of in his future speculations.