"UNTO THIS LAST."

ESSAY I.

THE ROOTS OF HONOUR.

AMONG the delusions which at different periods have pos sessed themselves of the minds of large masses of the human race, perhaps the most curious-certainly the least creditable -is the modern soi-disant science of political economy, based on the idea that an advantageous code of social action may be determined irrespectively of the influence of social affection.

Of course, as in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy has a plausible idea at the root of it. "The social affections," says the economist," are accidental and disturbing elements in human nature; but avarice and the desire of progress are constant elements.. Let us eliminate the inconstants, and, considering the human being merely as a covetous machine, examine by what laws of labour, purchase, and sale, the greatest accumulative result in wealth is attainable. Those

so à vill be for each individual after

of the disturbing affectionate

nd to determine for himself the tons supposed."

rectly logical and successful method

entals afterwards to be introduced ature as the powers first examined. a motion to be influenced by constant is usually the simplest way of te it first under the persistent is introduce the causes of variation. gents in the social problem are not ress the constant ones; they alter the

a under examination the moment ddy operate, not mathematically, but g conditions which render all our pa se vår mavailable. We made learned experi singen, and have convinced ourselves

■y manageable gas: but behold! the thing ...e pully to deal with is its chloride; and scary, we touch it on our established principles, aratus through the ceiling.

der impaga nor doubt the conclusions of

ad's terms are accepted. I am simply unin

e as I should be in those of a science of

gymnastics which assumed that men had no skeletons. It might be shown, on that supposition, that it would be advantageous to roll the students up into pellets, flatten them into cakes, or stretch them into cables; and that when these results were effected, the re-insertion of the skeleton would be attended with various inconveniences to their constitution. The reasoning might be admirable, the conclusions true, and the science deficient only in applica bility. Modern political economy stands on a precisely similar basis. Assuming, not that the human being has no skeleton, but that it is all skeleton, it founds an ossifiant theory of progress on this negation of a soul; and having shown the utmost that may be made of bones, and constructed a number of interesting geometrical figures with death's-heads and humeri, successfully proves the inconvenience of the reappearance of a soul among these corpuscular structures. I do not deny the truth of this theory: I simply deny its applicability to the present phase of the world.

This inapplicability has been curiously manifested during the embarrassment caused by the late strikes of our workmen. Here occurs one of the simplest cases, in a pertinent and positive form, of the first vital problem which political economy has to deal with (the relation between employer and employed); and at a severe crisis, when

lives in multitudes, and wealth in masses, are at stake, the political economists are helpless—practically mute; no demon. strable solution of the difficulty can be given by them, such as may convince or calm the opposing parties. Obsti nately the masters take one view of the matter; obstinately the operatives another; and no political science can set them at one.

It would be strange if it could, it being not by "science" of any kind that men were ever intended to be set at one. Disputant after disputant vainly strives to show that the interests of the masters are, or are not, antagonistic to those of the men: none of the pleaders ever seeming to remember that it does not absolutely or always follow that the persons must be antagonistic because their interests are. If there is only a crust of bread in the house, and mother and chidren are starving, their interests are not the same. If the mother eats it, the children want it; if the children eat it, the mother must go hungry to her work. Yet it does not necessarily follow that there will be "antagonism" between them, that they will fight for the crust, and that the mother, being strongest, will get it, and eat it. Neither, in any other oase, whatever the relations of the persons may be, can it be assumed for certain that, because their interests are diverse, they must necessarily regard each other with hos tility, and use violence or cunning to obtain the advantage.