being his conception of an economic law, he naturally has recourse to history or statistical tables in order to establish it. The one is a statement respecting a tendency now existing, the ultimate proof of which is to be sought in the character of man, or in physical nature: the other is a statement respecting an historical fact, and, being such, of course must ultimately rest upon documentary evidence. However, therefore, either may be determined, it is plain that it cannot be taken as a refutation of the other, since it merely amounts to the assertion of a wholly different proposition. In deciding, therefore, between Mr. Rickards and Mr. Mill, we have to consider, not which proposition is true, for there is nothing incompatible in the two doctrines, but which, looking to the ends of Political Economy-the explanation of the phenomena of wealth--is the more important.

Now, touching the fact of agricultural progress, (which is what Mr. Rickards' doctrine of the increasing productiveness of agricultural industry amounts to) this, as I observed when replying to the same argument as urged against the doctrine of population, * affords no explanation of any phenomenon connected with the production and distribution of wealth, but is itself a complex and difficult phenomenon which it is the business of the political economist to explain. To bring forward this, as Mr. Rickards does, as an ultimate fact in Political Economy-to deprecate all further analysis of the causes on which it depends

See ante, p. 129.

-is simply to abandon all pretensions to solving the problems of wealth-is to give up at once the cause of Political Economy, as an inductive science.

On the other hand the influence of the physical qualities of the soil, as expressed by the law of its diminishing productiveness in Mr. Mill's sense, is a principle most important with reference to the objects of Political Economy, and quite essential in enabling us to understand the actual phenomena presented by agricultural industry-a principle which, taken in conjunction with the various agencies included under the expression "progress of civilization," explains, amongst other things, that general tendency to a fall of profits and rise of rent, which, though frequently and sometimes for long periods interrupted, is nevertheless one of the most striking circumstances connected with the material interests of advancing communities. It is to be observed that there is nothing in what I have quoted from Mr. Rickards, nor, I may add, in any part of his work, which can properly be said to impugn the correctness of this explanation. In terms, indeed, he denies some of the propositions on which it is founded, but it is in terms only; when we come to examine his meaning we find that it has reference to a wholly distinct question. His remarks, so far as they are pertinent, consist in an attempt to ridicule the idea of any explanation.

"Mr. Mill's law," he says, "has not yet come into operation."* And why? Because, forsooth, it has been * Page 141.

counteracted by a law of an opposite tendency.

It

has been postponed (to say the least) by the habitual
antagonism of various causes."
not to misrepresent Mr. Rickards, but it appears to me
that the only possible inference to be drawn from
this language is, that he refuses to admit the
existence of a law or tendency, unless the operation of
this law be perfectly free from all obstructing or
counteracting influences; in short, that he regards the
mutual counteraction of opposing forces as an amusing
but unsubstantial fiction of philosophers.

I am most anxious wachinery

It is scarcely necessary to say that such views go directly to impugn the whole received system of inductive philosophy. If, for example, such objections are to be listened to, how is the first law of motion to be established? The objector might say, "When and where has such a law been found in operation? certainly it does not hold good in England." So far from its being true that a projectile once set in motion will proceed for ever in the same direction with unimpaired velocity, we know that the best minié rifle will not send a ball more than a couple of miles, and that it is almost immediately bent out of its direct course into one nearly resembling a parabola. "Does this law of motion only operate in an abnormal state of human affairs?" If the physical philosopher were to explain that the natural tendency of the law was habitually counteracted" by the antagonizing force of gravity, he would be met by the retort, that "this mode of accounting for the admitted aberrations of

the supposed law presented to the mind still greater difficulties." The law of motion, according to the physical philosopher, is counteracted or suspended by an agency which is in habitual antagonism, and this agency is, in brief phrase, the law of gravitation. Are then the only exemplifications of this law to be found in countries in which the law of gravitation does not exist?

It is, I say, scarcely necessary to insist that such a line of reasoning is wholly inconsistent with the received logic of the inductive sciences; and, if admitted, the structure must fall. The diagonal of a parallelogram must no longer stand for the resultant of the forces represented by the sides. The facts of the ascent of a balloon through the air, of the rise of the mercury in the Torricellian tube, must be considered as a "refutation" of the law of gravity; the gyrations of a boomerang as a disproof of the first law of motion. The neutral salt, just because it is neutral, no longer contains the acid. Friction has no existence and no effect, because it does not bring the vehicle to a stop. The advance of a ship against wind and tide is a proof that there is no wind or tide. The progress of the world in civilization is a proof that there are no passions in human nature and no laws in the physical world which tend to impede it. In short, the notion of "habitual antagonisms" is to be at once exploded. The attempt to resolve complex uniformities into simple principles-that is to say, "the interpretation of nature"-is to be abandoned, and we are hence

forward to content ourselves with the rough statistical results.

According to the views here indicated of the character and method of the science, Political Economy is plainly identical with the statistics of wealth and population, and this probably is the idea which is popularly entertained with respect to it. If this view, however, is to be accepted, its pretensions as a science, as a means of analyzing and explaining the causes and laws of which the facts presented by statistical records are but the result, must be given up. We may indeed give to the empiric generalizations which are to be found at the bottom of our statistical tables, and which are "founded on a plurality of instances to the same effect," the sounding title of "laws of our social system"; but if such empiric generalizations are to be regarded as ultimate facts, if every attempt at further analysis is to be met by ridicule of the idea of causes being in "habitual antagonism," and by simple re-assertion of the complex fact to be explained, then, however we may persist in retaining the forms and phrases of science, the scientific character of the study is gone; and Political Economy has no longer any claim to be admitted amongst those departments of knowledge of which the business is, not only to observe, but to interpret nature.

It appears to me, however, that there is nothing in the phenomena of wealth which takes them out of the category of facts in explanation of which the method of analysis and deductive reasoning may be applied.