Rousseau has said, “If I were a prince or a legislator, I should not lose my time in pointing out what was necessary to be done—I should do it or hold my tongue.”
I am not a prince, but the confidence of my fellow-citizens has made me a legislator. Perhaps they will tell me that this is the time for me to act and not to write.
Let them pardon me. Whether it be truth itself which urges me on, or that I am the dupe of an illusion. I have never ceased to feel the want of concentrating those ideas which have hitherto failed to find acceptance when presented in detached portions. I think I discover in the play of the natural laws of society sublime and consoling harmonies. What I see, or think I see, ought I not to try to exhibit to others, in order to rally round a sentiment of concord and fraternity many unsettled minds, many imbittered hearts? If, when the much-loved vessel of the state is beat by the tempest, I sometimes appear to absent myself from my post, in order to collect my scattered thoughts, it is because I feel my feeble hands unfitted for the work. Is it, besides, to betray my mission, to reflect upon the causes of the tempest itself, and endeavour to act upon these causes? And then, what I find I cannot do to-day, who knows but it may be given me to accomplish to-morrow?
I shall begin by establishing some Economical ideas. Availing myself of the works of my predecessors, I shall endeavour to sum up the science in one principle—true, simple, and prolific—of which we have had a glimpse from the beginning, to which we are constantly drawing nearer and nearer, and of which, perhaps, the time is now come to fix the formula. By the light thus afforded, I shall afterwards essay the solution of some yet disputed problems—Competition, Machinery, Foreign trade, Luxury, Capital, Rent, etc. I shall note some of the relations, or, I should rather say, the harmonies of Political Economy, with the other moral and social sciences, glancing at the important subjects indicated by the terms—Personal Interest, Property, Community, Liberty, [p067] Equality, Responsibility, Solidarity, Fraternity, Unity. Last of all, I shall invite attention to the artificial obstacles which the pacific, regular, and progressive development of human society encounters. From these two ideas—Natural harmonic Laws—Artificial disturbing Causes—will be deduced the solution of the Social Problem.
It is easy to see that there are two rocks ahead upon which this undertaking may founder. In the middle of the vortex in which we are carried along, if this work is abstruse, it will not be read; if it obtains readers, the questions of which it treats will be but glanced at. How are we to reconcile the exactions of the reader with the requirements of science? To satisfy all conditions both in form and substance, each word would require to be weighed, and have its proper place assigned to it. It is thus that the crystal is formed drop by drop in silence and obscurity. Retirement, quiet, time, freedom from care—all are wanting to me—and I am forced to trust to the sagacity of the public, and throw myself on its indulgence.
The subject of Political Economy is Man.
But it does not embrace the whole range of human affairs. The science of morals has appropriated all that comes within the attractive regions of Sympathy—the religious sentiment, paternal and maternal tenderness, filial piety, love, friendship, patriotism, charity, politeness. To Political Economy is left only the cold domain of Personal interest. This is unjustly forgotten when Economical science is reproached with wanting the charm and unction of morals. How can it be otherwise? Dispute its right to existence as a science, but don’t force it to counterfeit what it is not, and cannot be. If human transactions which have wealth for their object are vast enough, complicated enough, to afford materials for a special science, leave to it its own attractions, such as they are, and don’t force it to speak of men’s Interests in the language of Sentiment. For my own part, I believe that little good has been effected of late in exacting from writers on Political Economy a tone of enthusiastic sentimentality which in their mouth can only be declamation. Of what do they treat? Of transactions which take place between people who know nothing of each other, who owe each other nothing but common Justice, who seek to defend or advance certain interests. It has to do with claims and pretensions which limit and restrain each other, and with which disinterestedness and devotion have nothing to do. Take a lyre, and chant such themes! As well might Lamartine sing his odes with the aid of the logarithm tables. [p068]
Not that Political Economy is without its poetry. There is poetry wherever order and harmony exist. But it is in the results, not in the demonstrations. It is brought out, not created. Kepler did not give himself out as a poet, and yet the laws which he discovered are the true poetry of mind.
Thus, Political Economy regards man only in one aspect, and our first care must be to study man in that point of view. This is the reason why we cannot avoid going back to the primary phenomena of human Sensibility and Activity. Start not, gentle reader! We shall not detain you long in those cloudy regions of metaphysics, and we shall borrow from that science only such notions as are clear, simple, and, if possible, incontestable.
The soul, or (to get rid of the spiritual question) man, is endued with Sensibility. Let this sensibility be either in the soul or in the body, man, as a passive being, always experiences sensations either painful or agreeable. As an active being, he makes an effort to drive away the one set of sensations and to multiply the other. The result, which affects him again as a passive being, may be called Satisfaction.