My second definition, that which defines Political Economy as the art which teaches what are the institutions and habits most favourable to the production and accumulation of wealth, is not liable to similar objections. It opens a field of inquiry, positively indeed wide, but comparatively narrow. The object proposed by the political economist is no longer human happiness, but the attainment of one of the means of human happiness, wealth.
To recur to my former illustrations, he must, as in the former case, inquire whether, according to the principles of Political Economy, individuals ought to be enabled to direct how the property which they have acquired in life shall be employed after their deaths, in providing religious teaching, and to what extent, and for what periods, their posthumous legislation ought to be enforced; but he must stop far short of the point to which his inquiries, if he had adopted the former definition, would have extended. He must confine himself to the effect of such institutions on the production and accumulation of wealth. He has now no business to inquire whether endowments imply articles of faith, and articles of faith produce indifference or hypocrisy; whether the servility of a hierarchy be compensated by its loyalty, or the turbulence of sectarianism by its independence of thought. He has no longer to compare the moral and religious influence of an endowed, with that of an unendowed clergy. He does not inquire whether the morality of the one is likely to be ascetic, and that of the other latitudinarian; whether the one will have more influence over the bulk of the people, and the other over the educated classes; whether the one is likely to produce numerous contending sects, animated by zeal, but inflamed by intolerance, and the other an unreflecting apathetic conformity. These are matters beyond his jurisdiction. But he assumes, on the general principles of human nature, that every civilised society requires teachers of religion, and that these teachers must be paid for their services. He shows, on the principles of Political Economy, that in every such society there are revenues derived from land or from capital, which are consumed by a class not forced to take an active part in producing them, and enjoying, therefore, a leisure which they are tempted to waste in indolence or in frivolous occupation. He shows that to dedicate a portion of these revenues to the payment of the teachers of religion, is merely to substitute for a certain number of lay landlords, or lay fundholders, bound to the performance of no public duty, ecclesiastical fundholders, or ecclesiastical landlords, rendering, in return for their incomes, services which, under what is called the voluntary system, must be purchased by those who require them. He shows that such a dedication must diminish the number of idle persons, and therefore increase the productive activity of the community and diminish the subjects of necessary expenditure, and therefore increase its disposable income; and he infers that the wealth of a society may be augmented by allowing such endowments to be created. He may go on to show that such endowments may cease to be favourable to wealth, if the founder’s legislative power be unlimited, since the doctrines of which he has ordered the dissemination may have been originally unpopular, or may become so as knowledge advances. The political economist, therefore, may recommend that all such institutions be subjected to the control of the legislature, in order to prevent endowments from being wasted by providing teachers for whom there are no congregations, and that they be also subjected to periodical revision, in order to accommodate the supply of instruction to the demand.
He may proceed to consider the different forms of endowments, by tithes, by land, by rent-charges, and by the investment of money. He may show how the first is an obstacle to all improvement, and the second to improvement by the landlord; how the third diminishes with the progress of wealth, and the fourth may perish with the fund on which it is secured. And he may propose remedies for these different inconveniences. If he go further than this, he wanders from the art of wealth into the art of government.
I have introduced this rather long illustration, not only as an example of the different modes in which the art of Political Economy must be treated, according to the definition with which the teacher sets out, but also as a specimen of the extent and variety of the details into which he must enter, even if he adopt the less extensive definition.
But this is not all. I have already remarked that all the practical arts draw their principles from sciences. If, however, the teacher of an art were to attempt to teach also the different sciences on which it is founded, his treatise would want unity of subject, and be inconveniently long. He generally, therefore, assumes his scientific principles as established, and refers to them as well known. The teacher of the art of medicine merely alludes to the facts which form the sciences of anatomy and chemistry; the teacher of rhetoric assumes that his pupil is acquainted with the science of logic and with that of grammar. Many of the sciences and of the arts which are subservient to the art of Political Economy, may be thus treated. The political economist, for instance, assumes that protection from domestic or foreign violence or fraud, is essential to any considerable production or accumulation of wealth, and he considers the means by which the expense of providing this protection may be best supported; but he does not inquire what are the necessary legal and military institutions. He leaves these to be pointed out by the arts of war and of penal and civil jurisprudence, and by the sciences on which those arts depend.
There is one science, however, to which this treatment cannot as yet be applied, and it is the science most intimately connected with the art of Political Economy, that is to say, the science which states the laws regulating the production, accumulation, and distribution of wealth, or, in other words, the science (as distinguished from the art) of Political Economy itself. The time I trust will come, perhaps within the lives of some of us, when the outline of this science will be clearly made out and generally recognised, when its nomenclature will be fixed, and its principles form a part of elementary instruction. A teacher of the art of Political Economy will then be able to refer to the principles of the science as familiar and admitted truths. I scarcely need repeat how far this is from being the case at present. Without doubt, many of the laws of the science have been discovered, and a few of them are generally acknowledged; and some of its terms have been defined, and the definitions accepted. Still, however, there remains, as I remarked in the first Lecture, much to explore and much to explain. We are still far from the bounds of what is to be known, and further still from any general agreement as to what is known. Every writer, therefore, on the art of Political Economy, is forced to prefix, or to interweave among his precepts, his own views of the science, and thus to add to the practical portion of his work a scientific portion of perhaps equal length. It appears to me, that the five years during which this professorship is tenable, is too short a period for so vast an undertaking. I propose, therefore, to take as my subject, not the art, but the much narrower province, the science; and to explain, in the following Lectures, the general laws which regulate the production, accumulation, and distribution of wealth, leaving it to writers with more leisure to point out what are the institutions most favourable to its production and accumulation, and to speculators of still wider views to say what production, accumulation, distribution, and consumption are most favourable to human happiness.
But though I follow substantially the example of Turgot and Ricardo, I do not propose to follow it implicitly. Though I profess to teach only the theory of wealth, I do not refuse the right to consider its practical application. There is, indeed, something imposing and almost seductive in a work of pure science, especially if it be a science connected with human affairs. We admire the impartiality of the philosopher who discusses matters that agitate nations without mixing in the strife, or noticing the use that may be made of the truths which he scatters. And we admit, with comparative readiness, conclusions which do not appear to have been influenced by passion, the great disturber of observation and of reasoning. This was one of the great causes of the popularity of Ricardo. He was the first English writer who produced Political Economy in a purely scientific form. He is usually a logical reasoner, so that his conclusions can seldom be denied if his premises are conceded, and his premises must usually be conceded, for they are usually hypothetical. Men were delighted to find what appeared to be firm footing, in a new and apparently unstable science, and readily gave their assent to theories which did not obviously lead to practice. But though it be desirable that from time to time a writer should arise able and willing to treat the science in this severe and abstract manner, his treatise will be more serviceable to masters than to students. To those who are already familiar with the subject, to those who have already perceived how deeply mankind are interested in obtaining correct views as to the laws which regulate the production and distribution of wealth, a naked statement of those laws, though it should not possess the elegance of Turgot, or the originality of Ricardo, must still be useful, and even agreeable. A mere student would find it repulsive. He ought to be attracted to Political Economy by seeing from time to time its practical application. He should be taught that he is studying a science composed of principles which no statesman, no legislator, no magistrate, no member even of a board of guardians can safely disregard. And this will be best effected by putting before him examples of the good which has been done by adhering to those principles, and of the evil which has punished their neglect. These examples, therefore, I shall think myself at liberty to give. I shall think myself justified, for instance, in showing how the natural distribution of wealth may be affected by the institution of poor-laws. And I shall not confine myself to their effects upon wealth. I shall consider how far a well-framed poor-law may promote the moral as well as the material welfare of the labouring classes, and an ill-administered poor-law may produce moral, intellectual, and physical degradation. But these discussions must be considered as episodes. They form no part of the science which I profess. I shall enter into them, not as a political economist, but as a statesman or a moralist; and I shall expect from those who do me the honour of listening to them, not the full conviction which follows scientific reasoning, but the qualified assent which is given to the precepts of an art.
In the next Lecture I shall consider whether the science of Political Economy may be more conveniently based on positive or on hypothetical principles.