The Idealistic Method. (Continued.)
It is doubtless true that all economic laws, and all economic institutions are made for the people, not the people for such laws and institutions. Their mutability is, therefore, by no means such an evil as mankind should endeavor to remove, but is wholesome and laudable, so far as it runs parallel with the transformation of the people, and the changes which their wants have undergone.[173] Hence, there is no reason why the most various ideal systems should contradict one another. Any one of them may be right, but, of course, only for one people and one age. In this case, the only error would be, if they should claim to be universally applicable. There can no more be an economic ideal adapted to the various wants of every people, than a garment which should fit every individual. The leading-strings of children and the staff of age would be great annoyances to the man. “Reason becomes nonsense and beneficence a torment.” Hence, whoever would elaborate the ideal of the best public economy—and the greater number of political economists have really wished to do this—should, if he would be perfectly true, and at the same time practical, place in juxta position as many different ideals as there are different types of people.[174] He would, moreover, have to revise his work every few years; for, in proportion as a people change, and new wants originate, the economic ideal suitable to them must change also. But it is impossible to accomplish this on so large a scale. Besides, to appreciate the present thus instantaneously, and to perfectly feel the pulse [pg 111] of time thus uninterruptedly, requires a species of talent different from what even the most distinguished scientists are wont to possess; talents of an entirely practical nature, such as become a great minister of the interior or of finance. And it is an acknowledged fact, that even the cleverest of such practicioners, as the younger Pitt said of himself, generally feel their way instinctively, and do not see it with the clearness necessary to indicate it to others.
Section XXVI.
The Historical Method—The Anatomy And Physiology Of Public Economy.
We refuse entirely to lend ourselves in theory to the construction of such ideal systems. Our aim is simply to describe man's economic nature and economic wants, to investigate the laws and the character of the institutions which are adapted to the satisfaction of these wants, and the greater or less amount of success by which they have been attended.[175] Our task is, therefore, so to speak, the anatomy and physiology of social or national economy!
These are matters to be found within the domain of reality, susceptible of demonstration or refutation by the ordinary operations of science; entirely true or entirely false, and, therefore, in the former case, not liable to become obsolete. We proceed after the manner of the investigator of nature. We, too, have our dissecting knife and microscope, and we have an advantage over the student of nature in this, that the self-observation of the body is exceedingly limited, while that of mind is almost unlimited. There are other respects, however, in which he has the advantage over us. When he wishes to [pg 112] study a given species, he may make a hundred or a thousand experiments, and use a hundred or a thousand individuals for his purpose. Hence, he can easily control each separate observation, and distinguish the exception from the rule. But, how many nations are there which we can make use of for purposes of comparison? Their very fewness makes it all the more imperative to compare them all. Doubtless, comparison cannot supply the place of observation; but observation may be thus rendered more thorough, many-sided, and richer in the number of its points of view. Interested alike in the differences and resemblances, we must first form our rules from the latter, consider the former as the exceptions, and then endeavor to explain them. (Infra, § 266).