a solid and adequate footing upon the expedient and the useful. As a science, it does and must discuss and decide all questions upon economical grounds alone. As a science, it has no concern with questions of moral right. If it favors morality, it does so because morality favors production. It favors honesty because honesty favors exchange. It puts the seal of the market upon all the virtues. It condemns slavery, not because slavery is morally wrong, but because it is economically ruinous. Moral science appeals only to an enlightened conscience, and certain conduct is approved because it is right, and for no other reason. Political Economy appeals only to an enlightened selfishness, and exchanges are made because they are mutually advantageous, and for no other reason. Each of the two sciences, therefore, has a distinct basis and sphere of its own. The grounds of Economy and morals are independent and incommensurable.

Every science, however, has its points of contact with other sciences; and this is particularly the case with Political Economy in relation to moral science, and is the reason why the two have sometimes been confounded. The sound conclusions of the one are harmonious with the sound conclusions of the other. Both work together for the good of men, for the amelioration of their condition. Their spheres, though distinct, nevertheless touch each other. Duty and interest lie alongside. The ultimate analysis of property, for example, will, as we shall see, lead the inquirer into the higher region of moral science. In legislation also, the question is frequently at the same time an economical and a moral question. Dr.

Wayland has observed that "almost every question of the one science may be argued on grounds belonging to the other." But the grounds themselves, it is important to remark, must be seen to be, and must be kept, distinct.

In the next place, the very name of the science indicates that it is a political, that is, a social science. It relates to men in a state of society, and not to men in a state of isolation. The hermit, who neither buys nor sells, who neither gives nor receives anything in exchange, is not amenable to the laws of Political Economy. So far as men satisfy their own wants by their own efforts without exchange, they stand outside the pale of this science. Under those circumstances the idea of value could neither have birth nor being, and of course there would be no such thing as a science of value. Robinson Crusoe, came to lead a very tolerable life upon his desolate island by means of his own industry. He worked, but then he worked to satisfy his own wants directly. He did everything for himself. He had no opportunity to buy anything, sell anything, exchange anything. The whole course of such a life could never have developed the idea of value, and the record of the whole experience of such a solitary individual would require no such word as value. If God had made men so that their varied wants would best be met by applying their own efforts to satisfy these wants directly, without the intervention of exchange, there would have been, there could have been, no such science as the one to which attention is now directed. In that case, men would live, if they lived at all, in perfect isolation. Every man would satisfy

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his own desires by his own efforts. There would be no society, and no exchange.

ers.

But it is evident at the very first glance, that the Creator has not made men thus. Society is God's handiwork. It is the most complicated and the most wonderful, as it was the final, work of his hands. The first man, as he stood alone in Paradise, was indeed a wonderful structure, wonderful in his body, and in all his mental and spiritual powBut it was not good that the man should be alone. Society must be provided for; and in providing for a society of human beings, God impressed upon that organization, as upon all others, its own proper and peculiar laws. These laws embrace its entire organization, in its lower, as well as in its higher, parts. They cover the phenomena of exchange, just as they cover the phenomena of morals; and no intelligent observer can watch their working, when left intact and free, without being stimulated and gladdened by the beneficent results to which they lead. If the footsteps of providential intelligence be found anywhere upon this earth, if proofs of God's goodness be anywhere discernible, they are discernible, and are found in the fundamental laws of society. Certainly, if every man could satisfy all his desires as well, by putting forth his efforts to that end directly, he would do it. He would grow his own food, make his own clothes, write and publish his own newspaper, be his own doctor, in one word, perform all needed services for himself. But God has so ordered it that he cannot do this. He cannot, in a state of isolation, with all his efforts, procure for himself one thousandth part of the comforts which

he easily procures for himself by less efforts, through exchange. Society and exchange are, under God's ordination, matters of necessity, if men are to rise in a scale of comforts perceptibly above the brutes. And the reason is this. There are obstacles, in all directions, to the satisfaction of men's desires. If the desires are to be met, these obstacles are to be surmounted. But if one man undertakes to surmount any considerable number of these obstacles, he miserably fails. His powers are not adequate to the task; and hence we say, that in a state of isolation, men's wants exceed their powers. But, if he devote himself to surmounting one class of obstacles, as, for instance, those in the way of procuring suitable clothing, his powers are adequate to this, he soon acquires skill in it, he learns to avail himself of the gratuitous help of Nature, and the facilitating processes of art, he is able to realize, large products along his line, and is now in position to offer valuable services to society. Meanwhile other men have been devoting themselves each to another class of obstacles, have concentrated effort and skill upon them, have succeeded by the help of Nature and art in surmounting them, and now offer their valuable services to society.

Now, then, these services are mutually exchanged in all directions, and men find, as it is God's clear design that they should find, that, by making given efforts along one line, and exchanging them for corresponding efforts along other lines, they obtain vastly greater satisfactions for their various desires than they could obtain by direct effort. Why? Because there is now a vast increase of useful products in

existence. Here we have reached, provisionally, the true explanation of the gains of exchange. It is not so much that by exchange men get better and cheaper articles, as it is that they get more of them. By the division of employments, which is only possible under a system of exchange; by the fact that, under free exchange, men avail themselves of all the varied advantages of Nature and position; the number and variety of useful products created, the number and variety of the services which men are able to render to each other, are immeasurably augmented. More is produced, more is to be exchanged, and therefore there are more satisfactions of all men's desires. Political Economy, therefore, which unfolds the reasons and the laws of exchange, finds its only field in a state of society. It is truly a political, that is, a social science.

In determining now more definitely still the field of our science, we will look at some of the leading definitions of it which have been given by different writers. Mr. Senior defines it "the science which treats of the nature, the production, and the distribution of wealth." Mr. McCulloch regards it "the science of the laws which regulate the production of those material products which have exchangeable value, and which are either necessary, useful, or agreeable to man." Archbishop Whately gives it the name of "catalactics, or the science of exchanges." Among several equivalent definitions which he is at pains to give, Mr. Mill places first,— "the science which treats of the production and distribution of wealth, so far as they depend upon the laws of human nature." The French writers