Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/392

Rh 376 POLITICAL ECONOMY place ourselves ; but the other forms of expression employed by his predecessors are sometimes useful as representing real considerations affecting national production, and need not be absolutely disused. Ricardo proceeds to show that what determines the purchase of any commodity from a foreign country is not the circumstance that it can be produced there with less labour and capital than at home. If we have a greater positive advantage iu the production of some other article than in that of the commodity in question, even though we have an advantage in producing the latter, it may be our interest to devote ourselves to the production of that in which we have the greatest advantage, and to import that in producing which we should have a less, though a real, advantage. It is, in short, not absolute cost of production, but comparative cost, which determines the interchange. This remark is just and interesting, though an undue importance seems to be attributed to it by J. S. Mill and Cairnes, the latter of whom magniloquently describes it as &quot;sounding the depths &quot; of the problem of international dealings, though, as we shall see hereafter, he modifies it by the introduction of certain considerations respecting the conditions of domestic pro duction. For the nation as a whole, according to Ricardo, it is not the gross produce of the land and labour, as Smith seems to assert, that is of importance, but the net income the excess, that is, of this produce over the cost of production, or, in other words, the amount of its rent and its profits ; for the wages of labour, not essen tially exceeding the maintenance of the labourers, are by him con sidered only as a part of the &quot;necessary expenses of production.&quot; Hence it follows, as he himself in a characteristic and often quoted passage says, that, &quot;provided the net real income of the nation be the same, it is of no importance whether it consists of ten or twelve millions of inhabitants. If live millions of men could produce as much food and clothing as was necessary for ten millions, food and clothing for five millions would be the net revenue. Would it be of any advantage to the country that to produce this same net revenue seven millions of men should be required, that is to say, that seven millions should be employed to produce food and clothing sufficient for twelve millions? The food and clothing of five millions would be still the net revenue. The employing a greater number of men would enable us neither to add a man to our army and navy nor to contribute one guinea more in taxes.&quot; Industry is here viewed, just as by the mercantilists, in relation to the military and political power of the state, not to the maintenance and improvement of human beings, as its end and aim. The labourer, as Held has remarked, is regarded not as a member of society, but as a means to the ends of society, on whose sustenance a part of the gross income must be expended, as another part must be spent on the sustenance of horses. We may well ask, as Sismondi did in a personal interview with Ricardo, &quot; What ! is wealth then everything ? are men absolutely nothing ? &quot; On the whole what seems to us true of Ricardo is this, that, whilst he had remarkable powers, they were not the powers best fatted for sociological research. Nature intended him rather for a mathematician of the second order than for a social philosopher. Nor had he the due previous preparation for social studies ; for we must decline to accept Bagehot s idea that, though &quot; in no high sense an educated man,&quot; he had a specially apt training for such studies in his practice as an eminently successful stockjobber. The same writer justly notices the &quot; anxious penetration with which he follows out rarefied minutiae.&quot; But he wanted breadth of survey, a comprehensive view of human nature and human life, and the strong social sympathies which, as the greatest minds have recognized, are a most valuable aid in this department of study. On a subject like that of money, where a few elementary pro positions into which no moral ingredient enters have alone to be kept in view, he was well adapted to succeed ; but in the larger social field he is at fault. He had great deductive readiness and skill (though his logical accuracy, as Mr Sidgwick remarks, has been greatly exaggerated). But in human affairs phenomena are so complex, and prin ciples so constantly limit or even compensate one another, that rapidity and daring in deduction may be the greatest of dangers, if they are divorced from a wide and balanced appreciation of facts. Dialectic ability is, no doubt, a valuable gift, but the first condition for success in social investigation is to see things as they are. A sort of Ricardo-mythus for sometime existed in econo mic circles. It cannot be doubted that the exaggerated estimate of his merits arose in part from a sense of the support his system gave to the manufacturers and other capitalists in their growing antagonism to the old aristo cracy of landowners. The same tendency, as well as his affinity to their too abstract and unhistorieal modes of thought, and their eudsemonistic doctrines, recommended him to the Benthamite group, and to the so-called Philo sophical Radicals generally. Brougham said he seemed to have dropped from heaven a singular avatar, it must be owned. His real services in connexion with questions of currency and banking naturally created a [(repossession in favour of his more general views. But, apart from those special subjects, it does not appeal- that, either in the form of solid theoretic teaching or of valuable practical guidance, he has really done much for the world, whilst he admittedly misled opinion on several important questions. De Quincey s presentation of him as a great revealer of truth is now seen to be an ex travagance. J. S. Mill and others speak of his &quot; superior lights &quot; as compared with those of Adam Smith ; but his work, as a contribution to our knowledge of human society, will not bear a moment s comparison with the Wealth of Nations. It is interesting to observe that Malthus, though the combination of his doctrine of population with the prin ciples of Ricardo composed the creed for some time pro fessed by all the &quot; orthodox &quot; economists, did not himself accept the Ricardian scheme. He prophesied that &quot; the main part of the structure would not stand.&quot; &quot;The theory,&quot; he says, &quot; takes a partial view of the subject, like the system of the French economists ; and, like that system, after having drawn into its vortex a great number of very clever men, it will ba unable to support itsell against the testimony of obvious facts, and the weight of those theories which, though less simple and captivating, are more just, on account of their embracing more of the causes which are in actual operation in all economical results.&quot; We saw that the foundations of Smith s doctrine in general philosophy were unsound, and the ethical character of his scheme in consequence injuriously affected; but his method, consisting in a judicious combination of induction and deduction, we found (so far as the statical study of eco nomic laws is concerned) little open to objection. Mainly through the influence of Ricardo, economic method was perverted. The science was led into the mistaken course of turning its back on observation, and seeking to evolve the laws of phenomena out of a few hasty generalizations by a play of logic. The principal vices which have been in recent times not unjustly attributed to the members of the &quot; orthodox &quot; school were all encouraged by his example, namely, (1) the viciously abstract character of the conceptions with which they deal, (2) the abusive preponderance of deduction in their processes of research, and (3) the too absolute way in which their conclusions are conceived and enunciated. The two works of Malthus already named are by far the most important in the history of the science. He was also author of Principles of Political Economy (1820), Definitions in Political Economy, and some minor pieces. The works of Ricardo have been collected in one volume, with a biographical notice, by J. 11. M Culloch (1846). After Malthus and Ricardo, the first of whom had fixed The public attention irresistibly on certain aspects of society, EII S and the second had led economic research into new, if questionable, paths, came a number of minor writers who were mainly their expositors and commentators, and whom, accordingly, the Germans, with allusion to Greek mythical history, designate as the Epigoni. By them the doctrines of Smith and his earliest successors were thrown into more systematic shaps, limited and guarded so as to