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6 enable us to ascertain in what manner the wages of labourers and the production of wealth are affected by a compulsory system of national education. Hence the department of this question which belongs to political economy is, as it were, separated from those other departments of the question which investigate whether or not the morality and the social happiness of the people are increased by a system of national education. It is therefore a fundamental error to suppose that political economy ever asserts that the higher motives which actuate human beings ought to be discarded in favour of wealth. Some writers on this science when discussing social questions may consider only that part of a subject with which political economy is concerned, and thus the error may be committed of drawing general conclusions from an incomplete investigation. Hence political economists have sometimes appeared to be harsh and narrow-minded, but it is as idle upon these grounds to accuse political economy of being selfish and hardhearted, as it would be to blame geology because an injudicious and enthusiastic geologist ignored and despised other branches of physical science.

It must moreover be borne in mind that although sentimental people may profess to sneer at wealth as one of the idle vanities of this world, yet there can be no doubt that, even in England, the great besetting evil of the nation is the poverty of the humbler classes, and that these people cannot make any great social advance until a decided improvement has taken place in their material condition.

We have described political economy as a science which is concerned with the production, the distribution, and the exchange of wealth. But the meaning of wealth, though a word of every-day use, will not probably be adequately understood without some elucidation. Wealth may be defined to consist of every commodity which has an exchange value.

The necessity of the limitations introduced into this definition may be readily shown. The air we breathe is of course not only a want, but a necessity of life; yet it cannot be regarded as wealth, because it can be obtained without labour and its supply is unlimited,