Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/182

 Political Economy was not James Mill's strong point, and if clearness of style was not Malthus's strong point, James Mill made no discovery in Political Economy to be compared to Malthus's discovery of the principle of population. Moreover, as John Mill has shown, many of the conclusions of Ricardo and James Mill can only be admitted if their premisses [sic] are admitted—which is impossible.

Johnson defines Club (in his definition (4) of that word)—"An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions." Now, there are two Clubs which demand our attention here—the Political Economy Club and the Cobden Club. Whether or not the Political Economy Club could be termed "an assembly of good fellows," it had claims to be termed an assembly of sages, for it contained among its members Ricardo and Malthus, of whom the latter had discovered a law as important to the human race as the law, the discovery of which had made the name of Isaac Newton immortal.

But if the Political Economy Club may be called an assembly of sages, the Cobden Club can hardly lay claim to such a designation. The Cobden Club, indeed, at the time of the year when