about the meaning of words which are found in the best books
on political economy, as if such discussions were not an indispensable
accompaniment of the progress of thought, and abundant in the history of
every physical science. On the whole question he has but one remark of
any value, and that he misapplies; namely, that the study of the
conditions of national wealth as a detached subject is unphilosophical,
because, all the different aspects of social phaenomena acting and
reacting on one another, they cannot be rightly understood apart: which
by no means proves that the material and industrial phaenomena of
society are not, even by themselves, susceptible of useful
generalizations, but only that these generalizations must necessarily be
relative to a given form of civilization and a given stage of social
advancement. This, we apprehend, is what no political economist would
deny. None of them pretend that the laws of wages, profits, values,
prices, and the like, set down in their treatises, would be strictly
true, or many of them true at all, in the savage state (for example), or
in a community composed of masters and slaves. But they do think, with
good reason, that whoever understands the political economy of a country
with the complicated and manifold civilization of the nations of Europe,
can deduce without difficulty the political economy of any other state
of society, with the particular circumstances of which he is equally
well acquainted.[14] We do not pretend that political economy has never
been prosecuted or taught in a contracted spirit. As often as a study is
cultivated by narrow minds, they will draw from it narrow conclusions.
If a political economist is deficient in general knowledge, he will
exaggerate the importance and universality of the limited class of
truths which he knows. All kinds of scientific men are liable to this
imputation, and M. Comte is never weary of urging it against them;
reproaching them with their narrowness of mind, the petty scale of their
thoughts, their incapacity for large views, and the stupidity of those
they occasionally attempt beyond the bounds of their own subjects.
Political economists do not deserve these reproaches more than other
classes of positive inquirers, but less than most. The principal error
of narrowness with which they are frequently chargeable, is that of
regarding, not any economical doctrine, but their present experience of
mankind, as of universal vali