west savage, as sometimes described, who is absolutely selfish, who
knocks his child on the head because it cries, and eats his aged parent
if he cannot find a supply of roots. But such a being could only form
herds, not societies. Political Economy only becomes conceivable when
we suppose certain institutions to have been developed. It assumes,
obviously, and in the first place, the institution of property; it
becomes applicable, with less qualification, in proportion to the
growth of the corresponding sentiments; it takes for granted all that
highly elaborate set of instincts which induce me, when I want
something, to produce an equivalent in exchange for it, instead of
going out to take it by force. The more thorough the respect for
property, the more applicable are rules of economics; and that respect
implies a long training in that sense of other people's rights, which,
unfortunately, is by no means so perfect as might be desired.

It follows, then, that the economist really assumes more--and rightly
assumes more--than he sometimes claims. He assumes what Adam Smith
assumed at the opening of his great treatise: that is, the division of
labour. But the division of labour implies the organisation of society.
It implies that one man is growing corn while another is digging gold,
because each is confident that he will be able to exchange the products
of his own labour for the products of the other man's labour. This, of
course, implies settled order, respect for contracts, the preservation
of peace, and the abolition of force throughout the area occupied by
the society. And this, again, is only possible in so far as certain
political and ecclesiastical and military institutions have been
definitely constructed. The economic assumption is really an
assumption--not of a certain psychological condition of the average
man, but--of the existence of a certain social mechanism. A complete
science would clear up fully a problem which must occur often to all of
us: How do you account for London? How is it that four or five millions
of people manage to subsist on an area of a few square miles, which
itself produces nothing? that other millions all over the world are
engaged in providing for their wants? that food and clothes and fuel,
in sufficient quantities to preserve life, are being distributed with
tolerable regularity to each unit in this vast and apparently chaotic
crowd? and that, somehow or other, we struggle on, well or