ults which are to
be attributed to the negative condition of the absence of protection.
Briefly, the result is that the phenomena with which we have to deal
are so complex, and our power of arranging them so as to unravel the
complexity is so limited, that the direct method of observation breaks
down altogether. Mill confessed the necessity of applying a different
method, which he described with great ability, and which substantially
amounts to the method of the older Economists. If, with some writers of
the historical school, we admit the objections which apply to this
method, we seem to be reduced to a hopeless state of uncertainty. A
treatise on Political Economy becomes nothing but a miscellaneous
collection of facts, with no definite clue or uniform method of
reasoning. I must beg, in conclusion, to indicate what, so far as I can
guess, seems to be the view suggested in presence of this difficulty.

If I am asked whether Political Economy, understood, for example, as
Mill understood it, is to be regarded as a science, I should have to
admit that I could not simply reply, Yes. To say nothing of any errors
in his logic, I should say that I do not believe that it gives us
sufficient guidance even in regard to economic phenomena. We could not,
that is, deduce from the laws accepted by Economists the necessary
working of any given measure--say, the effect of protection or free
trade, or, still more, the making of a poor-law system. Such problems
involve elements of which the Economist, purely as an Economist, is an
incompetent judge; and the further we get from those questions in which
purely economical considerations are dominant, towards those in which
other factors become relevant,--from questions as to currency, for
example, to questions as to the relations of capitalists and
labourers,--the greater the inadequacy of our methods. But I also hold
that Political Economists may rightly claim a certain scientific
character for their speculations. If their ultimate aim is to frame a
science of economics which shall be part of the science--not yet
constituted--of sociology, then I should say that what they have really
done--so far as they have reasoned accurately--has been to frame an
essential part of the prolegomena to such a science. The "laws" which
they have tried to formulate are not laws which, even if established,
would enable us to predict the results of any given action; but they
are laws which would have to be