AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY, DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, BY NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR, OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD, A.M., PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. LONDON:-1827. It is impossible to address such an assembly as I see before me without great diffidence and great anxiety; and I may, perhaps, plead more than the usual excuse for indulging in the egotism which is natural to an introductory lecture. If the science of Political Economy were in the situation in which, I trust, a very few years, and perhaps the exertions of some of those whom I am addressing, will place it; if its objects were clearly understood, its terms precisely defined, its general principles universally admitted; if it ranked in public estimation, as then it will rank, among the first of moral sciences in interest and in utility, I should feel, as I now feel, great diffidence in my own powers, and the necessity of relying very much on your candor and indulgence. But this is not the situation of the science. It is, at present, in that state of imperfect development, which, though most attractive to the student who has made some proficiency, throws the greatest difficulty in the way of a beginner, and, consequently, of a teacher, and offers the fairest scope to the objections of an idle or an interested adversary. When I consider how numerous those adversaries are, and how widely diffused are the prejudices which they excite and propagate, all apprehension for myself is lost in the fear that the failures of the professor may be imputed to his subject, and that the vague abstractions, the details, the truisms, the obscurities, and the inconsistencies which, with all my care, will, I have no doubt, be found in my lectures, may rather deter those among my hearers to whom the subject is new from proceeding in a study which, in my hands, may appear uninteresting, than lead them to prosecute it in the writings of the great masters of the science, and by patient meditation on the results of their own experience. To prevent, as far as I am able, such a result, I shall devote Pam. C this lecture to an attempt to explain the objects of Political Economy, and the inquiries through which they are to be effected; and it will, I think, appear that the human faculties cannot be engaged in a pursuit more useful in its result, or more interesting in its progress. If we compare the present situation of the people of England with that of their predecessors at the time of Cæsar's invasion; if we contrast the warm and dry cottage of the present laborer, its chimney and glass windows, (luxuries not enjoyed by Cæsar himself,) the linen and woollen clothing of himself and his family, the steel, and glass and earthenware with which his table is furnished, the Asiatic and American ingredients of his food, and above all, his safety from personal injury, and his calm security that to-morrow will bring with it the comforts that have been enjoyed to-day ; -if, I repeat, we contrast all these sources of enjoyment with the dark and smoky burrows of the Brigantes, or the Cantii, their clothing of skins, their food confined to milk and flesh, and their constant exposure to famine and to violence, we shall be inclined to think those who are lowest in modern society richer than the chiefs of their rude predecessors. And if we consider that the same space of ground which afforded an uncertain subsistence to a hundred, or probably fewer, savages, now supports with ease more than a thousand laborers, and, perhaps, a hundred individuals beside, each consuming more commodities than the labor of a whole tribe of Ancient Britons could have produced or purchased, we may at first be led to doubt whether our ancestors enjoyed the same natural advantages as ourselves; whether their sun was as warm, their soil as fertile, or their bodies as strong, as our own. But let us substitute distance of space for distance of time ; and, instead of comparing the situations of the same country at different periods, compare different countries at the same period, and we shall find a still more striking discrepancy. The inhabitant of South America enjoys a soil and a climate, not superior merely to our own, but combining all the advantages of every climate and soil possessed by the remainder of the world. His valleys have all the exuberance of the tropics, and his mountain-plains unite the temperature of Europe to a fertility of which Europe offers no example. Nature collects for him, within the space of a morning's walk, the fruits and vegetables which she has elsewhere separated by thousands of miles. She has given him inexhaustible forests, has covered his plains with wild cattle and horses, filled his mountains with mineral treasures, and intersected all the eastern face of his country with rivers, to which our Rhine and Danube are merely brooks. But the possessor of these riches is poor and miserable. With all the materials of clothing offered to him almost spontaneously, he is ill-clad; with the most productive of soils, he is ill-fed; though we are told that the labor of a week will there procure subsistence for a year, famines are of frequent occurrence; the hut of the Indian, and the residence of the landed proprietor are alike destitute of furniture and convenience; and South America, helpless and indigent with all her natural advantages, seems to rely for support and improvement on a very small portion of the surplus wealth of England. It is impossible to consider these phenomena without feeling anxious to account for them; to discover whether they are occasioned by circumstances unsusceptible of investigation, or regulation, or by causes which can be ascertained, and may be within human control. To us, as Englishmen, it is of still deeper interest to inquire whether the causes of our superiority are still in operation, and whether their force is capable of being increased or diminished; whether England has run her full career of wealth and improvement, but stands safe where she is; or, whether to remain stationary is impossible; and it depends on her institutions and her habits, on her government and on her people, whether she shall recede or continue to advance. The answer to all these questions must be sought in the science which teaches in what wealth consists,-by what agents it is produced, and according to what laws it is distributed, and what are the institutions and customs by which production may be facilitated and distribution regulated, so as to give the largest possible amount of wealth to each individual. And this science is Political Economy. If my definition be correct, the science of Political Economy may be divided into two great branches, the theoretic and the practical. The first, or theoretic branch, that which explains the nature, production, and distribution of wealth, will be found to rest on a very few general propositions, which are the result of observation, or consciousness; and which almost every man, as soon as he hears them, admits as familiar to his thoughts, or at least as included in his previous knowlege. Its conclusions are also nearly as general as its premises; those which relate to the nature and production of wealth are universally true: and, though those which relate to the distribution of wealth, are liable to be affected by peculiar institutions of particular countries,—in the cases, for instance, of slavery, corn-laws, or poor-laws, the natural state of things can be laid down as the general rule, and the anomalies produced by particular disturbing causes can be afterwards accounted for. -- The practical branch of the science, that of which the office is to ascertain what institutions are most favorable to wealth, is a far more arduous study. Many of its premises, indeed, rest on the same evidence as those of the first branch; for they are the conclusions of that branch :-but it has many which depend on induction from phenomena, numerous, difficult of enumeration, and of which the real sequence often differs widely from the apparent one. The machinery of civilised society is worked by so many antagonist springs: the dislike of labor, the desire for immediate enjoyment, and the love of accumulation are so perpetually counteracting one another; and they produce such opposite conduct, not only in different individuals, but in whole masses of people, that we are liable to the greatest mistakes when we endeavor to assign motives to past conduct, or to predict the conduct which a new motive will produce. For instance, the questions, Whether the poor-laws have had à tendency to diminish or increase the population of England? Whether the testamentary laws of France are favorable or unfavorable to the wealth of that country? Whether the wealth of England has been increased or diminished by her colonies? Whether tithes fall principally on the consumer or on the landlord? and many others, of which the facts seem to lie before our eyes, have been diligently and acutely investigated, and are still, perhaps, undecided. And, if we are often unable to trace all the consequences of institutions with which we have been long familiar, how much more difficult must it be to predict the effects of measures which are still untried! Inattention to the distinction between the practical and the theoretic branches of Political Economy, appears to me to have occasioned much of the difference of opinion which prevails as to the certainty of its conclusions. Those who assert that it approaches to the accuracy of logic or mechanics, must either have confined their attention to the theoretic branch, or have forgotten that the practical branch must sometimes draw its premises from particular facts, respecting particular climates, soils, and seasons; and must sometimes take into account the influence of every human passion and appetite, under every modification of government and knowlege. On the other hand, the uncertainty which affects many of the investigations of Political Economists, has been rashly attributed to them all. Because from probable premises they have deduced only probable conclusions, it has been sometimes supposed that probability, and that of a low degree, is all they can attain. I hope in the course of these lectures to prove the truth of my statement, that the theoretic branch of the science, that which treats of the nature, production and distribution of wealth,—is ca pable of all the certainty that can belong to any science, not founded exclusively on definitions; and I hope also to show that many conclusions, and those of the highest importance in the practical branch, rest so immediately on the conclusions of the theoretic branch, as to possess equal certainty and universality. The slight sketch which I have given of the objects of the science, affords me a better opportunity than perhaps I shall have hereafter, of considering some objections that may be made, if not to the study itself, at least to the rank in which I have placed it. The first is, that as the pursuit of wealth is one of the humblest of human occupations, far inferior to the pursuit of virtue, or of knowlege, or even of reputation; and as the possession of wealth is not necessarily joined-perhaps, it will be said, is not conducive to happiness, a science of which the only subject is wealth, cannot claim to rank as the first, or nearly the first, of the moral sciences. My answer is, first, that the pursuit of wealth, that is, the endeavor to accumulate the means of future subsistence and enjoyment, is, to the mass of mankind, the great source of moral improvement, When does a laborer become sober and industrious, attentive to his health and to his character ?-as soon as he begins to save. No institution could be more beneficial to the morals of the lower orders, that is, to at least nine-tenths of the whole body of any people, than one which should increase their power and their wish to accumulate: none more mischievous than one which should diminish the motives and the means to save. If we have institutions eminently calculated to produce both the benefit and the mischief, how valuable must the science be that teaches us to discriminate between them, to extend the one, and to remove or diminish, or, at least, not to extend, the other! I answer, in the second place, that it is perhaps true, that the wealth which enables one man to command the labor of hundreds or of thousands-such wealth as raised Chatsworth or Fonthill-may not be favorable to the happiness of its possessor; and, if this be so, Political Economy will best teach us to avoid creating or perpetuating institutions, which promote such inconvenient agglomerations. But that diffusion of wealth which alone entitles a people to be called rich; that state of society in which the productiveness of labor, and the mode in which it is applied, secure to the laboring-classes all the necessaries and some of the conveniences of life, seems to be not merely conducive, but essential both to their morals and their happiness. This appears to me so self-evident, that I am almost ashamed of taking up your time by proving it. But, if proof be wanted, we have only to consider what are the effects on the human character of the opposite state |