On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
be « t exhibit the connectedness of the whole , and the completeness with which it solves all the questions which a contemplation of the subject-matter suggests to the speculative inquirer . But this was not the task which Miss Martineau set before herself , nor
had it been left for her to perform . Her object was ., not to exhibit the science as a whole , but to illustrate such parts of it as lead directl y to important practical results . Having accomplished this , she has now brought together in one series , the principles which she had separately exemplified , and by hanging them each in its place , upon a logical framework originally constructed for
the entire science , has given to the * Moral * of her * many Fables / some semblance of an elementary treatise . It would be unjust to weigh this little work in a balance in which most of the elaborate treatises on the subject would be found wanting . < yo all of them , perhaps , it may be objected , that they attempt to construct a permanent fabric out of transitory materials ; that
they take for granted the immutability of arrangements of society , many of which are in their nature fluctuating or progressive ; and enunciate with as little qualification as if they were universal and absolute truths , propositions which are perhaps applicable to no state of society except the particular one in which the writer happened to live . Thus , for instance , English political economists
presuppose , in every one of their speculations , that the produce of industry is shared among three classes , altogether distinct from one another—namely , labourers , capitalists , and landlords ; and that all these are free agents , permitted in law and fact to set upon their labour , their capital , and their land , whatever price they are able to get for it . % The conclusions of the science being all adapted to a society thus constituted , require to be revised
whenever they are applied to any other . l | They are inapplicable where the only capitalists are the landlords , aud the labourers are their property ; as in the West Indies . They are inapplicable where the universal landlord is the State ; as in India . They are inapplicable where the agricultural labourer is generally the owner both of the land itself and of the capital ; as in France ; or of the capital only , as in Ireland . We might greatly prolong this enumeration . It must not , however , be supposed that the
science is so incomplete and unsatisfactory as this might seem to prove , ^ hough many of its conclusions are only locally true , its method of investigation is applicable universally ; and as he who has solved a certain number of algebraic equations , can without difficulty solve all others , so he who knows the political
economy of England , or even of Yorkshire , knows that of all nations actual or possible : provided he have sense enough not to expect the same conclusion to issue from varying premises . ) But it is , when not duly guarded against , an almost irresistible tendency of the human mind to become the slave of its own hypotheses : and when it has once habituated itself to reason , fadl ,
Untitled Article
Politieal Economy . 910
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 319, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/7/
-