The Crown of Wild Olive
that time, from farther disturbance on my part. Subsequently, loss of
health, family distress, and various untoward chances, prevented my
proceeding with the body of the book;--seven years have passed
ineffectually; and I am now fain to reprint the Preface by itself, under
the title which I intended for the whole.
Not discontentedly; being, at this time of life, resigned to the sense
of failure; and also, because the preface is complete in itself as a
body of definitions, which I now require for reference in the course of
my _Letters to Workmen_; by which also, in time, I trust less formally
to accomplish the chief purpose of _Munera Pulveris_, practically summed
in the two paragraphs 27 and 28: namely, to examine the moral results
and possible rectifications of the laws of distribution of wealth, which
have prevailed hitherto without debate among men. Laws which ordinary
economists assume to be inviolable, and which ordinary socialists
imagine to be on the eve of total abrogation. But they are both alike
deceived. The laws which at present regulate the possession of wealth
are unjust, because the motives which provoke to its attainment are
impure; but no socialism can effect their abrogation, unless it can
abrogate also covetousness and pride, which it is by no means yet in the
way of doing. Nor can the change be, in any case, to the extent that has
been imagined. Extremes of luxury may be forbidden, and agony of penury
relieved; but nature intends, and the utmost efforts of socialism will
not hinder the fulfilment of her intention, that a provident person
shall always be richer than a spendthrift; and an ingenious one more
comfortable than a fool. But, indeed, the adjustment of the possession
of the products of industry depends more on their nature than their
quantity, and on wise determination therefore of the aims of industry.
A nation which desires true wealth, desires it moderately, and can
therefore distribute it with kindness, and possess it with pleasure; but
one which desires false wealth, desires it immoderately, and can neither
dispense it with justice, nor enjoy it in peace.
Therefore, needing, constantly in my present work, to refer to the
definitions of true and false wealth given in the following Essays, I
republish them with careful revisal. They were written abroad; partly at
Milan, partly during a winter residence on the south-eastern slope of
the Mont Saleve, near Geneva; and sent to London in as legible MS. as I
could write; but I never revised the press sheets, and have been
obliged, accordingly, now to amend the text here and there, or correct
it in unimportant particulars. Wherever any modification has involved
change in the sense, it is enclosed in square brackets; and what few
explanatory comments I have felt it necessary to add, have been
indicated in the same manner. No explanatory comments, I regret to
perceive, will suffice to remedy the mischief of my affected
concentration of language, into the habit of which I fell by thinking
too long over particular passages, in many and many a solitary walk
towards the mountains of Bonneville or Annecy. But I never intended the
book for anything else than a dictionary of reference, and that for
earnest readers; who will, I have good hope, if they find what they
want in it, forgive the affectedly curt expressions.
The Essays, as originally published, were, as I have just stated, four
in number. I have now, more conveniently, divided the whole into six
chapters; and (as I purpose throughout this edition of my works)
numbered the paragraphs.
I inscribed the first volume of this series to the friend who aided me
in chief sorrow. Let me inscribe the second to the friend and guide who
has urged me to all chief labour, THOMAS CARLYLE.
* * * * *
I would that some better means were in my power of showing reverence to
the man who alone, of all our masters of literature, has written,
without thought of himself, what he knew it to be needful for the people
of his time to hear, if the will to hear were in them: whom, therefore,
as the time draws near when his task must be ended, Republican and
Free-thoughted England assaults with impatient reproach; and out of the
abyss of her cowardice in policy and dishonour in trade, sets the hacks
of her literature to speak evil, grateful to her ears, of the Solitary
Teacher who has asked her to be brave for the help of Man, and just, for
the love of God.
_Denmark Hill,_
_25th November, 1871._
FOOTNOTES:
[7] _Political Economy of Art._ (Smith and Elder, 1857, pp. 65-76.)
[8] See report of speech of M. Jules Simon, in _Pall Mall Gazette_ of
October 27, 1871.
[9] The omitted sentences merely amplify the statement; they in no wise
modify it.
MUNERA PULVERIS.
"Te maris et terrae numeroque carentis arenae
Mensorem cohibent, Archyta,
Pulveris exigui prope litus parva Matinum
Munera."
CHAPTER I.
DEFINITIONS.
1. As domestic economy regulates the acts and habits of a household,
Political economy regulates those of a society or State, with reference
to the means of its maintenance.
Political economy is neither an art nor a science; but a system of
conduct and legislature, founded on the sciences, directing the arts,
and impossible, except under certain conditions of moral culture.
2. The study which lately in England has been called Political Economy
is in reality nothing more than the investigation of some accidental
phenomena of modern commercial operations, nor has it been true in its
investigation even of these. It has no connection whatever with
political economy, as understood and treated of by the great thinkers of
past ages; and as long as its unscholarly and undefined statements are
allowed to pass under the same name, every word written on the subject
by those thinkers--and chiefly the words of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero and
Bacon--must be nearly useless to mankind. The reader must not,
therefore, be surprised at the care and insistance with which I have
retained the literal and earliest sense of all important terms used in
these papers; for a word is usually well made at the time it is first
wanted; its youngest meaning has in it the full strength of its youth:
subsequent senses are commonly warped or weakened; and as all careful
thinkers are sure to have used their words accurately, the first
condition, in order to be able to avail our selves of their sayings at
all, is firm definition of terms.
3. By the "maintenance" of a State is to be understood the support of
its population in healthy and happy life; and the increase of their
numbers, so far as that increase is consistent with their happiness. It
is not the object of political economy to increase the numbers of a
nation at the cost of common health or comfort; nor to increase
indefinitely the comfort of individuals, by sacrifice of surrounding
lives, or possibilities of life.
4. The assumption which lies at the root of nearly all erroneous
reasoning on political economy,--namely, that its object is to
accumulate money or exchangeable property,--may be shown in a few words
to be without foundation. For no economist would admit national economy
to be legitimate which proposed to itself only the building of a pyramid
of gold. He would declare the gold to be wasted, were it to remain in
the monumental form, and would say it ought to be employed. But to what
end? Either it must be used only to gain more gold, and build a larger
pyramid, or for some purpose other than the gaining of gold. And this
other purpose, however at first apprehended, will be found to resolve
itself finally into the service of man;--that is to say, the extension,
defence, or comfort of his life. The golden pyramid may perhaps be
providently built, perhaps improvidently; but the wisdom or folly of the
accumulation can only be determined by our having first clearly stated
the aim of all economy, namely, the extension of life.
If the accumulation of money, or of exchangeable property, were a
certain means of extending existence, it would be useless, in discussing
economical questions, to fix our attention upon the more distant
object--life--instead of the immediate one--money. But it is not so.
Money may sometimes be accumulated at the cost of life, or by
limitations of it; that is to say, either by hastening the deaths of
men, or preventing their births. It is therefore necessary to keep
clearly in view the ultimate object of economy; and to determine the
expediency of minor operations with reference to that ulterior end.
5. It has been just stated that the object of political economy is the
continuance not only of life, but of healthy and happy life. But all
true happiness is both a consequence and cause of life: it is a sign of
its vigor, and source of its continuance. All true suffering is in like
manner a consequence and cause of death. I shall therefore, in future,
use the word "Life" singly: but let it be understood to include in its
signification the happiness and power of the entire human nature, body
and soul.
6. That human nature, as its Creator made it, and maintains it wherever
His laws are observed, is entirely harmonious. No physical error can be
more profound, no moral error more dangerous, than that involved in the
monkish doctrine of the opposition of body to soul. No soul can be
perfect in an imperfect body: no body perfect without perfect soul.
Every right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty on
person and face; every wrong action and foul thought its seal of
distortion; and the various aspects of humanity might be read as plainly
as a printed history, were it not that the impressions are so complex
that it must always in some cases (and, in the present state of our
knowledge, in all cases) be impossible to decipher them completely.
Nevertheless, the face of a consistently just, and of a consistently
unjust person, may always be rightly distinguished at a glance; and if
the qualities are continued by descent through a generation or two,
there arises a complete distinction of race. Both moral and physical
qualities are communicated by descent, far more than they can be
developed by education; (though both may be destroyed by want of
education), and there is as yet no ascertained limit to the nobleness of
person and mind which the human creature may attain, by persevering
observance of the laws of God respecting its birth and training.
7. We must therefore yet farther define the aim of political economy to
be "The multiplication of human life at the highest standard." It might
at first seem questionable whether we should endeavour to maintain a
small number of persons of the highest type of beauty and intelligence,
or a larger number of an inferior class. But I shall be able to show in
the sequel, that the way to maintain the largest number is first to aim
at the highest standard. Determine the noblest type of man, and aim
simply at maintaining the largest possible number of persons of that
class, and it will be found that the largest possible number of every
healthy subordinate class must necessarily be produced also.
8. The perfect type of manhood, as just stated, involves the perfections
(whatever we may hereafter determine these to be) of his body,
affections, and intelligence. The material things, therefore, which it
is the object of political economy to produce and use, (or accumulate
for use,) are things which serve either to sustain and comfort the body,
or exercise rightly the affections and form the intelligence.[10]
Whatever truly serves either of these purposes is "useful" to man,
wholesome, healthful, helpful, or holy. By seeking such things, man
prolongs and increases his life upon the earth.