We will finally touch upon two other modes of dividing political economy suggested or followed by other writers, but which for several reasons do not commend themselves to us.

The one, widely accepted and applying both to the science and the art, divides them both into two parts: a general part where economic questions are treated in relation to industry considered as a whole; and a special part where they are examined in relation to the different industries.

This system has the defect of involving useless repetitions; it presents the danger of bringing into consideration special technical details (agricultural, technological, commercial,) foreign to the science. This is a danger which the most praiseworthy authors have fallen into, e.g. Rau, Roscher, Nazzani. It not uncommonly leads to the consideration of phenomena which are common to all industries in sole relation to one industry, as in the subject of grande et petite culture, which is nothing but a particular case of production on a large and small scale. Real specialities of separate industries may either be brought in as examples, or explained in seasonable appendices to, or digressions from, discussions of general economic laws.

Others, and principally Ferrara, wish both the science. and the art to be divided into the three branches of individual, social, and international economy, distinctions evidently suggested by the well-known division of jurisprudence into private, public internal, and international law.

This system incurs in a still greater degree than the preceding the dangers of repetition, for economic phenomena do not invariably present themselves in these

three phases; besides, it tends to incorporate with political economy a great part of private economy. This was clearly perceived by an able pupil of Ferrara, Professor Reymond, who accordingly modifies the system of his master, by suppressing in his treatise the division of individual economy. But this is not enough; for there is no analogy between the sciences of political economy and law on which to found the division into social and international economy preserved by Reymond.

And in fact there do not exist from the economic point of view those wide differences between States which we observe in their legal and political conditions

-differences which produce important modifications in their subordinate relations. The character of economic phenomena is to a great extent rather universal than national, while the matters discussed in what is called international economy, such as the questions relating to free exchange, commercial treaties, emigration and colonies, find their natural place under the head of the circulation of wealth.

It seems to us necessary in conclusion to draw attention to the true nature of these controversies on the division and order of treatment of the subjects included under political economy. It should be understood that any division whatever must be not only in a measure inexact but also arbitrary, since economic phenomena constitute in reality an undivided unity

-an organism in constant motion and not a mere mechanism. On the other hand, science by didactic necessity must proceed with the help of existing analogies, must artificially arrest the motion of phenomena, must break them up into parts, and having separately observed these parts, must endeavour to form

them again into an ideal unit which shall conform as nearly as possible to the real unit. Rossi has remarked that production implies productive consumption and even exchange, since most exchanges are effected for the purpose of production. This is a most true observation and one which might with accuracy be extended to other cases.

The value of the various divisions and sub-divisions mentioned in this chapter is a question rather of good arrangement than of intrinsic merit, while the divergences between these various writers are really much smaller than they appear at first sight. Those economists who do not admit the titles of consumption and circulation into their principal division of subjects treat it separately in appendices to other divisions of the science. See for example Mill, Courcelle-Seneuil, Cherbuliez, Rau and many others.

For the rest, we do not wish to deny the importance of such controversies, which, in so far as they result in the better arrangement and classification of the subjects of research and instruction, certainly help to make these subjects more readily apprehended.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE RELATION OF POLITICAL ECONOMY TO

OTHER SCIENCES.

IN speaking of the limits of political economy we have already shown how it differs from other sciences which are yet akin to it in that they treat either wholly or in part of the same subject-matter. Those differences cannot do away with the analogies-nor hence with more or less close relations-between these sciences and political economy, relations and analogies which we propose in the present chapter briefly to discuss. At the same time we shall indicate the more recent and important works which deal, either with these relations at large, or with one or other of the said sciences in special connection with political economy.

Having first premised that these relations may be called either passive or active according as political economy receives or gives information, we will speak more particularly of the relations between political economy and :

:

1. Private Economy.

2. Morals.

4. Statistics.

5. Law.

3. History.

6. Politics.

§ 1. Private Economy,

While political economy considers both wealth and the industries from which it arises in their relations to society and not in connection either with the conditions of the family or with technical processes, it yet not seldom receives valuable assistance from technology, and from private-more especially from industrial-economy. It is not able either to recognise the natural laws of social wealth nor to deduce from them wise administrative rules without first paying attention to the technical and economic conditions of separate industries,

This assistance is indispensable to political economy when it treats of the division and combination of labour, of machines, of money, of the means of transport and communication, of the formation, the scale, and the organisation of industrial enterprises, &c.

On the other hand political economy, explaining in the mass the general laws of the economic world which cannot with impunity be defied by individuals, throws the most useful light on private economy. The latter, thus finding its complement, corrects by enlarging the purely individual point of view which it per se naturally takes, especially in the department of industrial economy. For this reason some recent writers treat diffusely of such economic doctrines as are more closely connected with the principles of industrial economy and in particular with the doctrine of manufacture. The following works deserve special mention:

C. G. Courcelle-Seneuil, Manuel des Affaires, third edition, Paris, 1872.