UNTO THIS LAST

AND OTHER ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY

BY
JOHN RUSKIN

1912
 Unto This Last, and Other Essays By John Ruskin.

This edition was created and published by Global Grey

©GlobalGrey 2020

Get more free ebooks at

globalgreyebooks.com
CONTENTS

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART

Preface
Lecture 1
Lecture 2
Addenda
UNTO THIS LAST: FOUR ESSAYS ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL
ECONOMY
Preface
Essay 1. The Roots Of Honour
Essay 2. The Veins Of Wealth
Essay 3. "Qui Judicatis Terram"
Essay 4. Ad Valorem
ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY
1. Maintenance Of Life; Wealth, Money, And Riches
2. Nature Of Wealth, Variations Of Value, The National Store, Nature Of Labour,
Value And Price, The Currency
3. The Currency-Holders And Store-Holders. The Disease Of Desire
4. Laws And Governments: Labour And Riches
 1

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART

 2

PREFACE

The greater part of the following treatise remains in the exact form in which it was
read at Manchester; but the more familiar passages of it, which were trusted to
extempore delivery, have been since written with greater explicitness and fullness
than I could give them in speaking; and a considerable number of notes are added,
to explain the points which could not be sufficiently considered in the time I had at
my disposal in the lecture-room.

Some apology may be thought due to the reader, for an endeavour to engage his
attention on a subject of which no profound study seems compatible with the work in
which I am usually employed. But profound study is not, in this case, necessary
either to writer or reader, while accurate study, up to a certain point, is necessary for
us all. Political economy means, in plain English, nothing more than "citizens'
economy"; and its first principles ought, therefore, to be understood by all who mean
to take the responsibility of citizens, as those of household economy by all who take
the responsibility of householders. Nor are its first principles in the least obscure:
they are, many of them, disagreeable in their practical requirements, and people in
general pretend that they cannot understand, because they are unwilling to obey
them; or, rather, by habitual disobedience, destroy their capacity of understanding
them. But there is not one of the really great principles of the science which is either
obscure or disputable—which might not be taught to a youth as soon as he can be
trusted with an annual allowance, or to a young lady as soon as she is of age to be
taken into counsel by the housekeeper.

I might, with more appearance of justice, be blamed for thinking it necessary to

enforce what everybody is supposed to know. But this fault will hardly be found with
me, while the commercial events recorded daily in our journals, and still more the
explanations attempted to be given of them, show that a large number of our so-
called merchants are as ignorant of the nature of money as they are reckless, unjust,
and unfortunate in its employment.

The statements of economical principle given in the text, though I know that most, if
not all, of them are accepted by existing authorities on the science, are not
supported by references, because I have never read any author on political
economy, except Adam Smith, twenty years ago. 1 Whenever I have taken up any
modern book upon this subject, I have usually found it encumbered with inquiries
into accidental or minor commercial results, for the pursuit of which an ordinary
reader could have no leisure, and, by the complication of which, it seemed to me, the
authors themselves had been not unfrequently prevented from seeing to the root of
the business.

1
1857
 3

Finally, if the reader should feel inclined to blame me for too sanguine a statement of
future possibilities in political practice, let him consider how absurd it would have
appeared in the days of Edward I. if the present state of social economy had been
then predicted as necessary, or even described as possible. And I believe the
advance from the days of Edward I. to our own, great as it is confessedly, consists,
not so much in what we have actually accomplished, as in what we are now enabled
to conceive.
 4

LECTURE 1

Among the various characteristics of the age in which we live, as compared with
other ages of this not yet very experienced world, one of the most notable appears to
me to be the just and wholesome contempt in which we hold poverty. I repeat,
the just and wholesome contempt; though I see that some of my hearers look
surprised at the expression. I assure them, I use it in sincerity; and I should not have
ventured to ask you to listen to me this evening, unless I had entertained a profound
respect for wealth—true wealth, that is to say; for, of course, we ought to respect
neither wealth nor anything else that is false of its kind: and the distinction between
real and false wealth is one of the points on which I shall have a few words presently
to say to you. But true wealth I hold, as I said, in great honour; and sympathize, for
the most part, with that extraordinary feeling of the present age which publicly pays
this honour to riches. I cannot, however, help noticing how extraordinary it is, and
how this epoch of ours differs from all bygone epochs in having no philosophical nor
religious worshippers of the ragged godship of poverty. In the classical ages, not
only there were people who voluntarily lived in tubs, and who used gravely to
maintain the superiority of tub-life to town-life, but the Greeks and Latins seem to
have looked on these eccentric, and I do not scruple to say, absurd people, with as
much respect as we do upon large capitalists and landed proprietors; so that really,
in those days, no one could be described as purse proud, but only as empty-purse
proud. And no less distinct than the honour which those curious Greek people pay to
their conceited poor, is the disrespectful manner in which they speak of the rich; so
that one cannot listen long either to them, or to the Roman writers who imitated
them, without finding oneself entangled in all sorts of plausible absurdities; hard
upon being convinced of the uselessness of collecting that heavy yellow substance
which we call gold, and led generally to doubt all the most established maxims of
political economy. Nor are matters much better in the middle ages. For the Greeks
and Romans contented themselves with mocking at rich people, and constructing
merry dialogues between Charon and Diogenes or Menippus, in which the ferryman
and the cynic rejoiced together as they saw kings and rich men coming down to the
shore of Acheron, in lamenting and lamentable crowds, casting their crowns into the
dark waters, and searching, sometimes in vain, for the last coin out of all their
treasures that could ever be of use to them. But these Pagan views of the matter
were indulgent, compared with those which were held in the middle ages, when
wealth seems to have been looked upon by the best men not only as contemptible,
but as criminal. The purse round the neck is, then, one of the principal signs of
condemnation in the pictured Inferno; and the Spirit of Poverty is reverenced with
subjection of heart, and faithfulness of affection, like that of a loyal knight for his lady,
or a loyal subject for his queen. And truly, it requires some boldness to quit ourselves
of these feelings, and to confess their partiality or their error, which, nevertheless, we
are certainly bound to do. For wealth is simply one of the greatest powers which can
be entrusted to human hands: a power, not indeed to be envied, because it seldom
 5

makes us happy; but still less to be abdicated or despised; while, in these days, and
in this country, it has become a power all the more notable, in that the possessions
of a rich man are not represented, as they used to be, by wedges of gold or coffers
of jewels, but by masses of men variously employed, over whose bodies and minds
the wealth, according to its direction, exercises harmful or helpful influence, and
becomes, in that alternative, Mammon either of Unrighteousness or of
Righteousness.

Now, it seemed to me that since, in the name you have given to this great gathering
of British pictures, you recognise them as Treasures—that is, I suppose, as part and
parcel of the real wealth of the country—you might not be uninterested in tracing
certain commercial questions connected with this particular form of wealth. Most
persons express themselves as surprised at its quantity; not having known before to
what an extent good art had been accumulated in England: and it will, therefore, I
should think, be held a worthy subject of consideration, what are the political
interests involved in such accumulations; what kind of labour they represent, and
how this labour may in general be applied and economized, so as to produce the
richest results.

Now, you must have patience with me, if in approaching the specialty of this subject,
I dwell a little on certain points of general political science already known or
established: for though thus, as I believe, established, some which I shall have
occasion to rest arguments on are not yet by any means universally accepted; and
therefore, though I will not lose time in any detailed defence of them, it is necessary
that I should distinctly tell you in what form I receive, and wish to argue from them;
and this the more, because there may perhaps be a part of my audience who have
not interested themselves in political economy, as it bears on ordinary fields of
labour, but may yet wish to hear in what way its principles can be applied to Art. I
shall, therefore, take leave to trespass on your patience with a few elementary
statements in the outset, and with, the expression of some general principles, here
and there, in the course of our particular inquiry.

To begin, then, with one of these necessary truisms: all economy, whether of states,
households, or individuals, may be defined to be the art of managing labour. The
world is so regulated by the laws of Providence, that a man's labour, well applied, is
always amply sufficient to provide him during his life with all things needful to him,
and not only with those, but with many pleasant objects of luxury; and yet farther, to
procure him large intervals of healthful rest and serviceable leisure. And a nation's
labour, well applied, is in like manner, amply sufficient to provide its whole population
with good food and comfortable habitation; and not with those only, but with good
education besides, and objects of luxury, art treasures, such as these you have
around you now. But by those same laws of Nature and Providence, if the labour of
the nation or of the individual be misapplied, and much more if it be insufficient,—if
the nation or man be indolent and unwise,—suffering and want result, exactly in
proportion to the indolence and improvidence,—to the refusal of labour, or to the
 6

misapplication of it. Wherever you see want, or misery, or degradation, in this world
about you, there, be sure, either industry has been wanting, or industry has been in
error. It is not accident, it is not Heaven-commanded calamity, it is not the original
and inevitable evil of man's nature, which fill your streets with lamentation, and your
graves with prey. It is only that, when there should have been providence, there has
been waste; when there should have been labour, there has been lasciviousness;
and, wilfulness, when there should have been subordination. 2

Now, we have warped the word "economy" in our English: language into a meaning
which it has no business whatever to bear. In our use of it, it constantly signifies
merely sparing or saving; economy of money means saving money—economy of
time, sparing time, and so on. But that is a wholly barbarous use of the word—
barbarous in a double sense, for it is not English, and it is bad Greek; barbarous in a
treble sense, for it is not English, it is bad Greek, and it is worse sense. Economy no
more means saving money than it means spending money. It means, the
administration of a house; its stewardship; spending or saving, that is, whether
money or time, or anything else, to the best possible advantage. In the simplest and
clearest definition of it, economy, whether public or private, means the wise
management of labour; and it means this mainly in three senses: namely,
first, applying your labour rationally; secondly, preserving its produce carefully;
lastly, distributing its produce seasonably.

I say first, applying your labour rationally; that is, so as to obtain the most precious
things you can, and the most lasting things, by it: not growing oats in land where you
can grow wheat, nor putting fine embroidery on a stuff that will not wear. Secondly,
preserving its produce carefully; that is to say, laying up your wheat wisely in
storehouses for the time of famine, and keeping your embroidery watchfully from the
moth: and lastly, distributing its produce seasonably; that is to say, being able to
carry your corn at once to the place where the people are hungry, and your
embroideries to the places where they are gay, so fulfilling in all ways the Wise
Man's description, whether of the queenly housewife or queenly nation. "She riseth
while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
She maketh herself coverings of tapestry, her clothing is silk and purple. Strength
and honour are in her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come."

Now, you will observe that in this description of the perfect economist, or mistress of
a household, there is a studied expression of the balanced division of her care
between the two great objects of utility and splendour; in her right hand, food and
flax, for life and clothing; in her left hand, the purple and the needlework, for honour
and for beauty. All perfect housewifery or national economy is known by these two
divisions; wherever either is wanting, the economy is imperfect. If the motive of pomp
prevails, and the care of the national economist is directed only to the accumulation

2
Proverbs xiii. 23: "Much food is in the tillage of the poor: but there is that is destroyed for want of
judgment."
 7

of gold, and of pictures, and of silk and marble, you know at once that the time must
soon come when all these treasures shall be scattered and blasted in national ruin.
If, on the contrary, the element of utility prevails, and the nation disdains to occupy
itself in any wise with the arts of beauty or delight, not only a certain quantity of its
energy calculated for exercise in those arts alone must be entirely wasted, which is
bad economy, but also the passions connected with the utilities of property become
morbidly strong, and a mean lust of accumulation merely for the sake of
accumulation, or even of labour merely for the sake of labour, will banish at last the
serenity and the morality of life, as completely, and perhaps more ignobly, than even
the lavishness of pride and the lightness of pleasure. And similarly, and much more
visibly, in private and household economy, you may judge always of its perfectness
by its fair balance between the use and the pleasure of its possessions. You will see
the wise cottager's garden trimly divided between its well-set vegetables, and its
fragrant flowers; you will see the good housewife taking pride in her pretty table-
cloth, and her glittering shelves, no less than in her well-dressed dish, and her full
storeroom; the care in her countenance will alternate with gaiety, and though you will
reverence her in her seriousness, you will know her best by her smile.

Now, as you will have anticipated, I am going to address you, on this and our
succeeding evening, chiefly on the subject of that economy which relates rather to
the garden than the farm-yard. I shall ask you to consider with me the kind of laws by
which we shall best distribute the beds of our national garden, and raise in it the
sweetest succession of trees pleasant to the sight, and (in no forbidden sense) to be
desired to make us wise. But, before proceeding to open this specialty of our subject,
let me pause for a few moments to plead with you for the acceptance of that principle
of government or authority which must be at the root of all economy, whether for use
or for pleasure. I said, a few minutes ago, that a nation's labour, well applied, was
amply sufficient to provide its whole population with good food, comfortable clothing,
and pleasant luxury. But the good, instant, and constant application is everything.
We must not, when our strong hands are thrown out of work, look wildly about for
want of something to do with them. If ever we feel that want, it is a sign that all our
household is out of order. Fancy a farmer's wife, to whom one or two of her servants
should come at twelve o'clock at noon, crying that they had got nothing to do; that
they did not know what to do next: and fancy still farther, the said farmer's wife
looking hopelessly about her rooms and yard, they being all the while considerably in
disorder, not knowing where to set the spare hand-maidens to work, and at last
complaining bitterly that she had been obliged to give them their dinner for nothing.
That's the type of the kind of political economy we practise too often in England.
Would you not at once assert of such a mistress that she knew nothing of her
duties? and would you not be certain, if the household were rightly managed, the
mistress would be only too glad at any moment to have the help of any number of
spare hands; that she would know in an instant what to set them to;—in an instant
what part of to-morrow's work might be most serviceably forwarded, what part of next
month's work most wisely provided for, or what new task of some profitable kind
 8

undertaken? and when the evening came, and she dismissed her servants to their
recreation or their rest, or gathered them to the reading round the work-table, under
the eaves in the sunset, would you not be sure to find that none of them had been
overtasked by her, just because none had been left idle; that everything had been
accomplished because all had been employed; that the kindness of the mistress had
aided her presence of mind, and the slight labour had been entrusted to the weak,
and the formidable to the strong; and that as none had been dishonoured by
inactivity so none had been broken by toil?

Now, the precise counterpart of such a household would be seen in a nation in which
political economy was rightly understood. You complain of the difficulty of finding
work for your men. Depend upon it, the real difficulty rather is to find men for your
work. The serious question for you is not how many you have to feed, but how much
you have to do; it is our inactivity, not our hunger, that ruins us: let us never fear that
our servants should have a good appetite—our wealth is in their strength, not in their
starvation. Look around this island of yours, and see what you have to do in it. The
sea roars against your harbourless cliffs—you have to build the breakwater, and dig
the port of refuge; the unclean pestilence ravins in your streets—you have to bring
the full stream from the hills, and to send the free winds through the thoroughfare;
the famine blanches your lips and eats away your flesh—you have to dig the moor
and dry the marsh, to bid the morass give forth instead of engulphing, and to wring
the honey and oil out of the rock. These things, and thousands such, we have to do,
and shall have to do constantly, on this great farm of ours; for do not suppose that it
is anything else than that. Precisely the same laws of economy which apply to the
cultivation of a farm or an estate apply to the cultivation of a province or of an island.
Whatever rebuke you would address to the improvident master of an ill-managed
patrimony, precisely that rebuke we should address to ourselves, so far as we leave
our population in idleness and our country in disorder. What would you say to the
lord of an estate who complained to you of his poverty and disabilities, and, when
you pointed out to him that his land was half of it overrun with weeds, and that his
fences were all in ruin, and that his cattle-sheds were roofless, and his labourers
lying under the hedges faint for want of food, he answered to you that it would ruin
him to weed his land or to roof his sheds—that those were too costly operations for
him to undertake, and that he knew not how to feed his labourers nor pay them?
Would you not instantly answer, that instead of ruining him to weed his fields, it
would save him; that his inactivity was his destruction, and that to set his labourers to
work was to feed them? Now, you may add acre to acre, and estate to estate, as far
as you like, but you will never reach a compass of ground which shall escape from
the authority of these simple laws. The principles which are right in the administration
of a few fields, are right also in the administration of a great country from horizon to
horizon: idleness does not cease to be ruinous because it is extensive, nor labour to
be productive because it is universal.
 9

Nay, but you reply, there is one vast difference between the nation's economy and
the private man's: the farmer has full authority over his labourers; he can direct them
to do what is needed to be done, whether they like it or not; and he can turn them
away if they refuse to work, or impede others in their working, or are disobedient, or
quarrelsome. There is this great difference; it is precisely this difference on which I
wish to fix your attention, for it is precisely this difference which you have to do away
with. We know the necessity of authority in farm, or in fleet, or in army; but we
commonly refuse to admit it in the body of the nation. Let us consider this point a
little.

In the various awkward and unfortunate efforts which the French have made at the
development of a social system, they have at least stated one true principle, that of
fraternity or brotherhood. Do not be alarmed; they got all wrong in their experiments,
because they quite forgot that this fact of fraternity implied another fact quite as
important—that of paternity or fatherhood. That is to say, if they were to regard the
nation as one family, the condition of unity in that family consisted no less in their
having a head, or a father, than in their being faithful and affectionate members, or
brothers. But we must not forget this, for we have long confessed it with our lips,
though we refuse to confess it in our lives. For half an hour every Sunday we expect
a man in a black gown, supposed to be telling us truth, to address us as brethren,
though we should be shocked at the notion of any brotherhood existing among us
out of church. And we can hardly read a few sentences on any political subject
without running a chance of crossing the phrase "paternal government," though we
should be utterly horror-struck at the idea of governments claiming anything like a
father's authority over us. Now, I believe those two formal phrases are in both
instances perfectly binding and accurate, and that the image of the farm and its
servants which I have hitherto used, as expressing a wholesome national
organization, fails only of doing so, not because it is too domestic, but because it is
not domestic enough; because the real type of a well-organized nation must be
presented, not by a farm cultivated by servants who wrought for hire, and might be
turned away if they refused to labour, but by a farm in which the master was a father,
and in which all the servants were sons; which implied, therefore, in all its
regulations, not merely the order of expediency, but the bonds of affection and
responsibilities of relationship; and in which all acts and services were not only to be
sweetened by brotherly concord, but to be enforced by fatherly authority.(see note 1)

Observe, I do not mean in the least that we ought to place such an authority in the
hands of any one person, or of any class or body of persons. But I do mean to say
that as an individual who conducts himself wisely must make laws for himself which
at some time or other may appear irksome or injurious, but which, precisely at the
time they appear most irksome, it is most necessary he should obey, so a nation
which means to conduct itself wisely, must establish authority over itself, vested
either in kings, councils, or laws, which it must resolve to obey, even at times when
the law or authority appears irksome to the body of the people, or injurious to certain
 10

masses of it. And this kind of national law has hitherto been only judicial; contented,
that is, with an endeavour to prevent and punish violence and crime: but, as we
advance in our social knowledge; we shall endeavour to make our government
paternal as well as judicial; that is, to establish such laws and authorities as may at
once direct us in our occupations, protect us against our follies, and visit us in our
distresses: a government which shall repress dishonesty, as now it punishes theft;
which shall show how the discipline of the masses may be brought to aid the toils of
peace, as discipline of the masses has hitherto knit the sinews of battle; a
government which shall have its soldiers of the ploughshare as well as its soldiers of
the sword, and which shall distribute more proudly its golden crosses of industry—
golden as the glow of the harvest, than now it grants its bronze crosses of honour—
bronzed with the crimson of blood.

I have not, of course, time to insist on the nature or details of government of this
kind; only I wish to plead for your several and future consideration of this one truth,
that the notion of Discipline and Interference lies at the very root of all human
progress or power; that the "Let alone" principle is, in all things which man has to do
with, the principle of death; that it is ruin to him, certain and total, if he lets his land
alone—if he lets his fellow-men alone—if he lets his own soul alone. That his whole
life, on the contrary, must, if it is healthy life, be continually one of ploughing and
pruning, rebuking and helping, governing and punishing; and that therefore it is only
in the concession of some great principle of restraint and interference in national
action that he can ever hope to find the secret of protection against national
degradation. I believe that the masses have a right to claim education from their
government; but only so far as they acknowledge the duty of yielding obedience to
their government. I believe they have a right to claim employment from their
governours; but only so far as they yield to the governour the direction and discipline
of their labour; and it is only so far as they grant to the men whom they may set over
them the father's authority to check the childishnesses of national fancy, and direct
the waywardnesses of national energy, that they have a right to ask that none of
their distresses should be unrelieved, none of their weaknesses unwatched; and that
no grief, nor nakedness, nor peril should exist for them, against which the father's
hand was not outstretched, or the father's shield uplifted. 3 (see note 2)

Now, I have pressed this upon you at more length than is needful or proportioned to
our present purposes of inquiry, because I would not for the first time speak to you

3
Compare Wordsworth's Essay on the Poor-Law Amendment Bill. I quote one important passage:—
"But, if it be not safe to touch the abstract question of man's right in a social state to help himself even
in the last extremity, may we not still contend for the duty of a Christian government, standing in loco
parentis towards all its subjects, to make such effectual provision that no one shall be in danger of
perishing either through the neglect or harshness of its legislation? Or, waiving this, is it not
indisputable that the claim of the State to the allegiance, involves the protection of the subject? And,
as all rights in one party impose a correlative duty upon another, it follows that the right of the State to
require the services of its members, even to the jeoparding of their lives in the common defence,
establishes a right in the people (not to be gainsaid by utilitarians and economists) to public support
when, from any cause, they may be unable to support themselves."
 11

on this subject of political economy without clearly stating what I believe to be its first
grand principle. But its bearing on the matter in hand is chiefly to prevent you from at
once too violently dissenting from me when what I may state to you as advisable
economy in art appears to imply too much restraint or interference with the freedom
of the patron or artist. We are a little apt, though, on the whole a prudent nation, to
act too immediately on our impulses, even in matters merely commercial; much more
in those involving continual appeals to our fancies. How far, therefore, the proposed
systems or restraints may be advisable, it is for you to judge; only I pray you not to
be offended with them merely because they are systems and restraints. Do you at all
recollect that interesting passage of Carlyle, in which he compares, in this country
and at this day, the understood and commercial value of man and horse; and in
which he wonders that the horse, with its inferior brains and its awkward hoofiness,
instead of handiness, should be always worth so many tens or scores of pounds in
the market, while the man, so far from always commanding his price in the market,
would often be thought to confer a service on the community by simply killing himself
out of their way? Well, Carlyle does not answer his own question, because he
supposes we shall at once see the answer. The value of the horse consists simply in
the fact of your being able to put a bridle on him. The value of the man consists
precisely in the same thing. If you can bridle him, or which is better, if he can bridle
himself, he will be a valuable creature directly. Otherwise, in a commercial point of
view, his value is either nothing, or accidental only. Only, of course, the proper bridle
of man is not a leathern one: what kind of texture it is rightly made of, we find from
that command, "Be ye not as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding,
whose mouths must be held in with bit and bridle." You are not to be without the
reins, indeed, but they are to be of another kind; "I will guide thee with mine Eye." So
the bridle of man is to be the Eye of God; and if he rejects that guidance, then the
next best for him is the horse's and the mule's, which have no understanding; and if
he rejects that, and takes the bit fairly in his teeth, then there is nothing left for him
than the blood that comes out of the city, up to the horsebridles.

Quitting, however, at last these general and serious laws of government—or rather
bringing them down to our own business in hand—we have to consider three points
of discipline in that particular branch of human labour which is concerned, not with
procuring of food, but the expression of emotion; we have to consider respecting art:
first, how to apply our labour to it; then, how to accumulate or preserve the results of
labour; and then, how to distribute them. But since in art the labour which we have to
employ is the labour of a particular class of men—men who have special genius for
the business, we have not only to consider how to apply the labour, but first of all,
how to produce the labourer; and thus the question in this particular case becomes
fourfold: first, how to get your man of genius; then, how to employ your man of
genius; then, how to accumulate and preserve his work in the greatest quantity; and
lastly, how to distribute his work to the best national advantage. Let us take up these
questions in succession.
 12

I. Discovery.—How are we to get our men of genius: that is to say, by what means
may we produce among us, at any given time, the greatest quantity of effective art-
intellect? A wide question, you say, involving an account of all the best means of art
education. Yes, but I do not mean to go into the consideration of those; I want only to
state the few principles which lie at the foundation of the matter. Of these, the first is
that you have always to find your artist, not to make him; you can't manufacture him,
any more than you can manufacture gold. You can find him, and refine him: you dig
him out as he lies nugget-fashion in the mountain-stream; you bring him home; and
you make him into current coin, or household plate, but not one grain of him can you
originally produce. A certain quantity of art-intellect is born annually in every nation,
greater or less according to the nature and cultivation of the nation or race of men;
but a perfectly fixed quantity annually, not increaseable by one grain. You may lose
it, or you may gather it; you may let it lie loose in the ravine, and buried in the sands,
or you may make kings' thrones of it, and overlay temple gates with it, as you
choose: but the best you can do with it is always merely sifting, melting, hammering,
purifying—never creating. And there is another thing notable about this artistical
gold; not only is it limited in quantity, but in use. You need not make thrones or
golden gates with it unless you like, but assuredly you can't do anything else with it.
You can't make knives of it, nor armour, nor railroads. The gold won't cut you, and it
won't carry you; put it to a mechanical use, and you destroy it at once. It is quite true
that in the greatest artists, their proper artistical faculty is united with every other; and
you may make use of the other faculties, and let the artistical one lie dormant. For
aught I know, there may be two or three Leonardo da Vincis employed at this
moment in your harbours and railroads: but you are not employing their
Leonardesque or golden faculty there, you are only oppressing and destroying it.
And the artistical gift in average men is not joined with others; your born painter, if
you don't make a painter of him, won't be a first-rate merchant, or lawyer; at all
events, whatever he turns out, his own special gift is unemployed by you; and in no
wise helps him in that other business. So here you have a certain quantity of a
particular sort of intelligence, produced for you annually by providential laws, which
you can only make use of by setting it to its own proper work, and which any attempt
to use otherwise involves the dead loss of so much human energy. Well, then,
supposing we wish to employ it, how is it to be best discovered and refined? It is
easily enough discovered. To wish to employ it is to discover it. All that you need is,
a school of trial (see note 3) in every important town, in which those idle farmers'
lads whom their masters never can keep out of mischief, and those stupid tailors'
'prentices who are always stitching the sleeves in wrong way upwards, may have a
try at this other trade; only this school of trial must not be entirely regulated by formal
laws of art education, but must ultimately be the workshop of a good master painter,
who will try the lads with one kind of art and another, till he finds out what they are fit
for. Next, after your trial school, you want your easy and secure employment, which
is the matter of chief importance. For, even on the present system, the boys who
 13

have really intense art capacity, generally make painters of themselves; but then, the
best half of their early energy is lost in the battle of life. Before a good painter can get
employment, his mind has always been embittered, and his genius distorted. A
common mind usually stoops, in plastic chill, to whatever is asked of it, and scrapes
or daubs its way complacently into public favour. (see note 4) But your great men
quarrel with you, and you revenge yourselves by starving them for the first half of
their lives. Precisely in the degree in which any painter possesses original genius, is
at present the increase of moral certainty that during his early years he will have a
hard battle to fight; and that just at the time when his conceptions ought to be full and
happy, his temper gentle, and his hopes enthusiastic—just at that most critical
period, his heart is full of anxieties and household cares; he is chilled by
disappointments, and vexed by injustice; he becomes obstinate in his errors, no less
than in his virtues, and the arrows of his aims are blunted, as the reeds of his trust
are broken.

What we mainly want, therefore, is a means of sufficient and unagitated

employment: not holding out great prizes for which young painters are to scramble;
but furnishing all with adequate support, and opportunity to display such power as
they possess without rejection or mortification. I need not say that the best field of
labour of this kind would be presented by the constant progress of public works
involving various decoration; and we will presently examine what kind of public works
may thus, advantageously for the nation, be in constant progress. But a more
important matter even than this of steady employment, is the kind of criticism with
which you, the public, receive the works of the young men submitted to you. You
may do much harm by indiscreet praise and by indiscreet blame; but remember, the
chief harm is always done by blame. It stands to reason that a young man's work
cannot be perfect. It must be more or less ignorant; it must be more or less feeble; it
is likely that it may be more or less experimental, and if experimental, here and there
mistaken. If, therefore, you allow yourself to launch out into sudden barking at the
first faults you see, the probability is that you are abusing the youth for some defect
naturally and inevitably belonging to that stage of his progress; and that you might
just as rationally find fault with a child for not being as prudent as a privy councillor,
or with a kitten for not being as grave as a cat. But there is one fault which you may
be quite sure is unnecessary, and therefore a real and blameable fault: that is haste,
involving negligence. Whenever you see that a young man's work is either bold or
slovenly, then you may attack it firmly; sure of being right. If his work is bold, it is
insolent; repress his insolence: if it is slovenly, it is indolent; spur his indolence. So
long as he works in that dashing or impetuous way, the best hope for him is in your
contempt: and it is only by the fact of his seeming not to seek your approbation that
you may conjecture he deserves it.

But if he does deserve it, be sure that you give it him, else you not only run a chance
of driving him from the right road by want of encouragement, but you deprive
yourselves of the happiest privilege you will ever have of rewarding his labour. For it
 14

is only the young who can receive much reward from men's praise: the old, when
they are great, get too far beyond and above you to care what you think of them. You
may urge them then with sympathy, and surround them then with acclamation; but
they will doubt your pleasure, and despise your praise. You might have cheered
them in their race through the asphodel meadows of their youth; you might have
brought the proud, bright scarlet into their faces, if you had but cried once to them
"Well done," as they dashed up to the first goal of their early ambition. But now, their
pleasure is in memory, and their ambition is in heaven. They can be kind to you, but
you never more can be kind to them. You may be fed with the fruit and fullness of
their old age, but you were as the nipping blight to them in their blossoming, and
your praise is only as the warm winds of autumn to the dying branches.

There is one thought still, the saddest of all, bearing on this withholding of early help.
It is possible, in some noble natures, that the warmth and the affections of childhood
may remain unchilled, though unanswered; and that the old man's heart may still be
capable of gladness, when the long-withheld sympathy is given at last. But in these
noble natures it nearly always happens, that the chief motive of earthly ambition has
not been to give delight to themselves, but to their parents. Every noble youth looks
back, as to the chiefest joy which this world's honour ever gave him, to the moment
when first he saw his father's eyes flash with pride, and his mother turn away her
head lest he should take her tears for tears of sorrow. Even the lover's joy, when
some worthiness of his is acknowledged before his mistress, is not so great as that,
for it is not so pure—the desire to exalt himself in her eyes mixes with that of giving
her delight; but he does not need to exalt himself in his parents' eyes: it is with the
pure hope of giving them pleasure that he comes to tell them what he has done, or
what has been said of him; and therefore he has a purer pleasure of his own. And
this purest and best of rewards you keep from him if you can: you feed him in his
tender youth with ashes and dishonour; and then you come to him, obsequious, but
too late, with your sharp laurel crown, the dew all dried from off its leaves; and you
thrust it into his languid hand, and he looks at you wistfully. What shall he do with it?
What can he do, but go and lay it on his mother's grave?

Thus, then, you see that you have to provide for your young men: first, the searching
or discovering school; then the calm employment; then the justice of praise: one
thing more you have to do for them in preparing them for full service—namely, to
make, in the noble sense of the word, gentlemen of them; that is to say, to take care
that their minds receive such training, that in all they paint they shall see and feel the
noblest things. I am sorry to say, that of all parts of an artist's education this is the
most neglected among us; and that even where the natural taste and feeling of the
youth have been pure and true, where there was the right stuff in him to make a
gentleman of, you may too frequently discern some jarring rents in his mind, and
elements of degradation in his treatment of subject, owing to want of gentle training,
and of the liberal influence of literature. This is quite visible in our greatest artists,
even in men like Turner and Gainsborough; while in the common grade of our
 15

second-rate painters the evil attains a pitch which is far too sadly manifest to need
my dwelling upon it. Now, no branch of art economy is more important than that of
making the intellect at your disposal pure as well as powerful; so that it may always
gather for you the sweetest and fairest things. The same quantity of labour from the
same man's hand, will, according as you have trained him, produce a lovely and
useful work, or a base and hurtful one, and depend upon it, whatever value it may
possess, by reason of the painter's skill, its chief and final value, to any nation,
depends upon its being able to exalt and refine, as well as to please; and that the
picture which most truly deserves the name of an art-treasure, is that which has
been painted by a good man.

You cannot but see how far this would lead, if I were to enlarge upon it. I must take it
up as a separate subject some other time: only noticing at present that no money
could be better spent by a nation than in providing a liberal and disciplined education
for its painters, as they advance into the critical period of their youth; and that also, a
large part of their power during life depends upon the kind of subjects which you, the
public, ask them for, and therefore the kind of thoughts with which you require them
to be habitually familiar. I shall have more to say on this head when we come to
consider what employment they should have in public buildings.

There are many other points of nearly as much importance as these, to be explained
with reference to the development of genius; but I should have to ask you to come
and hear six lectures instead of two if I were to go into their detail. For instance, I
have not spoken of the way in which you ought to look for those artificers in various
manual trades, who, without possessing the order of genius which you would desire
to devote to higher purposes, yet possess wit, and humour, and sense of colour, and
fancy for form—all commercially valuable as quantities of intellect, and all more or
less expressible in the lower arts of ironwork, pottery, decorative sculpture, and such
like. But these details, interesting as they are, I must commend to your own
consideration, or leave for some future inquiry. I want just now only to set the
bearings of the entire subject broadly before you, with enough of detailed illustration
to make it intelligible; and therefore I must quit the first head of it here, and pass to
the second, namely, how best to employ the genius we discover. A certain quantity
of able hands and heads being placed at our disposal, what shall we most advisably
set them upon?

II. Application.—There are three main points the economist has to attend to in this.

First, To set his men to various work.

Secondly, To easy work.

Thirdly, To lasting work.

I shall briefly touch on the first two, for I want to arrest your attention on the last.
 16

I say first, to various work. Supposing you have two men of equal power as
landscape painters—and both of them have an hour at your disposal. You would not
set them both to paint the same piece of landscape. You would, of course, rather
have two subjects than a repetition of one.

Well, supposing them sculptors, will not the same rule hold? You naturally conclude
at once that it will; but you will have hard work to convince your modern architects of
that. They will put twenty men to work, to carve twenty capitals; and all shall be the
same. If I could show you the architects' yards in England just now, all open at once,
perhaps you might see a thousand clever men, all employed in carving the same
design. Of the degradation and deathfulness to the art-intellect of the country
involved in such a habit, I have more or less been led to speak before now; but I
have not hitherto marked its definite tendency to increase the price of work, as such.
When men are employed continually in carving the same ornaments, they get into a
monotonous and methodical habit of labour—precisely correspondent to that in
which they would break stones, or paint house-walls. Of course, what they do so
constantly, they do easily; and if you excite them temporarily by an increase of
wages, you may get much work done by them in a little time. But, unless so
stimulated, men condemned to a monotonous exertion, work—and always, by the
laws of human nature, must work—only at a tranquil rate, not producing by any
means a maximum result in a given time. But if you allow them to vary their designs,
and thus interest their heads and hearts in what they are doing, you will find them
become eager, first, to get their ideas expressed, and then to finish the expression of
them; and the moral energy thus brought to bear on the matter quickens, and
therefore cheapens, the production in a most important degree. Sir Thomas Deane,
the architect of the new Museum at Oxford, told me, as I passed through Oxford on
my way here, that he found that, owing to this cause alone, capitals of various design
could be executed cheaper than capitals of similar design (the amount of hand
labour in each being the same) by about 30 per cent.

Well, that is the first way, then, in which you will employ your intellect well; and the
simple observance of this plain rule of political economy will effect a noble revolution
in your architecture, such as you cannot at present so much as conceive. Then the
second way in which we are to guard against waste is by setting our men to the
easiest, and therefore the quickest, work which will answer the purpose. Marble, for
instance, lasts quite as long as granite, and is much softer to work; therefore, when
you get hold of a good sculptor, give him marble to carve—not granite. That, you
say, is obvious enough. Yes; but it is not so obvious how much of your workmen's
time you waste annually in making them cut glass, after it has got hard, when you
ought to make them mould it while it is soft. It is not so obvious how much expense
you waste in cutting diamonds and rubies, which are the hardest things you can find,
into shapes that mean nothing, when the same men might be cutting sandstone and
freestone into shapes that meant something. It is not so obvious how much of the
artists' time in Italy you waste, by forcing them to make wretched little pictures for
 17

you out of crumbs of stone glued together at enormous cost, when the tenth of the
time would make good and noble pictures for you out of water-colour. I could go on
giving you almost numberless instances of this great commercial mistake; but I
should only weary and confuse you. I therefore commend also this head of our
subject to your own meditation, and proceed to the last I named—the last I shall task
your patience with to-night. You know we are now considering how to apply our
genius; and we were to do it as economists, in three ways:—

To various work;

To easy work;

To lasting work.

This lasting of the work, then, is our final question.

Many of you may, perhaps, remember that Michael Angelo was once commanded by
Pietro di Medici to mould a statue out of snow, and that he obeyed the command. 4 I
am glad, and we have all reason to be glad, that such a fancy ever came into the
mind of the unworthy prince, and for this cause: that Pietro di Medici then gave, at
the period of one great epoch of consummate power in the arts, the perfect,
accurate; and intensest possible type of the greatest error which nations and princes
can commit, respecting the power of genius entrusted to their guidance. You had
there, observe, the strongest genius in the most perfect obedience; capable of iron
independence, yet wholly submissive to the patron's will; at once the most highly
accomplished and the most original, capable of doing as much as man could do, in
any direction that man could ask. And its governour, and guide, and patron sets it to
build a statue in snow—to put itself into the service of annihilation—to make a cloud
of itself, and pass away from the earth.

Now this, so precisely and completely done by Pietro di Medici, is what we are all
doing, exactly in the degree in which we direct the genius under our patronage to
work in more or less perishable materials. So far as we induce painters to work in
fading colours, or architects to build with imperfect structure, or in any other way
consult only immediate ease and cheapness in the production of what we want, to
the exclusion of provident thought as to its permanence and serviceableness in after
ages; so far we are forcing our Michael Angelos to carve in snow. The first duty of
the economist in art is, to see that no intellect shall thus glitter merely in the manner
of hoar-frost; but that it shall be well vitrified, like a painted window, and shall be set
so between shafts of stone and bands of iron, that it shall bear the sunshine upon it,
and send the sunshine through it, from generation to generation.

I can conceive, however, some political economist to interrupt me here, and say, "If
you make your art wear too well, you will soon have too much of it; you will throw
your artists quite out of work. Better allow for a little wholesome evanescence—
4
See the noble passage on this tradition in "Casa Guidi Windows."
 18

beneficent destruction: let each age provide art for itself, or we shall soon have so
many good pictures that we shall not know what to do with them."

Remember, my dear hearers, who are thus thinking, that political economy, like
every other subject, cannot be dealt with effectively if we try to solve two questions at
a time instead of one. It is one question, how to get plenty of a thing; and another,
whether plenty of it will be good for us. Consider these two matters separately; never
confuse yourself by interweaving one with the other. It is one question, how to treat
your fields so as to get a good harvest; another, whether you wish to have a good
harvest, or would rather like to keep up the price of corn. It is one question, how to
graft your trees so as to grow most apples; and quite another, whether having such a
heap of apples in the store-room will not make them all rot.

Now, therefore, that we are talking only about grafting and growing, pray do not vex
yourselves with thinking what you are to do with the pippins. It may be desirable for
us to have much art, or little—we will examine that by and by; but just now, let us
keep to the simple consideration how to get plenty of good art if we want it. Perhaps
it might be just as well that a man of moderate income should be able to possess a
good picture, as that any work of real merit should cost £500 or £1,000; at all events,
it is certainly one of the branches of political economy to ascertain how, if we like, we
can get things in quantities—plenty of corn, plenty of wine, plenty of gold, or plenty of
pictures.

It has just been said, that the first great secret is to produce work that will last. Now,
the conditions of work lasting are twofold: it must not only be in materials that will
last, but it must be itself of a quality that will last—it must be good enough to bear the
test of time. If it is not good, we shall tire of it quickly, and throw it aside—we shall
have no pleasure in the accumulation of it. So that the first question of a good art-
economist respecting any work is, Will it lose its flavour by keeping? It may be very
amusing now, and look much like a work of genius. But what will be its value a
hundred years hence?

You cannot always ascertain this. You may get what you fancy to be work of the best
quality, and yet find to your astonishment that it won't keep. But of one thing you
may be sure, that art which is produced hastily will also perish hastily; and that what
is cheapest to you now, is likely to be dearest in the end.

I am sorry to say, the great tendency of this age is to expend its genius in perishable
art of this kind, as if it were a triumph to burn its thoughts away in bonfires. There is a
vast quantity of intellect and of labour consumed annually in our cheap illustrated
publications; you triumph in them; and you think it is so grand a thing to get so many
woodcuts for a penny. Why, woodcuts, penny and all, are as much lost to you as if
you had invested your money in gossamer. More lost, for the gossamer could only
tickle your face, and glitter in your eyes; it could not catch your feet and trip you up:
but the bad art can, and does; for you can't like good woodcuts as long as you look
 19

at the bad ones. If we were at this moment to come across a Titian woodcut, or a
Durer woodcut, we should not like it—those of us at least who are accustomed to the
cheap work of the day. We don't like, and can't like, that long; but when we are tired
of one bad cheap thing, we throw it aside and buy another bad cheap thing; and so
keep looking at bad things all our lives. Now, the very men who do all that quick bad
work for us are capable of doing perfect work. Only, perfect work can't be hurried,
and therefore it can't be cheap beyond a certain point. But suppose you pay twelve
times as much as you do now, and you have one woodcut for a shilling instead of
twelve; and the one woodcut for a shilling is as good as art can be, so that you will
never tire of looking at it; and is struck on good paper with good ink, so that you will
never wear it out by handling it; while you are sick of your penny-each cuts by the
end of the week, and have torn them mostly in half too. Isn't your shilling's worth the
best bargain?

It is not, however, only in getting prints or woodcuts of the best kind that you will
practise economy. There is a certain quality about an original drawing which you
cannot get in a woodcut, and the best part of the genius of many men is only
expressible in original work, whether with pen and ink—pencil or colours. This is not
always the case; but in general, the best men are those who can only express
themselves on paper or canvass; and you will, therefore, in the long run, get most for
your money by buying original work; proceeding on the principle already laid down,
that the best is likely to be the cheapest in the end. Of course, original work cannot
be produced under a certain cost. If you want a man to make you a drawing which
takes him six days, you must, at all events, keep him for six days in bread and water,
fire and lodging; that is the lowest price at which he can do it for you, but that is not
very dear: and the best bargain which can possibly be made honestly in art—the
very ideal of a cheap purchase to the purchaser—is the original work of a great man
fed for as many days as are necessary on bread and water, or perhaps we may say
with as many onions as will keep him in good humour. That is the way by which you
will always get most for your money; no mechanical multiplication or ingenuity of
commercial arrangements will ever get you a better penny's worth of art than that.

Without, however, pushing our calculations quite to this prison-discipline extreme, we

may lay it down as a rule in art-economy, that original work is, on the whole,
cheapest and best worth having. But precisely in proportion to the value of it as a
production, becomes the importance of having it executed in permanent materials.
And here we come to note the second main error of the day, that we not only ask our
workmen for bad art, but we make them put it into bad substance. We have, for
example, put a great quantity of genius, within the last twenty years, into water-
colour drawing, and we have done this with the most reckless disregard whether
either the colours or the paper will stand. In most instances, neither will. By accident,
it may happen that the colours in a given drawing have been of good quality, and its
paper uninjured by chemical processes. But you take not the least care to ensure
these being so; I have myself seen the most destructive changes take place in
 20

water-colour drawings within twenty years after they were painted; and from all I can
gather respecting the recklessness of modern paper manufacture, my belief is, that
though you may still handle an Albert Durer engraving, two hundred years old,
fearlessly, not one-half of that time will have passed over your modern water-colours,
before most of them will be reduced to mere white or brown rags; and your
descendants, twitching them contemptuously into fragments between finger and
thumb, will mutter against you, half in scorn and half in anger, "Those wretched
nineteenth-century people! they kept vapouring and fuming about the world, doing
what they called business, and they couldn't make a sheet of paper that wasn't
rotten." And note that this is no unimportant portion of your art economy at this time.
Your water-colour painters are becoming every day capable of expressing greater
and better things; and their material is especially adapted to the turn of your best
artists' minds. The value which you could accumulate in work of this kind would soon
become a most important item in the national art-wealth, if only you would take the
little pains necessary to secure its permanence. I am inclined to think, myself, that
water-colour ought not to be used on paper at all, but only on vellum, and then, if
properly taken care of, the drawing would be almost imperishable. Still, paper is a
much more convenient material for rapid work; and it is an infinite absurdity not to
secure the goodness of its quality, when we could do so without the slightest trouble.
Among the many favours which I am going to ask from our paternal government,
when we get it, will be that it will supply its little boys with good paper. You have
nothing to do but to let the government establish a paper manufactory, under the
superintendence of any of our leading chemists, who should be answerable for the
safety and completeness of all the processes of the manufacture. The government
stamp on the corner of your sheet of drawing-paper, made in the perfect way, should
cost you a shilling, which would add something to the revenue; and when you bought
a water-colour drawing for fifty or a hundred guineas, you would have merely to look
in the corner for your stamp, and pay your extra shilling for the security that your
hundred guineas were given really for a drawing, and not for a coloured rag. There
need be no monopoly or restriction in the matter; let the paper manufacturers
compete with the government, and if people liked to save their shilling, and take their
chance, let them; only, the artist and purchaser might then be sure of good material,
if they liked, and now they cannot be.

I should like also to have a government colour manufactory; though that is not so
necessary, as the quality of colour is more within the artist's power of testing, and I
have no doubt that any painter may get permanent colour from the respectable
manufacturers, if he chooses. I will not attempt to follow the subject out at all as it
respects architecture, and our methods of modern building; respecting which I have
had occasion to speak before now.

But I cannot pass without some brief notice our habit—continually, as it seems to
me, gaining strength—of putting a large quantity of thought and work, annually, into
things which are either in their nature necessarily perishable, as dress; or else into
 21

compliances with the fashion of the day, in things not necessarily perishable, as
plate. I am afraid almost the first idea of a young rich couple setting up house in
London, is, that they must have new plate. Their father's plate may be very
handsome, but the fashion is changed. They will have a new service from the
leading manufacturer, and the old plate, except a few apostle spoons, and a cup
which Charles the Second drank a health in to their pretty ancestress, is sent to be
melted down, and made up with new flourishes and fresh lustre. Now, so long as this
is the case—so long, observe, as fashion has influence on the manufacture of
plate—so long you cannot have a goldsmith's art in this country. Do you suppose
any workman worthy the name will put his brains into a cup or an urn, which he
knows is to go to the melting pot in half a score years? He will not; you don't ask or
expect it of him. You ask of him nothing but a little quick handicraft—a clever twist of
a handle here, and a foot there, a convolvulus from the newest school of design, a
pheasant from Landseer's game cards; a couple of sentimental figures for
supporters, in the style of the signs of insurance offices, then a clever touch with the
burnisher, and there's your epergne, the admiration of all the footmen at the
wedding-breakfast, and the torment of some unfortunate youth who cannot see the
pretty girl opposite to him, through its tyrannous branches.

But you don't suppose that that's goldsmith's work? Goldsmith's work is made to last,
and made with the man's whole heart and soul in it; true goldsmith's work, when it
exists, is generally the means of education of the greatest painters and sculptors of
the day. Francia was a goldsmith; Francia was not his own name, but that of his
master the jeweller; and he signed his pictures almost always, "Francia, the
goldsmith," for love of his master; Ghirlandajo was a goldsmith, and was the master
of Michael Angelo; Verrocchio was a goldsmith, and was the master of Leonardo da
Vinci. Ghiberti was a goldsmith, and beat out the bronze gates which Michael Angelo
said might serve for gates of Paradise. 5 But if ever you want work like theirs again,
you must keep it, though it should have the misfortune to become old fashioned. You
must not break it up, nor melt it any more. There is no economy in that; you could not
easily waste intellect more grievously. Nature may melt her goldsmith's work at every
sunset if she chooses; and beat it out into chased bars again at every sunrise; but
you must not. The way to have a truly noble service of plate, is to keep adding to it,
not melting it. At every marriage, and at every birth, get a new piece of gold or silver
if you will, but with noble workmanship on it, done for all time, and put it among your
treasures; that is one of the chief things which gold was made for, and made
incorruptible for. When we know a little more of political economy, we shall find that
none but partially savage nations need, imperatively, gold for their currency; 6 but

5
Several reasons may account for the fact that goldsmith's work is so wholesome for young artists;
first, that it gives great firmness of hand to deal for some time with a solid substance; again, that it
induces caution and steadiness—a boy trusted with chalk and paper suffers an immediate temptation
to scrawl upon it and play with it, but he dares not scrawl on gold, and he cannot play with it; and,
lastly, that it gives great delicacy and precision of touch to work upon minute forms, and to aim at
producing richness and finish of design correspondent to the preciousness of the material.
6
See note in Addenda on the nature of property
 22

gold has been given us, among other things, that we might put beautiful work into its
imperishable splendour, and that the artists who have the most wilful fancies may
have a material which will drag out, and beat out, as their dreams require, and will
hold itself together with fantastic tenacity, whatever rare and delicate service they set
it upon.

So here is one branch of decorative art in which rich people may indulge themselves
unselfishly; if they ask for good art in it, they may be sure in buying gold and silver
plate that they are enforcing useful education on young artists. But there is another
branch of decorative art in which I am sorry to say we cannot, at least under existing
circumstances, indulge ourselves, with the hope of doing good to anybody, I mean
the great and subtle art of dress.

And here I must interrupt the pursuit of our subject for a moment or two, in order to
state one of the principles of political economy, which, though it is, I believe, now
sufficiently understood and asserted by the leading masters of the science, is not
yet, I grieve to say, acted upon by the plurality of those who have the management
of riches. Whenever we spend money, we of course set people to work: that is the
meaning of spending money; we may, indeed, lose it without employing anybody;
but, whenever we spend it, we set a number of people to work, greater or less, of
course, according to the rate of wages, but, in the long run, proportioned to the sum
we spend. Well, your shallow people, because they see that however they spend
money they are always employing somebody, and, therefore, doing some good,
think and say to themselves, that it is all one how they spend it—that all their
apparently selfish luxury is, in reality, unselfish, and is doing just as much good as if
they gave all their money away, or perhaps more good; and I have heard foolish
people even declare it as a principle of political economy, that whoever invented a
new want (see note 5) conferred a good on the community. I have not words strong
enough—at least I could not, without shocking you, use the words which would be
strong enough—to express my estimate of the absurdity and the mischievousness of
this popular fallacy. So, putting a great restraint upon myself, and using no hard
words, I will simply try to state the nature of it, and the extent of its influence.

Granted, that whenever we spend money for whatever purpose, we set people to
work; and, passing by, for the moment, the question whether the work we set them
to is all equally healthy and good for them, we will assume that whenever we spend
a guinea we provide an equal number of people with healthy maintenance for a
given time. But, by the way in which we spend it, we entirely direct the labour of
those people during that given time. We become their masters or mistresses, and we
compel them to produce, within a certain period, a certain article. Now, that article
may be a useful and lasting one, or it may be a useless and perishable one—it may
be one useful to the whole community, or useful only to ourselves. And our
selfishness and folly, or our virtue and prudence, are shown, not by our spending
money, but by our spending it for the wrong or the right thing; and we are wise and
kind, not in maintaining a certain number of people for a given period, but only in
 23

requiring them to produce, during that period, the kind of things which shall be useful
to society, instead of those which are only useful to ourselves.

Thus, for instance: if you are a young lady, and employ a certain number of
sempstresses for a given time, in making a given number of simple and serviceable
dresses, suppose, seven; of which you can wear one yourself for half the winter, and
give six away to poor girls who have none, you are spending your money unselfishly.
But if you employ the same number of sempstresses for the same number of days,
in making four, or five, or six beautiful flounces for your own ball-dress—flounces
which will clothe no one but yourself, and which you will yourself be unable to wear
at more than one ball—you are employing your money selfishly. You have
maintained, indeed, in each case, the same number of people; but in the one case
you have directed their labour to the service of the community; in the other case you
have consumed it wholly upon yourself. I don't say you are never to do so; I don't say
you ought not sometimes to think of yourselves only, and to make yourselves as
pretty as you can; only do not confuse coquettishness with benevolence, nor cheat
yourselves into thinking that all the finery you can wear is so much put into the
hungry mouths of those beneath you: it is not so; it is what you yourselves, whether
you will or no, must sometimes instinctively feel it to be—it is what those who stand
shivering in the streets, forming a line to watch you as you step out of your
carriages, know it to be; those fine dresses do not mean that so much has been put
into their mouths, but that so much has been taken out of their mouths. The real
politico-economical signification of every one of those beautiful toilettes, is just this;
that you have had a certain number of people put for a certain number of days wholly
under your authority, by the sternest of slave-masters—hunger and cold; and you
have said to them, "I will feed you, indeed, and clothe you, and give you fuel for so
many days; but during those days you shall work for me only: your little brothers
need clothes, but you shall make none for them: your sick friend needs clothes, but
you shall make none for her: you yourself will soon need another, and a warmer
dress; but you shall make none for yourself. You shall make nothing but lace and
roses for me; for this fortnight to come, you shall work at the patterns and petals, and
then I will crush and consume them away in an hour." You will perhaps answer—"It
may not be particularly benevolent to do this, and we won't call it so; but at any rate
we do no wrong in taking their labour when we pay them their wages: if we pay for
their work we have a right to it." No;—a thousand times no. The labour which you
have paid for, does indeed become, by the act of purchase, your own labour: you
have bought the hands and the time of those workers; they are, by right and justice,
your own hands, your own time. But, have you a right to spend your own time, to
work with your own hands, only for your own advantage?—much more, when, by
purchase, you have invested your own person with the strength of others; and added
to your own life, a part of the life of others? You may, indeed, to a certain extent, use
their labour for your delight: remember, I am making no general assertions against
splendour of dress, or pomp of accessories of life; on the contrary, there are many
reasons for thinking that we do not at present attach enough importance to beautiful
 24

dress, as one of the means of influencing general taste and character. But I do say,
that you must weigh the value of what you ask these workers to produce for you in
its own distinct balance; that on its own worthiness or desirableness rests the
question of your kindness, and not merely on the fact of your having employed
people in producing it: and I say farther, that as long as there are cold and
nakedness in the land around you, so long there can be no question at all but that
splendour of dress is a crime. In due time, when we have nothing better to set
people to work at, it may be right to let them make lace and cut jewels; but, as long
as there are any who have no blankets for their beds, and no rags for their bodies,
so long it is blanket-making and tailoring we must set people to work at—not lace.

And it would be strange, if at any great assembly which, while it dazzled the young
and the thoughtless, beguiled the gentler hearts that beat beneath the embroidery,
with a placid sensation of luxurious benevolence—as if by all that they wore in
waywardness of beauty, comfort had been first given to the distressed, and aid to the
indigent; it would be strange, I say, if, for a moment, the spirits of Truth and of Terror,
which walk invisibly among the masques of the earth, would lift the dimness from our
erring thoughts, and show us how—inasmuch as the sums exhausted for that
magnificence would have given back the failing breath to many an unsheltered
outcast on moor and street—they who wear it have literally entered into partnership
with Death; and dressed themselves in his spoils. Yes, if the veil could be lifted not
only from your thoughts, but from your human sight, you would see—the angels do
see—on those gay white dresses of yours, strange dark spots, and crimson patterns
that you knew not of—spots of the inextinguishable red that all the seas cannot wash
away; yes, and among the pleasant flowers that crown your fair heads, and glow on
your wreathed hair, you would see that one weed was always twisted which no one
thought of—the grass that grows on graves.

It was not, however, this last, this clearest and most appalling view of our subject,
that I intended to ask you to take this evening; only it is impossible to set any part of
the matter in its true light, until we go to the root of it. But the point which it is our
special business to consider is, not whether costliness of dress is contrary to charity;
but whether it is not contrary to mere worldly wisdom: whether, even supposing we
knew that splendour of dress did not cost suffering or hunger, we might not put the
splendour better in other things than dress. And, supposing our mode of dress were
really graceful or beautiful, this might be a very doubtful question; for I believe true
nobleness of dress to be an important means of education, as it certainly is a
necessity to any nation which wishes to possess living art, concerned with portraiture
of human nature. No good historical painting ever yet existed, or ever can exist,
where the dresses of the people of the time are not beautiful: and had it not been for
the lovely and fantastic dressing of the 13th to the 16th centuries, neither French, nor
Florentine, nor Venetian art could have risen to anything like the rank it reached.
Still, even then, the best dressing was never the costliest; and its effect depended
much more on its beautiful and, in early times, modest, arrangement, and on the
 25

simple and lovely masses of its colour, than on gorgeousness of clasp or

embroidery. Whether we can ever return to any of those more perfect types of form,
is questionable; but there can be no question, that all the money we spend on the
forms of dress at present worn, is, so far as any good purpose is concerned, wholly
lost. Mind, in saying this, I reckon among good purposes, the purpose which young
ladies are said sometimes to entertain—of being married; but they would be married
quite as soon (and probably to wiser and better husbands) by dressing quietly, as by
dressing brilliantly: and I believe it would only be needed to lay fairly and largely
before them the real good which might be effected by the sums they spend in
toilettes, to make them trust at once only to their bright eyes and braided hair for all
the mischief they have a mind to. I wish we could, for once, get the statistics of a
London season. There was much complaining talk in Parliament last week, of the
vast sum the nation has given for the best Paul Veronese in Venice—£14,000: I
wonder what the nation meanwhile has given for its ball-dresses! Suppose we could
see the London milliners' bills, simply for unnecessary breadths of slip and flounce,
from April to July; I wonder whether £14,000 would cover them. But the breadths of
slip and flounce are by this time as much lost and vanished as last year's snow; only
they have done less good: but the Paul Veronese will last for centuries, if we take
care of it; and yet we grumble at the price given for the painting, while no one
grumbles at the price of pride.

Time does not permit me to go into any farther illustration of the various modes in
which we build our statue out of snow, and waste our labour on things that vanish. I
must leave you to follow out the subject for yourselves, as I said I should, and
proceed, in our next lecture, to examine the two other branches of our subject,
namely, how to accumulate our art, and how to distribute it. But, in closing, as we
have been much on the topic of good government, both of ourselves and others, let
me just give you one more illustration of what it means, from that old art of which,
next evening, I shall try to convince you that the value, both moral and mercantile, is
greater than we usually suppose.

One of the frescoes by Ambrozio Lorenzetti, in the town-hall of Siena, represents, by

means of symbolical figures, the principles of Good Civic Government and of Good
Government in general. The figure representing this noble Civic Government is
enthroned, and surrounded by figures representing the Virtues, variously supporting
or administering its authority. Now, observe what work is given to each of these
virtues. Three winged ones—Faith, Hope, and Charity—surround the head of the
figure, not in mere compliance with the common and heraldic laws of precedence
among Virtues, such as we moderns observe habitually, but with peculiar purpose on
the part of the painter. Faith, as thus represented, ruling the thoughts of the Good
Governour, does not mean merely religious faith, understood in those times to be
necessary to all persons—governed no less than governours—but it means the faith
which enables work to be carried out steadily, in spite of adverse appearances and
expediencies; the faith in great principles, by which a civic ruler looks past all the
 26

immediate checks and shadows that would daunt a common man, knowing that what
is rightly done will have a right issue, and holding his way in spite of pullings at his
cloak and whisperings in his ear, enduring, as having in him a faith which is evidence
of things unseen. And Hope, in like manner, is here not the heavenward hope which
ought to animate the hearts of all men; but she attends upon Good Government, to
show that all such government is expectant as well as conservative; that if it ceases
to be hopeful of better things, it ceases to be a wise guardian of present things: that
it ought never, as long as the world lasts, to be wholly content with any existing state
of institution or possession, but to be hopeful still of more wisdom and power; not
clutching at it restlessly or hastily, but feeling that its real life consists in steady
ascent from high to higher: conservative, indeed, and jealously conservative of old
things, but conservative of them as pillars, not as pinnacles—as aids, but not as
idols; and hopeful chiefly, and active, in times of national trial or distress, according
to those first and notable words describing the queenly nation. "She riseth, while it is
yet night." And again, the winged Charity which is attendant on Good Government
has, in this fresco, a peculiar office. Can you guess what? If you consider the
character of contest which so often takes place among kings for their crowns, and
the selfish and tyrannous means they commonly take to aggrandize or secure their
power, you will, perhaps, be surprised to hear that the office of Charity is to crown
the King. And yet, if you think of it a little, you will see the beauty of the thought
which sets her in this function: since in the first place, all the authority of a good
governor should be desired by him only for the good of his people, so that it is only
Love that makes him accept or guard his crown: in the second place, his chief
greatness consists in the exercise of this love, and he is truly to be revered only so
far as his acts and thoughts are those of kindness; so that Love is the light of his
crown, as well as the giver of it: lastly, because his strength depends on the
affections of his people, and it is only their love which can securely crown him, and
for ever. So that Love is the strength of his crown as well as the light of it.

Then, surrounding the King, or in various obedience to him, appear the dependent
virtues, as Fortitude, Temperance, Truth, and other attendant spirits, of all which I
cannot now give account, wishing you only to notice the one to whom are entrusted
the guidance and administration of the public revenues. Can you guess which it is
likely to be? Charity, you would have thought, should have something to do with the
business; but not so, for she is too hot to attend carefully to it. Prudence, perhaps,
you think of in the next place. No, she is too timid, and loses opportunities in making
up her mind. Can it be Liberality then? No: Liberality is entrusted with some small
sums; but she is a bad accountant, and is allowed no important place in the
exchequer. But the treasures are given in charge to a virtue of which we hear too
little in modern times, as distinct from others; Magnanimity: largeness of heart: not
softness or weakness of heart, mind you—but capacity of heart—the
great measuring virtue, which weighs in heavenly balances all that may be given,
and all that may be gained; and sees how to do noblest things in noblest ways:
which of two goods comprehends and therefore chooses the greatest: which of two
 27

personal sacrifices dares and accepts the largest: which, out of the avenues of
beneficence, treads always that which opens farthest into the blue fields of futurity:
that character, in fine, which, in those words taken by us at first for the description of
a Queen among the nations, looks less to the present power than to the distant
promise; "Strength and honour are in her clothing—and she shall rejoice IN TIME TO
COME."
 28

LECTURE 2

The heads of our subject which remain for our consideration this evening are, you
will remember, the accumulation and the distribution of works of art. Our complete
inquiry fell into four divisions—first, how to get our genius; then, how to apply our
genius; then, how to accumulate its results; and lastly, how to distribute them. We
considered, last evening, how to discover and apply it;—we have to-night to examine
the modes of its preservation and distribution.

III. Accumulation.—And now, in the outset, it will be well to face that objection which
we put aside a little while ago; namely, that perhaps it is not well to have a great deal
of good art; and that it should not be made too cheap.

"Nay," I can imagine some of the more generous among you, exclaiming, "we will not
trouble you to disprove that objection; of course it is a selfish and base one: good art,
as well as other good things, ought to be made as cheap as possible, and put as far
as we can within the reach of everybody."

Pardon me, I am not prepared to admit that. I rather side with the selfish objectors,
and believe that art ought not to be made cheap, beyond a certain point; for the
amount of pleasure that you can receive from any great work, depends wholly on the
quantity of attention and energy of mind you can bring to bear upon it. Now, that
attention and energy depend much more on the freshness of the thing than you
would at all suppose; unless you very carefully studied the movements of your own
minds. If you see things of the same kind and of equal value very frequently, your
reverence for them is infallibly diminished, your powers of attention get gradually
wearied, and your interest and enthusiasm worn out; and you cannot in that state
bring to any given work the energy necessary to enjoy it. If, indeed, the question
were only between enjoying a great many pictures each a little, or one picture very
much, the sum of enjoyment being in each case the same, you might rationally
desire to possess rather the larger quantity, than the small; both because one work
of art always in some sort illustrates another, and because quantity diminishes the
chances of destruction. But the question is not a merely arithmetical one of this kind.
Your fragments of broken admirations will not, when they are put together, make up
one whole admiration; two and two, in this case, do not make four, nor anything like
four. Your good picture, or book, or work of art of any kind, is always in some degree
fenced and closed about with difficulty. You may think of it as of a kind of cocoa-nut,
with very often rather an unseemly shell, but good milk and kernel inside. Now, if you
possess twenty cocoa-nuts, and being thirsty, go impatiently from one to the other,
giving only a single scratch with the point of your knife to the shell of each, you will
get no milk from all the twenty. But if you leave nineteen of them alone, and give
twenty cuts to the shell of one, you will get through it, and at the milk of it. And the
 29

tendency of the human mind is always to get tired before it has made its twenty cuts;
and to try another nut; and moreover, even if it has perseverance enough to crack its
nuts, it is sure to try to eat too many, and so choke itself. Hence, it is wisely
appointed for us that few of the things we desire can be had without considerable
labour, and at considerable intervals of time. We cannot generally get our dinner
without working for it, and that gives us appetite for it; we cannot get our holiday
without waiting for it, and that gives us zest for it; and we ought not to get our picture
without paying for it, and that gives us a mind to look at it. Nay, I will even go so far
as to say, that we ought not to get books too cheaply. No book, I believe, is ever
worth half so much to its reader as one that has been coveted for a year at a
bookstall, and bought out of saved half-pence; and perhaps a day or two's fasting.
That's the way to get at the cream of a book. And I should say more on this matter,
and protest as energetically as I could against the plague of cheap literature, with
which we are just now afflicted, but that I fear your calling me to order, as being
unpractical, because I don't quite see my way at present to making everybody fast
for their books. But one may see that a thing is desirable and possible, even though
one may not at once know the best way to it—and in my island of Barataria, when I
get it well into order, I assure you no book shall be sold for less than a pound
sterling; if it can be published cheaper than that, the surplus shall all go into my
treasury, and save my subjects taxation in other directions; only people really poor,
who cannot pay the pound, shall be supplied with the books they want for nothing, in
a certain limited quantity. I haven't made up my mind about the number yet, and
there are several other points in the system yet unsettled; when they are all
determined, if you will allow me, I will come and give you another lecture, on the
political economy of literature.(see note 6)

Meantime, returning to our immediate subject, I say to my generous hearers, who

want to shower Titians and Turners upon us, like falling leaves, "Pictures ought not
to be too cheap;" but in much stronger tone I would say to those who want to keep
up the prices of pictorial property, that pictures ought not to be too dear, that is to
say, not as dear as they are. For, as matters at present stand, it is wholly impossible
for any man in the ordinary circumstances of English life to possess himself of a
piece of great art. A modern drawing of average merit, or a first-class engraving, may
perhaps, not without some self-reproach, be purchased out of his savings by a man
of narrow income; but a satisfactory example of first-rate art—masterhands' work—is
wholly out of his reach. And we are so accustomed to look upon this as the natural
course and necessity of things, that we never set ourselves in any wise to diminish
the evil; and yet it is an evil perfectly capable of diminution. It is an evil precisely
similar in kind to that which existed in the middle ages, respecting good books, and
which everybody then, I suppose, thought as natural as we do now our small supply
of good pictures. You could not then study the work of a great historian, or great
poet, any more than you can now study that of a great painter, but at heavy cost. If
you wanted a book, you had to get it written out for you, or to write it out for yourself.
But printing came, and the poor man may read his Dante and his Homer; and
 30

Dante and Homer are none the worse for that. But it is only in literature that private
persons of moderate fortune can possess and study greatness: they can study at
home no greatness in art; and the object of that accumulation which we are at
present aiming at, as our third object in political economy, is to bring great art in
some degree within the reach of the multitude; and, both in larger and more
numerous galleries than we now possess, and by distribution, according to his
wealth and wish, in each man's home, to render the influence of art somewhat
correspondent in extent to that of literature. Here, then, is the subtle balance which
your economist has to strike: to accumulate so much art as to be able to give the
whole nation a supply of it, according to its need, and yet to regulate its distribution
so that there shall be no glut of it, nor contempt.

A difficult balance, indeed, for us to hold, if it were left merely to our skill to poise; but
the just point between poverty and profusion has been fixed for us accurately by the
wise laws of Providence. If you carefully watch for all the genius you can detect,
apply it to good service, and then reverently preserve what it produces, you will
never have too little art; and if, on the other hand, you never force an artist to work
hurriedly, for daily bread, nor imperfectly, because you would rather have showy
works than complete ones, you will never have too much. Do not force the
multiplication of art, and you will not have it too cheap; do not wantonly destroy it,
and you will not have it too dear.

"But who wantonly destroys it?" you will ask. Why, we all do. Perhaps you thought,
when I came to this part of our subject, corresponding to that set forth in our
housewife's economy by the "keeping her embroidery from the moth," that I was
going to tell you only how to take better care of pictures, how to clean them, and
varnish them, and where to put them away safely when you went out of town. Ah, not
at all. The utmost I have to ask of you is, that you will not pull them to pieces, and
trample them under your feet. "What!" you will say, "when do we do such things?
Haven't we built a perfectly beautiful gallery for all the pictures we have to take care
of?" Yes, you have, for the pictures which are definitely sent to Manchester to be
taken care of. But there are quantities of pictures out of Manchester which it is your
business, and mine too, to take care of no less than of these, and which we are at
this moment employing ourselves in pulling to pieces by deputy. I will tell you what
they are, and where they are, in a minute; only first let me state one more of those
main principles of political economy on which the matter hinges.

I must begin a little apparently wide of the mark, and ask you to reflect if there is any
way in which we waste money more in England, than in building fine tombs? Our
respect for the dead, when they are just dead, is something wonderful, and the way
we show it more wonderful still. We show it with black feathers and black horses; we
show it with black dresses and bright heraldries; we show it with costly obelisks and
sculptures of sorrow, which spoil half of our most beautiful cathedrals. We show it
with frightful gratings and vaults, and lids of dismal stone, in the midst of the quiet
grass; and last, and not least, we show it by permitting ourselves to tell any number
 31

of lies we think amiable or credible, in the epitaph. This feeling is common to the
poor as well as the rich, and we all know how many a poor family will nearly ruin
themselves, to testify their respect for some member of it in his coffin, whom they
never much cared for when he was out of it; and how often it happens that a poor old
woman will starve herself to death, in order that she may be respectably buried.

Now, this being one of the most complete and special ways of wasting money;—no
money being less productive of good, or of any percentage whatever, than that
which we shake away from the ends of undertakers' plumes—it is of course the duty
of all good economists, and kind persons, to prove and proclaim continually, to the
poor as well as the rich, that respect for the dead is not really shown by laying great
stones on them to tell us where they are laid; but by remembering where they are
laid, without a stone to help us; trusting them to the sacred grass and saddened
flowers; and still more, that respect and love are shown to them, not by great
monuments to them which we build with our hands, but by letting the monuments
stand, which they built with their own. And this is the point now in question.

Observe, there are two great reciprocal duties concerning industry, constantly to be
exchanged between the living and the dead. We, as we live and work, are to be
always thinking of those who are to come after us; that what we do may be
serviceable, as far as we can make it so, to them as well as to us. Then, when we
die, it is the duty of those who come after us to accept this work of ours with thanks
and remembrance, not thrusting it aside or tearing it down the moment they think
they have no use for it. And each generation will only be happy or powerful to the
pitch that it ought to be, in fulfilling these two duties to the Past and the Future. Its
own work will never be rightly done, even for itself—never good, or noble, or
pleasurable to its own eyes—if it does not prepare it also for the eyes of generations
yet to come. And its own possessions will never be enough for it, and its own
wisdom never enough for it, unless it avails itself gratefully and tenderly of the
treasures and the wisdom bequeathed to it by its ancestors.

For, be assured, that all the best things and treasures of this world are not to be
produced by each generation for itself; but we are all intended, not to carve our work
in snow that will melt, but each and all of us to be continually rolling a great white
gathering snowball, higher and higher—larger and larger—along the Alps of human
power. Thus the science of nations is to be accumulative from father to son: each
learning a little more and a little more; each receiving all that was known, and adding
its own gain: the history and poetry of nations are to be accumulative; each
generation treasuring the history and the songs of its ancestors, adding its own
history and its own songs: and the art of nations is to be accumulative, just as
science and history are; the work of living men not superseding, but building itself
upon the work of the past. Nearly every great and intellectual race of the world has
produced, at every period of its career, an art with some peculiar and precious
character about it, wholly unattainable by any other race, and at any other time; and
the intention of Providence concerning that art, is evidently that it should all grow
 32

together into one mighty temple; the rough stones and the smooth all finding their
place, and rising, day by day, in richer and higher pinnacles to heaven.

Now, just fancy what a position the world, considered as one great workroom—one
great factory in the form of a globe—would have been in by this time, if it had in the
least understood this duty, or been capable of it. Fancy what we should have had
around us now, if, instead of quarrelling and fighting over their work, the nations had
aided each other in their work, or if even in their conquests, instead of effacing the
memorials of those they succeeded and subdued, they had guarded the spoils of
their victories. Fancy what Europe would be now, if the delicate statues and temples
of the Greeks,—if the broad roads and massy walls of the Romans,—if the noble and
pathetic architecture of the middle ages, had not been ground to dust by mere
human rage. You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is
scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm—we who smite like the
scythe. It is ourselves who abolish—ourselves who consume: we are the mildew,
and the flame, and the soul of man is to its own work as the moth, that frets when it
cannot fly, and as the hidden flame that blasts where it cannot illumine. All these lost
treasures of human intellect have been wholly destroyed by human industry of
destruction; the marble would have stood its two thousand years as well in the
polished statue as in the Parian cliff; but we men have ground it to powder, and
mixed it with our own ashes. The walls and the ways would have stood—it is we who
have left not one stone upon another, and restored its pathlessness to the desert;
the great cathedrals of old religion would have stood—it is we who have dashed
down the carved work with axes and hammers, and bid the mountain-grass bloom
upon the pavement, and the sea-winds chaunt in the galleries.

You will perhaps think all this was somehow necessary for the development of the
human race. I cannot stay now to dispute that, though I would willingly; but do you
think it is still necessary for that development? Do you think that in this nineteenth
century it is still necessary for the European nations to turn all the places where their
principal art-treasures are into battle-fields? For that is what they are doing even
while I speak; the great firm of the world is managing its business at this moment,
just as it has done in past time. Imagine what would be the thriving circumstances of
a manufacturer of some delicate produce—suppose glass, or china—in whose
workshop and exhibition rooms all the workmen and clerks began fighting at least
once a day, first blowing off the steam, and breaking all the machinery they could
reach; and then making fortresses of all the cupboards, and attacking and defending
the show-tables, the victorious party finally throwing everything they could get hold of
out of the window, by way of showing their triumph, and the poor manufacturer
picking up and putting away at last a cup here and a handle there. A fine prosperous
business that would be, would it not? and yet that is precisely the way the great
manufacturing firm of the world carries on its business.

It has so arranged its political squabbles for the last six or seven hundred years, that
not one of them could be fought out but in the midst of its most precious art; and it so
 33

arranges them to this day. For example, if I were asked to lay my finger, in a map of
the world, on the spot of the world's surface which contained at this moment the
most singular concentration of art-teaching and art-treasure, I should lay it on the
name of the town of Verona. Other cities, indeed, contain more works of carriageable
art, but none contain so much of the glorious local art, and of the springs and
sources of art, which can by no means be made subjects of package or porterage,
nor, I grieve to say, of salvage. Verona possesses, in the first place, not the largest,
but the most perfect and intelligible Roman amphitheatre that exists, still unbroken in
circle of step, and strong in succession of vault and arch: it contains minor Roman
monuments, gateways, theatres, baths, wrecks of temples, which give the streets of
its suburbs a character of antiquity unexampled elsewhere, except in Rome itself.
But it contains, in the next place, what Rome does not contain—perfect examples of
the great twelfth-century Lombardic architecture, which was the root of all the
mediæval art of Italy, without which no Giottos, no Angelicos, no Raphaels would
have been possible: it contains that architecture, not in rude forms, but in the most
perfect and loveliest types it ever attained—contains those, not in ruins, nor in
altered and hardly decipherable fragments, but in churches perfect from porch to
apse, with all their carving fresh, their pillars firm, their joints unloosened. Besides
these, it includes examples of the great thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Gothic of
Italy, not merely perfect, but elsewhere unrivalled. At Rome, the Roman—at Pisa,
the Lombard, architecture may be seen in greater or in equal nobleness; but not at
Rome, nor Pisa, nor Florence, nor in any city of the world, is there a great mediæval
Gothic like the Gothic of Verona. Elsewhere, it is either less pure in type or less
lovely in completion: only at Verona may you see it in the simplicity of its youthful
power, and the tenderness of its accomplished beauty. And Verona possesses, in
the last place, the loveliest Renaissance architecture of Italy, not disturbed by pride,
nor defiled by luxury, but rising in fair fulfilment of domestic service, serenity of
effortless grace, and modesty of home seclusion; its richest work given to the
windows that open on the narrowest streets and most silent gardens. All this she
possesses, in the midst of natural scenery such as assuredly exists nowhere else in
the habitable globe—a wild Alpine river foaming at her feet, from whose shore the
rocks rise in a great crescent, dark with cypress, and misty with olive: illimitably, from
before her southern gates, the tufted plains of Italy sweep and fade in golden light;
around her, north and west, the Alps crowd in crested troops, and the winds of
Benacus bear to her the coolness of their snows.

And this is the city—such, and possessing such things as these—at whose gates the
decisive battles of Italy are fought continually: three days her towers trembled with
the echo of the cannon of Arcola; heaped pebbles of the Mincio divide her fields to
this hour with lines of broken rampart, whence the tide of war rolled back to Novara;
and now on that crescent of her eastern cliffs, whence the full moon used to rise
through the bars of the cypresses in her burning summer twilights, touching with soft
increase of silver light the rosy marbles of her balconies—along the ridge of that
encompassing rock, other circles are increasing now, white and pale; walled towers
 34

of cruel strength, sable-spotted with cannon-courses. I tell you, I have seen, when
the thunderclouds came down on those Italian hills, and all their crags were dipped
in the dark, terrible purple, as if the winepress of the wrath of God had stained their
mountain-raiment—I have seen the hail fall in Italy till the forest branches stood
stripped and bare as if blasted by the locust; but the white hail never fell from those
clouds of heaven as the black hail will fall from the clouds of hell, if ever one breath
of Italian life stirs again in the streets of Verona.

Sad as you will feel this to be, I do not say that you can directly prevent it; you
cannot drive the Austrians out of Italy, nor prevent them from building forts where
they choose. But I do say, 7 that you, and I, and all of us, ought to be both acting and
feeling with a full knowledge and understanding of these things, and that, without
trying to excite revolutions or weaken governments, we may give our own thoughts
and help, so as in a measure to prevent needless destruction. We should do this, if
we only realized the thing thoroughly. You drive out day by day through your own
pretty suburbs, and you think only of making, with what money you have to spare,
your gateways handsomer, and your carriage-drives wider—and your drawing-rooms
more splendid, having a vague notion that you are all the while patronizing and
advancing art, and you make no effort to conceal the fact, that within a few hours'
journey of you, there are gateways and drawing-rooms which might just as well be
yours as these, all built already; gateways built by the greatest masters of sculpture
7
The reader can hardly but remember Mrs. Browning's beautiful appeal for Italy, made on the
occasion of the first great Exhibition of Art in England:—
"O Magi of the east and of the west,
Your incense, gold, and myrrh are excellent!—
What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest?
Your hands have worked well. Is your courage spent
In handwork only? Have you nothing best,
Which generous souls may perfect and present,
And He shall thank the givers for? no light
Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor,
Who sit in darkness when it is not night?
No cure for wicked children? Christ,—no cure,
No help for women, sobbing out of sight
Because men made the laws? no brothel-lure
Burnt out by popular lightnings? Hast thou found
No remedy, my England, for such woes?
No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound,
No call back for the exiled? no repose,
Russia, for knouted Poles worked underground,
And gentle ladies bleached among the snows?
No mercy for the slave, America?
No hope for Rome, free France, chivalric France?
Alas, great nations have great shames, I say.
No pity, O world, no tender utterance
Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way
For poor Italia, baffled by mischance?
O gracious nations, give some ear to me!
You all go to your Fair, and I am one
Who at the roadside of humanity
Beseech your alms,—God's justice to be done.
So, prosper!"
 35

that ever struck marble; drawing-rooms, painted by Titian and Veronese; and you
won't accept, nor save these as they are, but you will rather fetch the house-painter
from over the way, and let Titian and Veronese house the rats. "Yes," of course, you
answer; "we want nice houses here, not houses in Verona. What should we do with
houses in Verona?" And I answer, do precisely what you do with the most expensive
part of your possessions here: take pride in them—only a noble pride. You know
well, when you examine your own hearts, that the greater part of the sums you
spend on possessions are spent for pride. Why are your carriages nicely painted and
finished outside? You don't see the outsides as you sit in them—the outsides are for
other people to see. Why are your exteriors of houses so well finished, your furniture
so polished and costly, but for other people to see? You are just as comfortable
yourselves, writing on your old friend of a desk, with the white cloudings in his
leather, and using the light of a window which is nothing but a hole in the brick wall.
And all that is desirable to be done in this matter, is merely to take pride in
preserving great art, instead of in producing mean art; pride in the possession of
precious and enduring things, a little way off, instead of slight and perishing things
near at hand. You know, in old English times, our kings liked to have lordships and
dukedoms abroad, and why should not you merchant princes like to have lordships
and estates abroad? Believe me, rightly understood, it would be a prouder, and in
the full sense of our English word, more "respectable" thing to be lord of a palace at
Verona, or of a cloister full of frescos at Florence, than to have a file of servants
dressed in the finest liveries that ever tailor stitched, as long as would reach from
here to Bolton:—yes, and a prouder thing to send people to travel in Italy, who would
have to say every now and then, of some fair piece of art, "Ah! this was kept here for
us by the good people of Manchester," than to bring them travelling all the way here,
exclaiming of your various art treasures, "These were brought here for us, (not
altogether without harm) by the good people of Manchester." "Ah!" but you say, "the
Art Treasures Exhibition will pay; but Veronese palaces won't." Pardon me.
They would pay, less directly, but far more richly. Do you suppose it is in the long run
good for Manchester, or good for England, that the Continent should be in the state it
is? Do you think the perpetual fear of revolution, or the perpetual repression of
thought and energy that clouds and encumbers the nations of Europe, is eventually
profitable for us? Were we any the better of the course of affairs in '48; or has the
stabling of the dragoon horses in the great houses of Italy, any distinct effect in the
promotion of the cotton-trade? Not so. But every stake that you could hold in the
stability of the Continent, and every effort that you could make to give example of
English habits and principles on the Continent, and every kind deed that you could
do in relieving distress and preventing despair on the Continent, would have tenfold
reaction on the prosperity of England, and open and urge, in a thousand unforeseen
directions, the sluices of commerce and the springs of industry.

I could press, if I chose, both these motives upon you, of pride and self-interest, with
more force, but these are not motives which ought to be urged upon you at all. The
only motive that I ought to put before you is simply that it would be right to do this;
 36

that the holding of property abroad, and the personal efforts of Englishmen to
redeem the condition of foreign nations, are among the most direct pieces of duty
which our wealth renders incumbent upon us. I do not—and in all truth and
deliberateness I say this—I do not know anything more ludicrous among the self-
deceptions of well-meaning people than their notion of patriotism, as requiring them
to limit their efforts to the good of their own country;—the notion that charity is a
geographical virtue, and that what it is holy and righteous to do for people on one
bank of a river, it is quite improper and unnatural to do for people on the other. It will
be a wonderful thing, some day or other, for the Christian world to remember, that it
went on thinking for two thousand years that neighbours were neighbours at
Jerusalem, but not at Jericho; a wonderful thing for us English to reflect, in after-
years, how long it was before we could shake hands with anybody across that
shallow salt wash, which the very chalk-dust of its two shores whitens from
Folkestone to Ambleteuse.

Nor ought the motive of gratitude, as well as that of mercy, to be without its influence
on you, who have been the first to ask to see, and the first to show to us, the
treasures which this poor lost Italy has given to England. Remember all these things
that delight you here were hers—hers either in fact or in teaching; hers, in fact, are
all the most powerful and most touching paintings of old time that now glow upon
your walls; hers in teaching are all the best and greatest of descendant souls—your
Reynolds and your Gainsborough never could have painted but for Venice; and the
energies which have given the only true life to your existing art were first stirred by
voices of the dead, that haunted the Sacred Field of Pisa.

Well, all these motives for some definite course of action on our part towards foreign
countries rest upon very serious facts; too serious, perhaps you will think, to be
interfered with; for we are all of us in the habit of leaving great things alone, as if
Providence would mind them, and attending ourselves only to little things which we
know, practically, Providence doesn't mind unless we do. We are ready enough to
give care to the growing of pines and lettuces, knowing that they don't grow
Providentially sweet or large unless we look after them; but we don't give any care to
the good of Italy or Germany, because we think that they will grow Providentially
happy without any of our meddling.

Let us leave the great things, then, and think of little things; not of the destruction of
whole provinces in war, which it may not be any business of ours to prevent; but of
the destruction of poor little pictures in peace, from which it surely would not be
much out of our way to save them. You know I said, just now, we were all of us
engaged in pulling pictures to pieces by deputy, and you did not believe me.
Consider, then, this similitude of ourselves. Suppose you saw (as I doubt not you
often do see) a prudent and kind young lady sitting at work, in the corner of a quiet
room, knitting comforters for her cousins, and that just outside, in the hall, you saw a
cat and her kittens at play among the family pictures; amusing themselves especially
with the best Vandykes, by getting on the tops of the frames, and then scrambling
 37

down the canvasses by their claws; and on someone's informing the young lady of
these proceedings of the cat and kittens, suppose she answered that it wasn't her
cat, but her sister's, and the pictures weren't hers, but her uncle's, and she couldn't
leave her work, for she had to make so many pairs of comforters before dinner.
Would you not say that the prudent and kind young lady was, on the whole,
answerable for the additional touches of claw on the Vandykes? Now, that is
precisely what we prudent and kind English are doing, only on a larger scale. Here
we sit in Manchester, hard at work, very properly, making comforters for our cousins
all over the world. Just outside there in the hall—that beautiful marble hall of Italy—
the cats and kittens and monkeys are at play among the pictures: I assure you, in the
course of the fifteen years in which I have been working in those places in which the
most precious remnants of European art exist, a sensation, whether I would or no,
was gradually made distinct and deep in my mind, that I was living and working in
the midst of a den of monkeys;—sometimes amiable and affectionate monkeys, with
all manner of winning ways and kind intentions;—more frequently selfish and
malicious monkeys, but, whatever their disposition, squabbling continually about
nuts, and the best places on the barren sticks of trees; and that all this monkeys' den
was filled, by mischance, with precious pictures, and the witty and wilful beasts were
always wrapping themselves up and going to sleep in pictures, or tearing holes in
them to grin through; or tasting them and spitting them out again, or twisting them up
into ropes and making swings of them; and that sometimes only, by watching one's
opportunity, and bearing a scratch or a bite, one could rescue the corner of a
Tintoret, or Paul Veronese, and push it through the bars into a place of safety.
Literally, I assure you, this was, and this is, the fixed impression on my mind of the
state of matters in Italy. And see how. The professors of art in Italy, having long
followed a method of study peculiar to themselves, have at last arrived at a form of
art peculiar to themselves; very different from that which was arrived at by Correggio
and Titian. Naturally, the professors like their own form the best; and, as the old
pictures are generally not so startling to the eye as the modern ones, the dukes and
counts who possess them, and who like to see their galleries look new and fine (and
are persuaded also that a celebrated chef-d'œuvre ought always to catch the eye at
a quarter of a mile off), believe the professors who tell them their sober pictures are
quite faded, and good for nothing, and should all be brought bright again; and,
accordingly, give the sober pictures to the professors, to be put right by rules of art.
Then, the professors repaint the old pictures in all the principal places, leaving
perhaps only a bit of background to set off their own work. And thus the professors
come to be generally figured in my mind, as the monkeys who tear holes in the
pictures, to grin through. Then the picture-dealers, who live by the pictures, cannot
sell them to the English in their old and pure state; all the good work must be
covered with new paint, and varnished so as to look like one of the professorial
pictures in the great gallery, before it is saleable. And thus the dealers come to be
imaged, in my mind, as the monkeys who make ropes of the pictures, to swing by.
Then, every now and then, in some old stable or wine-cellar, or timber-shed, behind
some forgotten vats or faggots, somebody finds a fresco of Perugino's or Giotto's,
 38

but doesn't think much of it, and has no idea of having people coming into his cellar,
or being obliged to move his faggots; and so he whitewashes the fresco, and puts
the faggots back again; and these kind of persons, therefore, come generally to be
imaged in my mind, as the monkeys who taste the pictures, and spit them out, not
finding them nice. While, finally, the squabbling for nuts and apples (called in Italy
"bella libertà") goes on all day long.

Now, all this might soon be put an end to, if we English, who are so fond of travelling
in the body, would also travel a little in soul. We think it a great triumph to get our
packages and our persons carried at a fast pace, but we never take the slightest
trouble to put any pace into our perceptions; we stay usually at home in thought, or if
we ever mentally see the world, it is at the old stage-coach or waggon rate. Do but
consider what an odd sight it would be, if it were only quite clear to you how things
are really going on—how, here in England, we are making enormous and expensive
efforts to produce new art of all kinds, knowing and confessing all the while that the
greater part of it is bad, but struggling still to produce new patterns of wall-papers,
and new shapes of tea-pots, and new pictures, and statues, and architecture; and
pluming and cackling if ever a tea-pot or a picture has the least good in it;—all the
while taking no thought whatever of the best possible pictures, and statues, and wall-
patterns already in existence, which require nothing but to be taken common care of,
and kept from damp and dust: but we let the walls fall that Giotto patterned, and the
canvasses rot that Tintoret painted, and the architecture be dashed to pieces that St.
Louis built, while we are furnishing our drawing-rooms with prize upholstery, and
writing accounts of our handsome warehouses to the country papers. Don't think I
use my words vaguely or generally: I speak of literal facts. Giotto's frescos at Assisi
are perishing at this moment for want of decent care; Tintoret's pictures in San
Sebastian at Venice, are at this instant rotting piecemeal into grey rags; St. Louis's
Chapel, at Carcassonne, is at this moment lying in shattered fragments in the
market-place. And here we are all cawing and crowing, poor little half-fledged daws
as we are, about the pretty sticks and wool in our own nests. There's hardly a day
passes, when I am at home, but I get a letter from some well-meaning country
clergyman, deeply anxious about the state of his parish church, and breaking his
heart to get money together that he may hold up some wretched remnant of Tudor
tracery, with one niche in the corner and no statue—when all the while the mightiest
piles of religious architecture and sculpture that ever the world saw are being blasted
and withered away, without one glance of pity or regret. The country clergyman does
not care for them—he has a sea-sick imagination that cannot cross Channel. What is
it to him, if the angels of Assisi fade from its vaults, or the queens and kings of
Chartres fall from their pedestals? They are not in his parish.

"What!" you will say, "are we not to produce any new art, nor take care of our parish
churches?" No, certainly not, until you have taken proper care of the art you have got
already, and of the best churches out of the parish. Your first and proper standing is
not as churchwardens and parish overseers in an English county, but as members of
 39

the great Christian community of Europe. And as members of that community (in
which alone, observe, pure and precious ancient art exists, for there is none in
America, none in Asia, none in Africa), you conduct yourselves precisely as a
manufacturer would, who attended to his looms, but left his warehouse without a
roof. The rain floods your warehouse, the rats frolic in it, the spiders spin in it, the
choughs build in it, the wall-plague frets and festers in it, and still you keep weave,
weave, weaving at your wretched webs, and thinking you are growing rich, while
more is gnawed out of your warehouse in an hour than you can weave in a
twelvemonth.

Even this similitude is not absurd enough to set us rightly forth. The weaver would, or
might, at least, hope that his new woof was as stout as the old ones, and that,
therefore, in spite of rain and ravage, he would have something to wrap himself in
when he needed it. But our webs rot as we spin. The very fact that we despise the
great art of the past shows that we cannot produce great art now. If we could do it,
we should love it when we saw it done—if we really cared for it, we should recognise
it and keep it; but we don't care for it. It is not art that we want; it is amusement,
gratification of pride, present gain—anything in the world but art: let it rot, we shall
always have enough to talk about and hang over our sideboards.

You will (I hope) finally ask me what is the outcome of all this, practicable, to-morrow
morning by us who are sitting here? These are the main practical outcomes of it: In
the first place, don't grumble when you hear of a new picture being bought by
Government at a large price. There are many pictures in Europe now in danger of
destruction which are, in the true sense of the word, priceless; the proper price is
simply that which it is necessary to give to get and to save them. If you can get them
for fifty pounds, do; if not for less than a hundred, do; if not for less than five
thousand, do; if not for less than twenty thousand, do; never mind being imposed
upon: there is nothing disgraceful in being imposed upon; the only disgrace is in
imposing; and you can't in general get anything much worth having, in the way of
Continental art, but it must be with the help or connivance of numbers of people who,
indeed, ought to have nothing to do with the matter, but who practically have, and
always will have, everything to do with it; and if you don't choose to submit to be
cheated by them out of a ducat here and a zecchin there, you will be cheated by
them out of your picture; and whether you are most imposed upon in losing that, or
the zecchins, I think I may leave you to judge; though I know there are many political
economists, who would rather leave a bag of gold on a garret-table, than give a
porter sixpence extra to carry it downstairs.

That, then, is the first practical outcome of the matter. Never grumble, but be glad
when you hear of a new picture being bought at a large price. In the long run, the
dearest pictures are always the best bargains; and, I repeat (for else you might think
I said it in mere hurry of talk, and not deliberately), there are some pictures which are
without price. You should stand, nationally, at the edge of Dover cliffs—
 40

Shakespeare's—and wave blank cheques in the eyes of the nations on the other
side of the sea, freely offered, for such and such canvasses of theirs.

Then the next practical outcome of it is: Never buy a copy of a picture, under any
circumstances whatever. All copies are bad; because no painter who is worth a
straw ever will copy. He will make a study of a picture he likes, for his own use, in his
own way; but he won't and can't copy; whenever you buy a copy, you buy so much
misunderstanding of the original, and encourage a dull person in following a
business he is not fit for, besides increasing ultimately chances of mistake and
imposture, and farthering, as directly as money can farther, the cause of ignorance in
all directions. You may, in fact, consider yourself as having purchased a certain
quantity of mistakes; and, according to your power, being engaged in disseminating
them.

I do not mean, however, that copies should never be made. A certain number of dull
persons should always be employed by a Government in making the most accurate
copies possible of all good pictures; these copies, though artistically valueless, would
be historically and documentarily valuable, in the event of the destruction of the
original picture. The studies also made by great artists for their own use, should be
sought after with the greatest eagerness; they are often to be bought cheap; and in
connection with the mechanical copies, would become very precious: tracings from
frescos and other large works are also of great value; for though a tracing is liable to
just as many mistakes as a copy, the mistakes in a tracing are of one kind only,
which may be allowed for, but the mistakes of a common copyist are of all
conceivable kinds: finally, engravings, in so far as they convey certain facts about
the pictures, without pretending adequately to represent or give an idea of the
pictures, are often serviceable and valuable. I can't, of course, enter into details in
these matters just now; only this main piece of advice I can safely give you—never to
buy copies of pictures (for your private possession) which pretend to give
a facsimile that shall be in any wise representative of, or equal to, the original.
Whenever you do so, you are only lowering your taste, and wasting your money. And
if you are generous and wise, you will be ready rather to subscribe as much as you
would have given for a copy of a great picture, towards its purchase, or the purchase
of some other like it, by the nation. There ought to be a great National Society
instituted for the purchase of pictures; presenting them to the various galleries in our
great cities, and watching there over their safety: but in the meantime, you can
always act safely and beneficially by merely allowing your artist friends to buy
pictures for you, when they see good ones. Never buy for yourselves, nor go to the
foreign dealers; but let any painter whom you know be entrusted, when he finds a
neglected old picture in an old house, to try if he cannot get it for you; then, if you like
it, keep it; if not, send it to the hammer, and you will find that you do not lose money
on pictures so purchased.

And the third and chief practical outcome of the matter is this general one: Wherever
you go, whatever you do, act more for preservation and less for production. I assure
 41

you, the world is, generally speaking, in calamitous disorder, and just because you
have managed to thrust some of the lumber aside, and get an available corner for
yourselves, you think you should do nothing but sit spinning in it all day long—while,
as householders and economists, your first thought and effort should be, to set
things more square all about you. Try to set the ground floors in order, and get the
rottenness out of your granaries. Then sit and spin, but not till then.

IV. Distribution.—And now, lastly, we come to the fourth great head of our inquiry,
the question of the wise distribution of the art we have gathered and preserved. It
must be evident to us, at a moment's thought, that the way in which works of art are
on the whole most useful to the nation to which they belong, must be by their
collection in public galleries, supposing those galleries properly managed. But there
is one disadvantage attached necessarily to gallery exhibition, namely, the extent of
mischief which may be done by one foolish curator. As long as the pictures which
form the national wealth are disposed in private collections, the chance is always
that the people who buy them will be just the people who are fond of them; and that
the sense of exchangeable value in the commodity they possess, will induce them,
even if they do not esteem it themselves, to take such care of it as will preserve its
value undiminished. At all events, so long as works of art are scattered through the
nation, no universal destruction of them is possible; a certain average only are lost
by accidents from time to time. But when they are once collected in a large public
gallery, if the appointment of curator becomes in any way a matter of formality, or the
post is so lucrative as to be disputed by place-hunters, let but one foolish or careless
person get possession of it, and perhaps you may have all your fine pictures
repainted, and the national property destroyed, in a month. That is actually the case
at this moment, in several great foreign galleries. They are the places of execution of
pictures: over their doors you only want the Dantesque inscription, "Lasciate ogni
speranza, voi che entrate."

Supposing, however, this danger properly guarded against, as it would be always by

a nation which either knew the value, or understood the meaning, of
painting, 8 arrangement in a public gallery is the safest, as well as the most
serviceable, method of exhibiting pictures; and it is the only mode in which their
historical value can be brought out, and their historical meaning made clear. But
great good is also to be done by encouraging the private possession of pictures;
partly as a means of study (much more being always discovered in any work of art
by a person who has it perpetually near him than by one who only sees it from time
to time), and also as a means of refining the habits and touching the hearts of the
masses of the nation in their domestic life.

8
It would be a great point gained towards the preservation of pictures if it were made a rule that at
every operation they underwent, the exact spots in which they have been re-painted should be
recorded in writing.
 42

For these last purposes the most serviceable art is the living art of the time; the
particular tastes of the people will be best met, and their particular ignorances best
corrected, by painters labouring in the midst of them, more or less guided to the
knowledge of what is wanted by the degree of sympathy with which their work is
received. So then, generally, it should be the object of government, and of all patrons
of art, to collect, as far as may be, the works of dead masters in public galleries,
arranging them so as to illustrate the history of nations, and the progress and
influence of their arts; and to encourage the private possession of the works
of living masters. And the first and best way in which to encourage such private
possession is, of course, to keep down the prices of them as far as you can.

I hope there are not a great many painters in the room; if there are, I entreat their
patience for the next quarter of an hour: if they will bear with me for so long, I hope
they will not, finally, be offended by what I am going to say.

I repeat, trusting to their indulgence in the interim, that the first object of our national
economy, as respects the distribution of modern art, should be steadily and rationally
to limit its prices, since by doing so, you will produce two effects; you will make the
painters produce more pictures, two or three instead of one, if they wish to make
money; and you will, by bringing good pictures within the reach of people of
moderate income, excite the general interest of the nation in them, increase a
thousandfold the demand for the commodity, and therefore its wholesome and
natural production.

I know how many objections must arise in your minds at this moment to what I say;
but you must be aware that it is not possible for me in an hour to explain all the moral
and commercial bearings of such a principle as this. Only, believe me, I do not speak
lightly; I think I have considered all the objections which could be rationally brought
forward, though I have time at present only to glance at the main one, namely, the
idea that the high prices paid for modern pictures are either honourable, or
serviceable, to the painter. So far from this being so, I believe one of the principal
obstacles to the progress of modern art to be the high prices given for good modern
pictures. For observe, first, the action of this high remuneration on the artist's mind. If
he "gets on," as it is called, catches the eye of the public, and especially of the public
of the upper classes, there is hardly any limit to the fortune he may acquire; so that,
in his early years, his mind is naturally led to dwell on this worldly and wealthy
eminence as the main thing to be reached by his art; if he finds that he is not
gradually rising towards it, he thinks there is something wrong in his work; or, if he is
too proud to think that, still the bribe of wealth and honour warps him from his honest
labour into efforts to attract attention; and he gradually loses both his power of mind
and his rectitude of purpose. This, according to the degree of avarice or ambition
which exists in any painter's mind, is the necessary influence upon him of the hope
of great wealth and reputation. But the harm is still greater, in so far as the possibility
of attaining fortune of this kind tempts people continually to become painters who
have no real gift for the work; and on whom these motives of mere worldly
 43

interest have exclusive influence;—men who torment and abuse the patient workers,
eclipse or thrust aside all delicate and good pictures by their own gaudy and coarse
ones, corrupt the taste of the public, and do the greatest amount of mischief to the
schools of art in their day which it is possible for their capacities to effect; and it is
quite wonderful how much mischief may be done even by small capacity. If you
could by any means succeed in keeping the prices of pictures down, you would
throw all these disturbers out of the way at once.

You may perhaps think that this severe treatment would do more harm than good, by
withdrawing the wholesome element of emulation, and giving no stimulus to exertion;
but I am sorry to say that artists will always be sufficiently jealous of one another,
whether you pay them large or low prices; and as for stimulus to exertion, believe
me, no good work in this world was ever done for money, nor while the slightest
thought of money affected the painter's mind. Whatever idea of pecuniary value
enters into his thoughts as he works, will, in proportion to the distinctness of its
presence, shorten his power. A real painter will work for you exquisitely, if you give
him, as I told you a little while ago, bread and water and salt; and a bad painter will
work badly and hastily, though you give him a palace to live in, and a princedom to
live upon. Turner got, in his earlier years, half-a-crown a day and his supper (not bad
pay, neither); and he learned to paint upon that. And I believe that there is no chance
of art's truly flourishing in any country, until you make it a simple and plain business,
providing its masters with an easy competence, but rarely with anything more. And I
say this, not because I despise the great painter, but because I honour him; and I
should no more think of adding to his respectability or happiness by giving him
riches, than, if Shakespeare or Milton were alive, I should think we added
to their respectability, or were likely to get better work from them, by making them
millionaires.

But, observe, it is not only the painter himself whom you injure, by giving him too
high prices; you injure all the inferior painters of the day. If they are modest, they will
be discouraged and depressed by the feeling that their doings are worth so little,
comparatively, in your eyes;—if proud, all their worst passions will be aroused, and
the insult or opprobrium which they will try to cast on their successful rival will not
only afflict and wound him, but at last sour and harden him: he cannot pass through
such a trial without grievous harm.

That, then, is the effect you produce on the painter of mark, and on the inferior ones
of his own standing. But you do worse than this; you deprive yourselves, by what you
give for the fashionable picture, of the power of helping the younger men who are
coming forward. Be it admitted, for argument's sake if you are not convinced by what
I have said, that you do no harm to the great man by paying him well; yet certainly
you do him no special good. His reputation is established, and his fortune made; he
does not care whether you buy or not: he thinks he is rather doing you a favour than
otherwise by letting you have one of his pictures at all. All the good you do him is to
help him to buy a new pair of carriage horses; whereas, with that same sum which
 44

thus you cast away, you might have relieved the hearts and preserved the health of
twenty young painters; and if among those twenty, you but chanced on one in whom
a true latent power had been hindered by his poverty, just consider what a far-
branching, far-embracing good you have wrought with that lucky expenditure of
yours. I say, "Consider it" in vain; you cannot consider it, for you cannot conceive the
sickness of heart with which a young painter of deep feeling toils through his first
obscurity;—his sense of the strong voice within him, which you will not hear;—his
vain, fond, wondering witness to the things you will not see;—his far away perception
of things that he could accomplish if he had but peace, and time, all unapproachable
and vanishing from him, because no one will leave him peace or grant him time: all
his friends falling back from him; those whom he would most reverently obey
rebuking and paralysing him; and last and worst of all, those who believe in him the
most faithfully suffering by him the most bitterly;—the wife's eyes, in their sweet
ambition, shining brighter as the cheek wastes away; and the little lips at his side
parched and pale, which one day, he knows, though he may never see it, will quiver
so proudly when they name his name, calling him "our father." You
deprive yourselves, by your large expenditure for pictures of mark, of the power of
relieving and redeeming this distress; you injure the painter whom you pay so
largely;—and what, after all, have you done for yourselves, or got for yourselves? It
does not in the least follow that the hurried work of a fashionable painter will contain
more for your money than the quiet work of some unknown man. In all probability,
you will find, if you rashly purchase what is popular at a high price, that you have got
one picture you don't care for, for a sum which would have bought twenty you would
have delighted in. For remember always that the price of a picture by a living artist,
never represents, never can represent, the quantity of labour or value in it. Its price
represents, for the most part, the degree of desire which the rich people of the
country have to possess it. Once get the wealthy classes to imagine that the
possession of pictures by a given artist adds to their "gentility," and there is no price
which his work may not immediately reach, and for years maintain; and in buying at
that price, you are not getting value for your money, but merely disputing for victory
in a contest of ostentation. And it is hardly possible to spend your money in a worse
or more wasteful way; for though you may not be doing it for ostentation yourself,
you are, by your pertinacity, nourishing the ostentation of others; you meet them in
their game of wealth, and continue it for them; if they had not found an opposite
player, the game would have been done; for a proud man can find no enjoyment in
possessing himself of what nobody disputes with him. So that by every farthing you
give for a picture beyond its fair price—that is to say, the price which will pay the
painter for his time—you are not only cheating yourself and buying vanity, but you
are stimulating the vanity of others; paying literally, for the cultivation of pride. You
may consider every pound that you spend above the just price of a work of art, as an
investment in a cargo of mental quick-lime or guano, which, being laid on the fields
of human nature, is to grow a harvest of pride. You are in fact ploughing and
harrowing, in a most valuable part of your land, in order to reap the whirlwind; you
 45

are setting your hand stoutly to Job's agriculture, "Let thistles grow instead of wheat,
and cockle instead of barley."

Well, but you will say, there is one advantage in high prices, which more than
counterbalances all this mischief, namely, that by great reward we both urge and
enable a painter to produce rather one perfect picture than many inferior ones: and
one perfect picture (so you tell us, and we believe it) is worth a great number of
inferior ones.

It is so; but you cannot get it by paying for it. A great work is only done when the
painter gets into the humour for it, likes his subject, and determines to paint it as well
as he can, whether he is paid for it or not; but bad work, and generally the worst sort
of bad work, is done when he is trying to produce a showy picture, or one that shall
appear to have as much labour in it as shall be worth a high price. 9

There is however, another point, and a still more important one, bearing on this
matter of purchase, than the keeping down of prices to a rational standard. And that
is, that you pay your prices into the hands of living men, and do not pour them into
coffins.

For observe that, as we arrange our payment of pictures at present, no artist's work
is worth half its proper value while he is alive. The moment he dies, his pictures, if
they are good, reach double their former value; but, that rise of price represents
simply a profit made by the intelligent dealer or purchaser on his past purchases. So
that the real facts of the matter are, that the British public, spending a certain sum
annually in art, determines that, of every thousand it pays, only five hundred shall go
to the painter, or shall be at all concerned in the production of art; and that the other
five hundred shall be paid merely as a testimonial to the intelligent dealer, who knew
what to buy. Now, testimonials are very pretty and proper things, within due limits;
but testimonial to the amount of a hundred per cent. on the total expenditure is not
good political economy. Do not therefore, in general, unless you see it to be
necessary for its preservation, buy the picture of a dead artist. If you fear that it may
be exposed to contempt or neglect, buy it; its price will then, probably, not be high: if
you want to put it into a public gallery, buy it; you are sure, then, that you do not
spend your money selfishly: or, if you loved the man's work while he was alive, and
bought it then, buy it also now, if you can see no living work equal to it. But if you did

9
When this lecture was delivered, I gave here some data for approximate estimates of the average
value of good modern pictures of different classes; but the subject is too complicated to be adequately
treated in writing, without introducing more detail than the reader will have patience for. But I may
state, roughly, that prices above a hundred guineas are in general extravagant for water-colours, and
above five hundred for oils. An artist almost always does wrong who puts more work than these prices
will remunerate him for into any single canvass—his talent would be better employed in painting two
pictures than one so elaborate. The water-colour painters also are getting into the habit of making
their drawings too large, and in a measure attaching their price rather to breadth and extent of touch
than to thoughtful labour. Of course marked exceptions occur here and there, as in the case of John
Lewis, whose drawings are wrought with unfailing precision throughout, whatever their scale. Hardly
any price can be remunerative for such work.
 46

not buy it while the man was living, never buy it after he is dead: you are then doing
no good to him, and you are doing some shame to yourself. Look around you for
pictures that you really like, and in buying which you can help some genius yet
unperished—that is the best atonement you can make to the one you have
neglected—and give to the living and struggling painter at once wages, and
testimonial.

So far, then, of the motives which should induce us to keep down the prices of
modern art, and thus render it, as a private possession, attainable by greater
numbers of people than at present. But we should strive to render it accessible to
them in other ways also—chiefly by the permanent decoration of public buildings;
and it is in this field that I think we may look for the profitable means of providing that
constant employment for young painters of which we were speaking last evening.

The first and most important kind of public buildings which we are always sure to
want, are schools: and I would ask you to consider very carefully, whether we may
not wisely introduce some great changes in the way of school decoration. Hitherto,
as far as I know, it has either been so difficult to give all the education we wanted to
our lads, that we have been obliged to do it, if at all, with cheap furniture in bare
walls; or else we have considered that cheap furniture and bare walls are a proper
part of the means of education; and supposed that boys learned best when they sat
on hard forms, and had nothing but blank plaster about and above them whereupon
to employ their spare attention; also, that it was as well they should be accustomed
to rough and ugly conditions of things, partly by way of preparing them for the
hardships of life, and partly that there might be the least possible damage done to
floors and forms, in the event of their becoming, during the master's absence, the
fields or instruments of battle. All this is so far well and necessary, as it relates to the
training of country lads, and the first training of boys in general. But there certainly
comes a period in the life of a well educated youth, in which one of the principal
elements of his education is, or ought to be, to give him refinement of habits; and not
only to teach him the strong exercises of which his frame is capable, but also to
increase his bodily sensibility and refinement, and show him such small matters as
the way of handling things properly, and treating them considerately. Not only so, but
I believe the notion of fixing the attention by keeping the room empty, is a wholly
mistaken one: I think it is just in the emptiest room that the mind wanders most; for it
gets restless, like a bird, for want of a perch, and casts about for any possible means
of getting out and away. And even if it be fixed, by an effort, on the business in hand,
that business becomes itself repulsive, more than it need be, by the vileness of its
associations; and many a study appears dull or painful to a boy when it is pursued
on a blotted deal desk, under a wall with nothing on it but scratches and pegs, which
would have been pursued pleasantly enough in a curtained corner of his father's
library, or at the lattice window of his cottage. Nay, my own belief is, that the best
study of all is the most beautiful; and that a quiet glade of forest, or the nook of a
lake shore, are worth all the schoolrooms in Christendom, when once you are past
 47

the multiplication table; but be that as it may, there is no question at all but that a
time ought to come in the life of a well trained youth, when he can sit at a writing
table without wanting to throw the inkstand at his neighbour; and when also he will
feel more capable of certain efforts of mind with beautiful and refined forms about
him than with ugly ones. When that time comes, he ought to be advanced into the
decorated schools; and this advance ought to be one of the important and
honourable epochs of his life.

I have not time, however, to insist on the mere serviceableness to our youth of
refined architectural decoration, as such; for I want you to consider the probable
influence of the particular kind of decoration which I wish you to get for them,
namely, historical painting. You know we have hitherto been in the habit of
conveying all our historical knowledge, such as it is, by the ear only, never by the
eye; all our notions of things being ostensibly derived from verbal description, not
from sight. Now, I have no doubt that, as we grow gradually wiser—and we are doing
so every day—we shall discover at last that the eye is a nobler organ than the ear;
and that through the eye we must, in reality, obtain, or put into form, nearly all the
useful information we are to have about this world. Even as the matter stands, you
will find that the knowledge which a boy is supposed to receive from verbal
description is only available to him so far as in any underhand way he gets a sight of
the thing you are talking about. I remember well that, for many years of my life, the
only notion I had of the look of a Greek knight was complicated between recollection
of a small engraving in my pocket Pope's Homer, and reverent study of the Horse
Guards. And though I believe that most boys collect their ideas from more varied
sources, and arrange them more carefully than I did; still, whatever sources they
seek must always be ocular: if they are clever boys, they will go and look at the
Greek vases and sculptures in the British Museum, and at the weapons in our
armouries—they will see what real armour is like in lustre, and what Greek armour
was like in form, and so put a fairly true image together, but still not, in ordinary
cases, a very living or interesting one. Now, the use of your decorative painting
would be, in myriads of ways, to animate their history for them, and to put the living
aspect of past things before their eyes as faithfully as intelligent invention can; so
that the master shall have nothing to do but once to point to the schoolroom walls,
and for ever afterwards the meaning of any word would be fixed in a boy's mind in
the best possible way. Is it a question of classical dress—what a tunic was like, or a
chlamys, or a peplus? At this day, you have to point to some vile woodcut, in the
middle of a dictionary page, representing the thing hung upon a stick, but then, you
would point to a hundred figures, wearing the actual dress, in its fiery colours, in all
actions of various stateliness or strength; you would understand at once how it fell
round the people's limbs as they stood, how it drifted from their shoulders as they
went, how it veiled their faces as they wept, how it covered their heads in the day of
battle. Now, if you want to see what a weapon is like, you refer, in like manner, to a
numbered page, in which there are spear-heads in rows, and sword-hilts in
symmetrical groups; and gradually the boy gets a dim mathematical notion how one
 48

scymitar is hooked to the right and another to the left, and one javelin has a knob to
it and another none: while one glance at your good picture would show him,—and
the first rainy afternoon in the schoolroom would for ever fix in his mind,—the look of
the sword and spear as they fell or flew; and how they pierced, or bent, or
shattered—how men wielded them, and how men died by them. But far more than all
this, is it a question not of clothes or weapons, but of men? how can we sufficiently
estimate the effect on the mind of a noble youth, at the time when the world opens to
him, of having faithful and touching representations put before him of the acts and
presences of great men—how many a resolution, which would alter and exalt the
whole course of his after-life, might be formed, when in some dreamy twilight he met,
through his own tears, the fixed eyes of those shadows of the great dead,
unescapable and calm, piercing to his soul; or fancied that their lips moved in dread
reproof or soundless exhortation. And if but for one out of many this were true—if
yet, in a few, you could be sure that such influence had indeed changed their
thoughts and destinies, and turned the eager and reckless youth, who would have
cast away his energies on the race-horse or the gambling-table, to that noble life-
race, that holy life-hazard, which should win all glory to himself and all good to his
country—would not that, to some purpose, be "political economy of art?"

And observe, there could be no monotony, no exhaustibleness, in the scenes

required to be thus pourtrayed. Even if there were, and you wanted for every school
in the kingdom, one death of Leonidas; one battle of Marathon; one death of Cleobis
and Bito; there need not therefore be more monotony in your art than there was in
the repetition of a given cycle of subjects by the religious painters of Italy. But we
ought not to admit a cycle at all. For though we had as many great schools as we
have great cities (one day I hope we shall have), centuries of painting would not
exhaust, in all the number of them, the noble and pathetic subjects which might be
chosen from the history of even one noble nation. But, besides this, you will not, in a
little while, limit your youths' studies to so narrow fields as you do now. There will
come a time—I am sure of it—when it will be found that the same practical results,
both in mental discipline, and in political philosophy, are to be attained by the
accurate study of mediæval and modern as of ancient history; and that the facts of
mediæval and modern history are, on the whole, the most important to us. And
among these noble groups of constellated schools which I foresee arising in our
England, I foresee also that there will be divided fields of thought; and that while
each will give its scholars a great general idea of the world's history, such as all men
should possess—each will also take upon itself, as its own special duty, the closer
study of the course of events in some given place or time. It will review the rest of
history, but it will exhaust its own special field of it; and found its moral and political
teaching on the most perfect possible analysis of the results of human conduct in
one place, and at one epoch. And then, the galleries of that school will be painted
with the historical scenes belonging to the age which it has chosen for its special
study.
 49

So far, then, of art as you may apply it to that great series of public buildings which
you devote to the education of youth. The next large class of public buildings in
which we should introduce it, is one which I think a few years more of national
progress will render more serviceable to us than they have been lately. I mean,
buildings for the meetings of guilds of trades.

And here, for the last time, I must again interrupt the course of our chief inquiry, in
order to state one other principle of political economy, which is perfectly simple and
indisputable; but which, nevertheless, we continually get into commercial
embarrassments for want of understanding; and not only so, but suffer much
hindrance in our commercial discoveries, because many of our business men do not
practically admit it.

Supposing half a dozen or a dozen men were cast ashore from a wreck on an
uninhabited island and left to their own resources, one of course, according to his
capacity, would be set to one business and one to another; the strongest to dig and
to cut wood, and to build huts for the rest: the most dexterous to make shoes out of
bark and coats out of skins; the best educated to look for iron or lead in the rocks,
and to plan the channels for the irrigation of the fields. But though their labours were
thus naturally severed, that small group of shipwrecked men would understand well
enough that the speediest progress was to be made by helping each other,—not by
opposing each other; and they would know that this help could only be properly
given so long as they were frank and open in their relations, and the difficulties which
each lay under properly explained to the rest. So that any appearance of secresy or
separateness in the actions of any of them would instantly, and justly, be looked
upon with suspicion by the rest, as the sign of some selfish or foolish proceeding on
the part of the individual. If, for instance, the scientific man were found to have gone
out at night, unknown to the rest, to alter the sluices, the others would think, and in
all probability rightly think, that he wanted to get the best supply of water to his own
field; and if the shoemaker refused to show them where the bark grew which he
made the sandals of, they would naturally think, and in all probability rightly think,
that he didn't want them to see how much there was of it, and that he meant to ask
from them more corn and potatoes in exchange for his sandals than the trouble of
making them deserved. And thus, although each man would have a portion of time to
himself in which he was allowed to do what he chose without let or inquiry,—so long
as he was working in that particular business which he had undertaken for the
common benefit, any secresy on his part would be immediately supposed to mean
mischief; and would require to be accounted for, or put an end to: and this all the
more because, whatever the work might be, certainly there would be difficulties
about it which, when once they were well explained, might be more or less done
away with by the help of the rest; so that assuredly every one of them would
advance with his labour not only more happily, but more profitably and quickly, by
having no secrets, and by frankly bestowing, and frankly receiving, such help as lay
in his way to get or to give.
 50

And, just as the best and richest result of wealth and happiness to the whole of them,
would follow on their perseverance in such a system of frank communication and of
helpful labour;—so precisely the worst and poorest result would be obtained by a
system of secresy and of enmity; and each man's happiness and wealth would
assuredly be diminished in proportion to the degree in which jealousy and
concealment became their social and economical principles. It would not, in the long
run, bring good, but only evil, to the man of science, if, instead of telling openly
where he had found good iron, he carefully concealed every new bed of it, that he
might ask, in exchange for the rare ploughshare, more corn from the farmer, or in
exchange for the rude needle, more labour from the sempstress: and it would not
ultimately bring good, but only evil, to the farmers, if they sought to burn each other's
cornstacks, that they might raise the value of their grain, or if the sempstresses tried
to break each other's needles, that each might get all the stitching to herself.

Now, these laws of human action are precisely as authoritative in their application to
the conduct of a million of men, as to that of six or twelve. All enmity, jealousy,
opposition, and secresy are wholly, and in all circumstances, destructive in their
nature—not productive; and all kindness, fellowship, and communicativeness are
invariably productive in their operation,—not destructive; and the evil principles of
opposition and exclusiveness are not rendered less fatal, but more fatal, by their
acceptance among large masses of men; more fatal, I say, exactly in proportion as
their influence is more secret. For though the opposition does always its own simple,
necessary, direct quantity of harm, and withdraws always its own simple, necessary,
measurable quantity of wealth from the sum possessed by the community, yet, in
proportion to the size of the community, it does another and more refined mischief
than this, by concealing its own fatality under aspects of mercantile complication and
expediency, and giving rise to multitudes of false theories based on a mean belief in
narrow and immediate appearances of good done here and there by things which
have the universal and everlasting nature of evil. So that the time and powers of the
nation are wasted, not only in wretched struggling against each other, but in vain
complaints, and groundless discouragements, and empty investigations, and useless
experiments in laws, and elections, and inventions; with hope always to pull wisdom
through some new-shaped slit in a ballot-box, and to drag prosperity down out of the
clouds along some new knot of electric wire; while all the while Wisdom stands
calling at the corners of the streets, and the blessing of heaven waits ready to rain
down upon us, deeper than the rivers and broader than the dew, if only we will obey
the first plain principles of humanity, and the first plain precepts of the skies;
"Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion, every man to his brother;
and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart." 10

10
It would be well if, instead of preaching continually about the doctrine of faith and good works, our
clergymen would simply explain to their people a little what good works mean. There is not a chapter
in all the Book we profess to believe, more specially and directly written for England, than the second
of Habakkuk, and I never in all my life heard one of its practical texts preached from. I suppose the
clergymen are all afraid, and know that their flocks, while they will sit quite politely to hear syllogisms
 51

Therefore, I believe most firmly, that as the laws of national prosperity get familiar to
us, we shall more and more cast our toil into social and communicative systems; and
that one of the first means of our doing so, will be the re-establishing guilds of every
important trade in a vital, not formal, condition;—that there will be a great council or
government house for the members of every trade, built in whatever town of the
kingdom occupies itself principally in such trade, with minor council halls in other
cities; and to each council-hall, officers attached, whose first business may be to
examine into the circumstances of every operative, in that trade, who chooses to
report himself to them when out of work, and to set him to work, if he is indeed able
and willing, at a fixed rate of wages, determined at regular periods in the council-
meetings; and whose next duty may be to bring reports before the council of all
improvements made in the business, and means of its extension: not allowing private
patents of any kind, but making all improvements available to every member of the
guild, only allotting, after successful trial of them, a certain reward to the inventors.

For these, and many other such purposes, such halls will be again, I trust, fully
established, and then, in the paintings and decorations of them, especial effort ought
to be made to express the worthiness and honourableness of the trade for whose
members they are founded. For I believe one of the worst symptoms of modern
society to be, its notion of great inferiority, and ungentlemanliness, as necessarily
belonging to the character of a tradesman. I believe tradesmen may be, ought to
be—often are, more gentlemen than idle and useless people: and I believe that art
may do noble work by recording in the hall of each trade, the services which men
belonging to that trade have done for their country, both preserving the portraits, and
recording the important incidents in the lives, of those who have made great
advances in commerce and civilization. I cannot follow out this subject, it branches
too far, and in too many directions; besides, I have no doubt you will at once see and
accept the truth of the main principle, and be able to think it out for yourselves. I
would fain also have said something of what might be done, in the same manner, for
almshouses and hospitals, and for what, as I shall try to explain in notes to this
lecture, we may hope to see, some day, established with a different meaning in their
name than that they now bear—workhouses; but I have detained you too long
already, and cannot permit myself to trespass further on your patience except only to
recapitulate, in closing, the simple principles respecting wealth which we have

out of the epistle to the Romans, would get restive directly if they ever pressed a practical text home
to them. But we should have no mercantile catastrophes, and no distressful pauperism, if we only
read often, and took to heart, those plain words:—"Yea, also, because he is a proud man, neither
keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and cannot be satisfied,—Shall not all these take
up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, 'Woe to him that increaseth
that which is not his: and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay.'" (What a glorious history, in one
metaphor, of the life of a man greedy of fortune.) "Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness that
he may set his nest on high. Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by
iniquity. Behold, is it not of the Lord of Hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the
people shall weary themselves for very vanity."
The Americans, who have been sending out ships with sham bolt-heads on their timbers, and only
half their bolts, may meditate on that "buildeth a town with blood."
 52

gathered during the course of our inquiry; principles which are nothing more than the
literal and practical acceptance of the saying, which is in all good men's mouths;
namely, that they are stewards or ministers of whatever talents are entrusted to
them. Only, is it not a strange thing, that while we more or less accept the meaning
of that saying, so long as it is considered metaphorical, we never accept its meaning
in its own terms? You know the lesson is given us under the form of a story about
money. Money was given to the servants to make use of: the unprofitable servant
dug in the earth, and hid his Lord's money. Well, we, in our poetical and spiritual
application of this, say, that of course money doesn't mean money, it means wit, it
means intellect, it means influence in high quarters, it means everything in the world
except itself. And do not you see what a pretty and pleasant come-off there is for
most of us, in this spiritual application? Of course, if we had wit, we would use it for
the good of our fellow-creatures. But we haven't wit. Of course, if we had influence
with the bishops, we would use it for the good of the Church; but we haven't any
influence with the bishops. Of course, if we had political power, we would use it for
the good of the nation; but we have no political power; we have no talents entrusted
to us of any sort or kind. It is true we have a little money, but the parable can't
possibly mean anything so vulgar as money; our money's our own.

I believe, if you think seriously of this matter, you will feel that the first and most
literal application is just as necessary a one as any other—that the story does very
specially mean what it says—plain money; and that the reason we don't at
once believe it does so, is a sort of tacit idea that while thought, wit, and intellect,
and all power of birth and position, are indeed given to us, and, therefore, to be laid
out for the Giver,—our wealth has not been given to us; but we have worked for it,
and have a right to spend it as we choose. I think you will find that is the real
substance of our understanding in this matter. Beauty, we say, is given by God—it is
a talent; strength is given by God—it is a talent; position is given by God—it is a
talent; but money is proper wages for our day's work—it is not a talent, it is a due.
We may justly spend it on ourselves, if we have worked for it.

And there would be some shadow of excuse for this, were it not that the very power
of making the money is itself only one of the applications of that intellect or strength
which we confess to be talents. Why is one man richer than another? Because he is
more industrious, more persevering, and more sagacious. Well, who made him more
persevering or more sagacious than others? That power of endurance, that
quickness of apprehension, that calmness of judgment, which enable him to seize
the opportunities that others lose, and persist in the lines of conduct in which others
fail—are these not talents?—are they not, in the present state of the world, among
the most distinguished and influential of mental gifts? And is it not wonderful, that
while we should be utterly ashamed to use a superiority of body, in order to thrust
our weaker companions aside from some place of advantage, we unhesitatingly use
our superiorities of mind to thrust them back from whatever good that strength of
mind can attain? You would be indignant if you saw a strong man walk into a theatre
 53

or a lecture-room, and, calmly choosing the best place, take his feeble neighbour by
the shoulder, and turn him out of it into the back seats, or the street. You would be
equally indignant if you saw a stout fellow thrust himself up to a table where some
hungry children were being fed, and reach his arm over their heads and take their
bread from them. But you are not the least indignant if, when a man has stoutness of
thought and swiftness of capacity, and, instead of being long-armed only, has the
much greater gift of being long-headed—you think it perfectly just that he should use
his intellect to take the bread out of the mouths of all the other men in the town who
are of the same trade with him; or use his breadth and sweep of sight to gather some
branch of the commerce of the country into one great cobweb, of which he is himself
to be the central spider, making every thread vibrate with the points of his claws, and
commanding every avenue with the facets of his eyes. You see no injustice in this.

But there is injustice; and, let us trust, one of which honourable men will at no very
distant period disdain to be guilty. In some degree, however, it is indeed not unjust;
in some degree it is necessary and intended. It is assuredly just that idleness should
be surpassed by energy; that the widest influence should be possessed by those
who are best able to wield it; and that a wise man, at the end of his career, should be
better off than a fool. But for that reason, is the fool to be wretched, utterly crushed
down, and left in all the suffering which his conduct and capacity naturally inflict?—
Not so. What do you suppose fools were made for? That you might tread upon them,
and starve them, and get the better of them in every possible way? By no means.
They were made that wise people might take care of them. That is the true and plain
fact concerning the relations of every strong and wise man to the world about him.
He has his strength given him, not that he may crush the weak, but that he may
support and guide them. In his own household he is to be the guide and the support
of his children; out of his household he is still to be the father, that is, the guide and
support of the weak and the poor; not merely of the meritoriously weak and the
innocently poor, but of the guiltily and punishably poor; of the men who ought to have
known better—of the poor who ought to be ashamed of themselves. It is nothing to
give pension and cottage to the widow who has lost her son; it is nothing to give food
and medicine to the workman who has broken his arm, or the decrepit woman
wasting in sickness. But it is something to use your time and strength to war with the
waywardness and thoughtlessness of mankind; to keep the erring workman in your
service till you have made him an unerring one; and to direct your fellow-merchant to
the opportunity which his dullness would have lost. This is much; but it is yet more,
when you have fully achieved the superiority which is due to you, and acquired the
wealth which is the fitting reward of your sagacity, if you solemnly accept the
responsibility of it, as it is the helm and guide of labour far and near. For you who
have it in your hands, are in reality the pilots of the power and effort of the State.
(see note 7) It is entrusted to you as an authority to be used for good or evil, just as
completely as kingly authority was ever given to a prince, or military command to a
captain. And, according to the quantity of it that you have in your hands you are the
arbiters of the will and work of England; and the whole issue, whether the work of the
 54

State shall suffice for the State or not, depends upon you. You may stretch out your
sceptre over the heads of the English labourers, and say to them, as they stoop to its
waving, "Subdue this obstacle that has baffled our fathers, put away this plague that
consumes our children; water these dry places, plough these desert ones, carry this
food to those who are in hunger; carry this light to those who are in darkness; carry
this life to those who are in death;" or on the other side you may say to her labourers:
"Here am I; this power is in my hand; come, build a mound here for me to be throned
upon, high and wide; come, make crowns for my head, that men may see them
shine from far away; come, weave tapestries for my feet, that I may tread softly on
the silk and purple; (see note 8) come, dance before me, that I may be gay; and sing
sweetly to me, that I may slumber; so shall I live in joy, and die in honour." And better
than such an honourable death, it were that the day had perished wherein we were
born, and the night in which it was said there is a child conceived.

I trust, that in a little while, there will be few of our rich men who, through
carelessness or covetousness, thus forfeit the glorious office which is intended for
their hands. I said, just now, that wealth ill used was as the net of the spider,
entangling and destroying: but wealth well used, is as the net of the sacred fisher
who gathers souls of men out of the deep. A time will come—I do not think even now
it is far from us—when this golden net of the world's wealth will be spread abroad as
the flaming meshes of morning cloud are over the sky; bearing with them the joy of
light and the dew of the morning, as well as the summons to honourable and
peaceful toil. What less can we hope from your wealth than this, rich men of
England, when once you feel fully how, by the strength of your possessions—not,
observe, by the exhaustion, but by the administration of them and the power—you
can direct the acts,—command the energies,—inform the ignorance,—prolong the
existence, of the whole human race; and how, even of worldly wisdom, which man
employs faithfully, it is true, not only that her ways are pleasantness, but that her
paths are peace; and that, for all the children of men, as well as for those to whom
she is given, Length of days are in her right hand, as in her left hand Riches and
Honour?
 55

ADDENDA

Note 1

This statement could not, of course, be heard without displeasure by a certain class
of politicians; and in one of the notices of these lectures given in the Manchester
journals at the time, endeavour was made to get quit of it by referring to the Divine
authority, as the only Paternal power with respect to which men were truly styled
"brethren." Of course it is so, and, equally of course, all human government is
nothing else than the executive expression of this Divine authority. The moment
government ceases to be the practical enforcement of Divine law, it is tyranny; and
the meaning which I attach to the words, "paternal government," is, in more
extended terms, simply this—"The executive fulfilment, by formal human methods, of
the will of the Father of mankind respecting His children." I could not give such a
definition of Government as this in a popular lecture; and even in written form, it will
necessarily suggest many objections, of which I must notice and answer the most
probable.

Only, in order to avoid the recurrence of such tiresome phrases as "it may be
answered in the second place," and "it will be objected in the third place," etc., I will
ask the reader's leave to arrange the discussion in the form of simple dialogue,
letting O. stand for objector, and R. for response.

O.—You define your paternal government to be the executive fulfilment, by formal

human methods, of the Divine will. But, assuredly, that will cannot stand in need of
aid or expression from human laws. It cannot fail of its fulfilment.

R.—In the final sense it cannot; and in that sense, men who are committing murder
and stealing are fulfilling the will of God as much as the best and kindest people in
the world. But in the limited and present sense, the only sense with which we have
anything to do, God's will concerning man is fulfilled by some men, and thwarted by
others. And those men who either persuade or enforce the doing of it, stand towards
those who are rebellious against it exactly in the position of faithful children in a
family, who, when the father is out of sight, either compel or persuade the rest to do
as their father would have them, were he present; and in so far as they are
expressing and maintaining, for the time, the paternal authority, they exercise, in the
exact sense in which I mean the phrase to be understood, paternal government over
the rest.

O.—But, if Providence has left a liberty to man in many things in order to prove him,
why should human law abridge that liberty, and take upon itself to compel what the
great Lawgiver does not compel?

R.—It is confessed, in the enactment of any law whatsoever, that human lawgivers
have a right to do this. For, if you have no right to abridge any of the liberty which
 56

Providence has left to man, you have no right to punish any one for committing
murder or robbery. You ought to leave them to the punishment of God and Nature.
But if you think yourself under obligation to punish, as far as human laws can, the
violation of the will of God by those great sins, you are certainly under the same
obligation to punish, with proportionately less punishment, the violation of His will in
less sins.

O.—No; you must not attempt to punish less sins by law, because you cannot
properly define nor ascertain them. Everybody can determine whether murder has
been committed or not, but you cannot determine how far people have been unjust
or cruel in minor matters, and therefore cannot make or execute laws concerning
minor matters.

R.—If I propose to you to punish faults which cannot be defined, or to execute laws
which cannot be made equitable, reject the laws I propose. But do not generally
object to the principle of law.

O.—Yes; I generally object to the principle of law as applied to minor things;

because, if you could succeed (which you cannot) in regulating the entire conduct of
men by law in little things as well as great, you would take away from human life all
its probationary character, and render many virtues and pleasures impossible. You
would reduce virtue to the movement of a machine, instead of the act of a spirit.

R.—You have just said, parenthetically, and I fully and willingly admit it, that it is
impossible to regulate all minor matters by law. Is it not probable, therefore, that the
degree in which it is possible to regulate them by it, is also the degree in which it
is right to regulate them by it? Or what other means of judgment will you employ, to
separate the things which ought to be formally regulated from the things which ought
not. You admit that great sins should be legally repressed; but you say that small
sins should not be legally repressed. How do you distinguish between great and
small sins; and how do you intend to determine, or do you in practice of daily life
determine, on what occasions you should compel people to do right, and on what
occasions you should leave them the option of doing wrong?

O.—I think you cannot make any accurate or logical distinction in such matters; but
that common sense and instinct have, in all civilized nations, indicated certain crimes
of great social harmfulness, such as murder, theft, adultery, slander, and such like,
which it is proper to repress legally; and that common sense and instinct indicate
also the kind of crimes which it is proper for laws to let alone, such as miserliness, ill-
natured speaking, and many of those commercial dishonesties which I have a notion
you want your paternal government to interfere with.

R.—Pray do not alarm yourself about what my paternal government is likely to

interfere with, but keep to the matter in hand. You say that "common sense and
instinct" have, in all civilized nations, distinguished between the sins that ought to be
 57

legally dealt with and that ought not. Do you mean that the laws of all civilized
nations are perfect?

O.—No; certainly not.

R.—Or that they are perfect at least in their discrimination of what crimes they should
deal with, and what crimes they should let alone?

O.—No; not exactly.

R.—What do you mean, then?

O.—I mean that the general tendency is right in the laws of civilized nations; and
that, in due course of time, natural sense and instinct point out the matters they
should be brought to bear upon. And each question of legislation must be made a
separate subject of inquiry as it presents itself: you cannot fix any general principles
about what should be dealt with legally, and what should not.

R.—Supposing it to be so, do you think there are any points in which our English
legislation is capable of amendment, as it bears on commercial and economical
matters, in this present time?

O.—Of course I do.

R.—Well, then, let us discuss these together quietly; and if the points that I want
amended seem to you incapable of amendment, or not in need of amendment, say
so: but don't object, at starting, to the mere proposition of applying law to things
which have not had law applied to them before. You have admitted the fitness of my
expression, "paternal government:" it only has been, and remains, a question
between us, how far such government should extend. Perhaps you would like it only
to regulate, among the children, the length of their lessons; and perhaps I should like
it also to regulate the hardness of their cricket-balls: but cannot you wait quietly till
you know what I want it to do, before quarrelling with the thing itself?

O.—No; I cannot wait quietly: in fact I don't see any use in beginning such a
discussion at all, because I am quite sure from the first, that you want to meddle with
things that you have no business with, and to interfere with healthy liberty of action in
all sorts of ways; and I know that you can't propose any laws that would be of real
use. 11

R.—If you indeed know that, you would be wrong to hear me any farther. But if you
are only in painful doubt about me, which makes you unwilling to run the risk of
wasting your time, I will tell you beforehand what I really do think about this same

11
If the reader is displeased with me for putting this foolish speech into his mouth, I entreat his
pardon; but he may be assured that it is a speech which would be made by many people, and the
substance of which would be tacitly felt by many more, at this point of the discussion. I have really
tried, up to this point, to make the objector as intelligent a person as it is possible for an author to
imagine anybody to be, who differs with him
 58

liberty of action, namely, that whenever we can make a perfectly equitable law about
any matter, or even a law securing, on the whole, more just conduct than unjust, we
ought to make that law; and that there will yet, on these conditions, always remain a
number of matters respecting which legalism and formalism are impossible; enough,
and more than enough, to exercise all human powers of individual judgment, and
afford all kinds of scope to individual character. I think this; but of course it can only
be proved by separate examination of the possibilities of formal restraint in each
given field of action; and these two lectures are nothing more than a sketch of such a
detailed examination in one field, namely, that of art. You will find, however, one or
two other remarks on such possibilities in the next note.

Note 2

It did not appear to me desirable, in the course of the spoken lecture, to enter into
details or offer suggestions on the questions of the regulation of labour and
distribution of relief, as it would have been impossible to do so without touching in
many disputed or disputable points, not easily handled before a general audience.
But I must now supply what is wanting to make my general statement clear.

I believe, in the first place, that no Christian nation has any business to see one of its
members in distress without helping him, though, perhaps, at the same time
punishing him: help, of course—in nine cases out of ten—meaning guidance, much
more than gift, and, therefore, interference with liberty. When a peasant mother sees
one of her careless children fall into a ditch, her first proceeding is to pull him out; her
second, to box his ears; her third, ordinarily, to lead him carefully a little way by the
hand, or send him home for the rest of the day. The child usually cries, and very
often would clearly prefer remaining in the ditch; and if he understood any of the
terms of politics, would certainly express resentment at the interference with his
individual liberty: but the mother has done her duty. Whereas the usual call of the
mother nation to any of her children, under such circumstances, has lately been
nothing more than the foxhunter's,—"Stay still there; I shall clear you." And if we
always could clear them, their requests to be left in muddy independence might be
sometimes allowed by kind people, or their cries for help disdained by unkind ones.
But we can't clear them. The whole nation is, in fact, bound together, as men are by
ropes on a glacier—if one falls, the rest must either lift him or drag him along with
them 12 as dead weight, not without much increase of danger to themselves. And the
law of right being manifestly in this, as, whether manifestly or not, it is always, the
law of prudence, the only question is, how this wholesome help and interference are
to be administered.

12
It is very curious to watch the efforts of two shopkeepers to ruin each other, neither having the least
idea that his ruined neighbour must eventually be supported at his own expense, with an increase of
poor rates; and that the contest between them is not in reality which shall get everything for himself,
but which shall first take upon himself and his customers the gratuitous maintenance of the other's
family.
 59

The first interference should be in education. In order that men may be able to
support themselves when they are grown, their strength must be properly developed
while they are young; and the state should always see to this—not allowing their
health to be broken by too early labour, nor their powers to be wasted for want of
knowledge. Some questions connected with this matter are noticed farther on under
the head "Trial Schools:" one point I must notice here, that I believe all youths of
whatever rank, ought to learn some manual trade thoroughly; for it is quite wonderful
how much a man's views of life are cleared by the attainment of the capacity of doing
any one thing well with his hands and arms. For a long time, what right life there was
in the upper classes of Europe depended in no small degree on the necessity which
each man was under of being able to fence; at this day, the most useful things which
boys learn at public schools, are, I believe, riding, rowing, and cricketing. But it would
be far better that members of Parliament should be able to plough straight, and
make a horseshoe, than only to feather oars neatly or point their toes prettily in
stirrups. Then, in literary and scientific teaching, the great point of economy is to give
the discipline of it through knowledge which will immediately bear on practical life.
Our literary work has long been economically useless to us because too much
concerned with dead languages; and our scientific work will yet, for some time, be a
good deal lost, because scientific men are too fond or too vain of their systems, and
waste the student's time in endeavouring to give him large views, and make him
perceive interesting connections of facts; when there is not one student, no, nor one
man, in a thousand, who can feel the beauty of a system, or even take it clearly into
his head; but nearly all men can understand, and most will be interested in, the facts
which bear on daily life. Botanists have discovered some wonderful connection
between nettles and figs, which a cowboy who will never see a ripe fig in his life
need not be at all troubled about; but it will be interesting to him to know what effect
nettles have on hay, and what taste they will give to porridge; and it will give him
nearly a new life if he can be got but once, in a spring time, to look well at the
beautiful circlet of the white nettle blossom, and work out with his schoolmaster the
curves of its petals, and the way it is set on its central mast. So, the principle of
chemical equivalents, beautiful as it is, matters far less to a peasant boy, and even to
most sons of gentlemen, than their knowing how to find whether the water is
wholesome in the back-kitchen cistern, or whether the seven-acre field wants sand
or chalk.

Having, then, directed the studies of our youth so as to make them practically
serviceable men at the time of their entrance into life, that entrance should always be
ready for them in cases where their private circumstances present no opening. There
ought to be government establishments for every trade, in which all youths who
desired it should be received as apprentices on their leaving school; and men thrown
out of work received at all times. At these government manufactories the discipline
should be strict, and the wages steady, not varying at all in proportion to the demand
for the article, but only in proportion to the price of food; the commodities produced
being laid up in store to meet sudden demands, and sudden fluctuations in prices
 60

prevented:—that gradual and necessary fluctuation only being allowed which is

properly consequent on larger or more limited supply of raw material and other
natural causes. When there was a visible tendency to produce a glut of any
commodity, that tendency should be checked by directing the youth at the
government schools into other trades; and the yearly surplus of commodities should
be the principal means of government provision for the poor. That provision should
be large, and not disgraceful to them. At present there are very strange notions in
the public mind respecting the receiving of alms: most people are willing to take them
in the form of a pension from government, but unwilling to take them in the form of a
pension from their parishes. There may be some reason for this singular prejudice, in
the fact of the government pension being usually given as a definite
acknowledgment of some service done to the country;—but the parish pension is, or
ought to be, given precisely on the same terms. A labourer serves his country with
his spade, just as a man in the middle ranks of life serves it with his sword, pen, or
lancet: if the service is less, and therefore the wages during health less, then the
reward, when health is broken, may be less, but not, therefore, less honourable; and
it ought to be quite as natural and straightforward a matter for a labourer to take his
pension from his parish, because he has deserved well of his parish, as for a man in
higher rank to take his pension from his country, because he has deserved well of
his country. If there be any disgrace in coming to the parish, because it may imply
improvidence in early life, much more is there disgrace in coming to the government:
since improvidence is far less justifiable in a highly educated than in an imperfectly
educated man; and far less justifiable in a high rank, where extravagance must have
been luxury, than in a low rank, where it may only have been comfort. So that the
real fact of the matter is, that people will take alms delightedly, consisting of a
carriage and footmen, because those do not look like alms to the people in the
street; but they will not take alms consisting only of bread and water and coals,
because everybody would understand what those meant. Mind, I do not want any
one to refuse the carriage who ought to have it; but neither do I want them to refuse
the coals. I should indeed be sorry if any change in our views on these subjects
involved the least lessening of self-dependence in the English mind: but the common
shrinking of men from the acceptance of public charity is not self-dependence, but
mere base and selfish pride. It is not that they are unwilling to live at their
neighbours' expense, but that they are unwilling to confess they do: it is not
dependence they wish to avoid, but gratitude. They will take places in which they
know there is nothing to be done—they will borrow money they know they cannot
repay—they will carry on a losing business with other people's capital—they will
cheat the public in their shops, or sponge on their friends at their houses; but to say
plainly they are poor men, who need the nation's help, and go into an almshouse—
this they loftily repudiate, and virtuously prefer being thieves to being paupers.

I trust that these deceptive efforts of dishonest men to appear independent, and the
agonizing efforts of unfortunate men to remain independent, may both be in some
degree checked by a better administration and understanding of laws respecting the
 61

poor. But the ordinances for relief and the ordinances for labour must go together;
otherwise distress caused by misfortune will always be confounded, as it is now, with
distress caused by idleness, unthrift, and fraud. It is only when the state watches and
guides the middle life of men, that it can, without disgrace to them, protect their old
age, acknowledging in that protection that they have done their duty, or at least
some portion of their duty, in better days.

I know well how strange, fanciful, or impracticable these suggestions will appear to
most of the business men of this day; men who conceive the proper state of the
world to be simply that of a vast and disorganized mob, scrambling each for what he
can get, trampling down its children and old men in the mire, and doing what work it
finds must be done with any irregular squad of labourers it can bribe or inveigle
together, and afterwards scatter to starvation. A great deal may, indeed, be done in
this way by a nation strong-elbowed and strong-hearted as we are—not easily
frightened by pushing, nor discouraged by falls. But it is still not the right way of
doing things for people who call themselves Christians. Every so named soul of man
claims from every other such soul, protection and education in childhood—help or
punishment in middle life—reward or relief, if needed, in old age; all of these should
be completely and unstintingly given; and they can only be given by the organization
of such a system as I have described.

Note 3

It may be seriously questioned by the reader how much of painting talent we really
lose on our present system, 13 and how much we should gain by the proposed trial

13
It will be observed that, in the lecture, it is assumed that works of art are national treasures; and
that it is desirable to withdraw all the hands capable of painting or carving from other employments, in
order that they may produce this kind of wealth. I do not, in assuming this, mean that works of art add
to the monetary resources of a nation, or form part of its wealth, in the vulgar sense. The result of the
sale of a picture in the country itself is merely that a certain sum of money is transferred from the
hands of B. the purchaser, to those of A. the producer; the sum ultimately to be distributed remaining
the same, only A. ultimately spending it instead of B., while the labour of A. has been in the meantime
withdrawn from productive channels; he has painted a picture which nobody can live upon, or live in,
when he might have grown corn or built houses; when the sale therefore is effected in the country
itself, it does not add to, but diminishes, the monetary resources of the country, except only so far as
it may appear probable, on other grounds, that A. is likely to spend the sum he receives for his picture
more rationally and usefully than B. would have spent it. If, indeed, the picture, or other work of art, be
sold in foreign countries, either the money or the useful products of the foreign country being imported
in exchange for it, such sale adds to the monetary resources of the selling, and diminishes those of
the purchasing nation. But sound political economy, strange as it may at first appear to say so, has
nothing whatever to do with separations between national interests. Political economy means the
management of the affairs of citizens; and it either regards exclusively the administration of the affairs
of one nation, or the administration of the affairs of the world considered as one nation. So when a
transaction between individuals which enriches A., impoverishes B. in precisely the same degree, the
sound economist considers it an unproductive transaction between the individuals; and if a trade
between two nations which enriches one, impoverishes the other in the same degree, the sound
eoonomist considers it an unproductive trade between the nations. It is not a general question of
political economy, but only a particular question of local expediency, whether an article in itself
valueless, may bear a value of exchange in transactions with some other nation. The economist
considers only the actual value of the thing done or produced; and if he sees a quantity of labour
spent, for instance, by the Swiss, in producing woodwork for sale to the English, he at once sets the
 62

schools. For it might be thought, that as matters stand at present, we have more
painters than we ought to have, having so many bad ones, and that all youths who
had true painters' genius forced their way out of obscurity.

This is not so. It is difficult to analyse the characters of mind which cause youths to
mistake their vocation, and to endeavour to become artists, when they have no true
artist's gift. But the fact is, that multitudes of young men do this, and that by far the
greater number of living artists are men who have mistaken their vocation. The
peculiar circumstances of modern life, which exhibit art in almost every form to the
sight of the youths in our great cities, have a natural tendency to fill their
imaginations with borrowed ideas, and their minds with imperfect science; the mere
dislike of mechanical employments, either felt to be irksome, or believed to be
degrading, urges numbers of young men to become painters, in the same temper in
which they would enlist or go to sea; others, the sons of engravers or artists, taught
the business of the art by their parents, and having no gift for it themselves, follow it
as the means of livelihood, in an ignoble patience; or, if ambitious, seek to attract
regard, or distance rivalry, by fantastic, meretricious, or unprecedented applications
of their mechanical skill; while finally, many men earnest in feeling, and
conscientious in principle, mistake their desire to be useful for a love of art, and their
quickness of emotion for its capacity, and pass their lives in painting moral and
instructive pictures, which might almost justify us in thinking nobody could be a
painter but a rogue. On the other hand, I believe that much of the best artistical
intellect is daily lost in other avocations. Generally, the temper which would make an
admirable artist is humble and observant, capable of taking much interest in little
things, and of entertaining itself pleasantly in the dullest circumstances. Suppose,
added to these characters, a steady conscientiousness which seeks to do its duty
wherever it may be placed, and the power, denied to few artistical minds, of
ingenious invention in almost any practical department of human skill, and it can

commercial impoverishment of the English purchaser against the commercial enrichment of the Swiss
seller; and considers the whole transaction productive only so far as the woodwork itself is a real
addition to the wealth of the world. For the arrangement of the laws of a nation so as to procure the
greatest advantages to itself, and leave the smallest advantages to other nations, is not a part of the
science of political economy, but merely a broad application of the science of fraud. Considered thus
in the abstract, pictures are not an addition to the monetary wealth of the world, except in the amount
of pleasure or instruction to be got out of them day by day: but there is a certain protective effect on
wealth exercised by works of high art which must always be included in the estimate of their value.
Generally speaking, persons who decorate their houses with pictures, will not spend so much money
in papers, carpets, curtains, or other expensive and perishable luxuries as they would otherwise.
Works of good art, like books, exercise a conservative effect on the rooms they are kept in; and the
wall of the library or picture gallery remains undisturbed, when those of other rooms are re-papered or
re-panelled. Of course, this effect is still more definite when the picture is on the walls themselves,
either on canvass stretched into fixed shapes on their panels, or in fresco; involving, of course, the
preservation of the building from all unnecessary and capricious alteration. And generally speaking,
the occupation of a large number of hands in painting or sculpture in any nation may be considered as
tending to check the disposition to indulge in perishable luxury. I do not, however, in my assumption
that works of art are treasures, take much into consideration this collateral monetary result. I consider
them treasures, merely as permanent means of pleasure and instruction; and having at other times
tried to show the several ways in which they can please and teach, assume here that they are thus
useful; and that it is desirable to make as many painters as we can.
 63

hardly be doubted that the very humility and conscientiousness which would have
perfected the painter, have in many instances prevented his becoming one; and that
in the quiet life of our steady craftsmen—sagacious manufacturers and
uncomplaining clerks—there may frequently be concealed more genius than ever is
raised to the direction of our public works, or to be the mark of our public praises.

It is indeed probable, that intense disposition for art will conquer the most formidable
obstacles, if the surrounding circumstances are such as at all to present the idea of
such conquest, to the mind; but we have no ground for concluding that Giotto would
ever have been more than a shepherd, if Cimabue had not by chance found him
drawing; or that among the shepherds of the Apennines there were no other Giottos,
undiscovered by Cimabue. We are too much in the habit of considering happy
accidents as what are called "special Providences;" and thinking that when any great
work needs to be done, the man who is to do it will certainly be pointed out by
Providence, be he shepherd or sea-boy; and prepared for his work by all kinds of
minor providences, in the best possible way. Whereas all the analogies of God's
operations in other matters prove the contrary of this; we find that "of thousand
seeds, He often brings but one to bear," often not one; and the one seed which He
appoints to bear is allowed to bear crude or perfect fruit according to the dealings of
the husbandman with it. And there cannot be a doubt in the mind of any person
accustomed to take broad and logical views of the world's history, that its events are
ruled by Providence in precisely the same manner as its harvests; that the seeds of
good and evil are broadcast among men, just as the seeds of thistles and fruits are;
and that according to the force of our industry, and wisdom of our husbandry, the
ground will bring forth to us figs or thistles. So that when it seems needed that a
certain work should be done for the world, and no man is there to do it, we have no
right to say that God did not wish it to be done, and therefore sent no man able to do
it. The probability (if I wrote my own convictions, I should say certainty) is, that He
sent many men, hundreds of men, able to do it; and that we have rejected them, or
crushed them; by our previous folly of conduct or of institution, we have rendered it
impossible to distinguish, or impossible to reach them; and when the need for them
comes, and we suffer for the want of them, it is not that God refuses to send us
deliverers, and specially appoints all our consequent sufferings; but that He has sent,
and we have refused, the deliverers; and the pain is then wrought out by His eternal
law, as surely as famine is wrought out by eternal law for a nation which will neither
plough nor sow. No less are we in error in supposing, as we so frequently do, that if
a man be found, he is sure to be in all respects fitted for the work to be done, as the
key is to the lock; and that every accident which happened in the forging him, only
adapted him more truly to the wards. It is pitiful to hear historians beguiling
themselves and their readers, by tracing in the early history of great men, the minor
circumstances which fitted them for the work they did, without ever taking notice of
the other circumstances which as assuredly unfitted them for it; so concluding that
miraculous interposition prepared them in all points for everything and that they did
all that could have been desired or hoped for from them: whereas the certainty of the
 64

matter is that, throughout their lives, they were thwarted and corrupted by some
things as certainly as they were helped and disciplined by others; and that, in the
kindliest and most reverent view which can justly be taken of them, they were but
poor mistaken creatures, struggling with a world more profoundly mistaken than
they;—assuredly sinned against, or sinning in thousands of ways, and bringing out at
last a maimed result—not what they might or ought to have done, but all that could
be done against the world's resistance, and in spite of their own sorrowful falsehood
to themselves.

And this being so, it is the practical duty of a wise nation, first to withdraw, as far as
may be, its youth from destructive influences;—then to try its material as far as
possible, and to lose the use of none that is good. I do not mean by "withdrawing
from destructive influences" the keeping of youths out of trials; but the keeping them
out of the way of things purely and absolutely mischievous. I do not mean that we
should shade our green corn in all heat, and shelter it in all frost, but only that we
should dyke out the inundation from it, and drive the fowls away from it. Let your
youth labour and suffer; but do not let it starve, nor steal, nor blaspheme.

It is not, of course, in my power here to enter into details of schemes of education;

and it will be long before the results of experiments now in progress will give data for
the solution of the most difficult questions connected with the subject, of which the
principal one is the mode in which the chance of advancement in life is to be
extended to all, and yet made compatible with contentment in the pursuit of lower
avocations by those whose abilities do not qualify them for the higher. But the
general principle of trial schools lies at the root of the matter—of schools, that is to
say, in which the knowledge offered and discipline enforced shall be all a part of a
great assay of the human soul, and in which the one shall be increased, the other
directed, as the tried heart and brain will best bear, and no otherwise. One thing,
however, I must say, that in this trial I believe all emulation to be a false motive, and
all giving of prizes a false means. All that you can depend upon in a boy, as
significative of true power, likely to issue in good fruit, is his will to work for the work's
sake, not his desire to surpass his schoolfellows; and the aim of the teaching you
give him ought to be, to prove to him and strengthen in him his own separate gift, not
to puff him into swollen rivalry with those who are everlastingly greater than he: still
less ought you to hang favours and ribands about the neck of the creature who is the
greatest, to make the rest envy him. Try to make them love him and follow him, not
struggle with him.

There must, of course, be examination to ascertain and attest both progress and
relative capacity; but our aim should be to make the students rather look upon it as a
means of ascertaining their own true positions and powers in the world, than as an
arena in which to carry away a present victory. I have not, perhaps, in the course of
the lecture, insisted enough on the nature of relative capacity and individual
character, as the roots of all real value in Art. We are too much in the habit, in these
days, of acting as if Art worth a price in the market were a commodity which people
 65

could be generally taught to produce, and as if the education of the artist, not
his capacity, gave the sterling value to his work. No impression can possibly be more
absurd or false. Whatever people can teach each other to do, they will estimate, and
ought to estimate, only as common industry; nothing will ever fetch a high price but
precisely that which cannot be taught, and which nobody can do but the man from
whom it is purchased. No state of society, nor stage of knowledge, ever does away
with the natural pre-eminence of one man over another; and it is that pre-eminence,
and that only, which will give work high value in the market, or which ought to do so.
It is a bad sign of the judgment, and bad omen for the progress, of a nation, if it
supposes itself to possess many artists of equal merit. Noble art is nothing less than
the expression of a great soul; and great souls are not common things. If ever we
confound their work with that of others, it is not through liberality, but through
blindness.

Note 4

There is great difficulty in making any short or general statement of the difference
between great and ignoble minds in their behaviour to the "public." It is by no
means universally the case that a mean mind, as stated in the text, will bend itself to
what you ask of it: on the contrary, there is one kind of mind, the meanest of all,
which perpetually complains of the public, contemplates and proclaims itself as a
"genius," refuses all wholesome discipline or humble office, and ends in miserable
and revengeful ruin; also, the greatest minds are marked by nothing more distinctly
than an inconceivable humility, and acceptance of work or instruction in any form,
and from any quarter. They will learn from everybody, and do anything that anybody
asks of them, so long as it involves only toil, or what other men would think
degradation. But the point of quarrel, nevertheless, assuredly rises some day
between the public and them, respecting some matter, not of humiliation, but of Fact.
Your great man always at last comes to see something the public don't see. This
something he will assuredly persist in asserting, whether with tongue or pencil, to be
as he sees it, not as they see it; and all the world in a heap on the other side will not
get him to say otherwise. Then, if the world objects to the saying, he may happen to
get stoned or burnt for it, but that does not in the least matter to him; if the world has
no particular objection to the saying, he may get leave to mutter it to himself till he
dies, and be merely taken for an idiot; that also does not matter to him—mutter it he
will, according to what he perceives to be fact, and not at all according to the roaring
of the walls of Red sea on the right hand or left of him. Hence the quarrel, sure at
some time or other to be started between the public and him; while your mean man,
though he will spit and scratch spiritedly at the public, while it does not attend to him,
will bow to it for its clap in any direction, and say anything when he has got its ear,
which he thinks will bring him another clap; and thus, as stated in the text, he and it
go on smoothly together.

There are, however, times when the obstinacy of the mean man looks very like the
obstinacy of the great one; but if you look closely into the matter, you will always see
 66

that the obstinacy of the first is in the pronunciation of "I;" and of the second, in the
pronunciation of "It."

Note 5

It would have been impossible for political economists long to have endured the error
spoken of in the text, 14 had they not been confused by an idea, in part well founded,
that the energies and refinements, as well as the riches of civilized life arose from
imaginary wants. It is quite true, that the savage who knows no needs but those of
food, shelter, and sleep, and after he has snared his venison and patched the rents
of his hut, passes the rest of his time in animal repose, is in a lower state than the
man who labours incessantly that he may procure for himself the luxuries of
civilization; and true also, that the difference between one and another nation in
progressive power depends in great part on vain desires; but these idle motives are
merely to be considered as giving exercise to the national body and mind; they are
not sources of wealth, except so far as they give the habits of industry and
acquisitiveness. If a boy is clumsy and lazy, we shall do good if we can persuade
him to carve cherrystones and fly kites; and this use of his fingers and limbs may
eventually be the cause of his becoming a wealthy and happy man; but we must not
therefore argue that cherrystones are valuable property, or that kite-flying is a
profitable mode of passing time. In like manner, a nation always wastes its time and
labour directly, when it invents a new want of a frivolous kind, and yet the invention
of such a want may be the sign of a healthy activity, and the labour undergone to
satisfy the new want may lead, indirectly, to useful discoveries or to noble arts; so

14
I have given the political economists too much credit in saying this. Actually, while these sheets are
passing through the press, the blunt, broad, unmitigated fallacy is enunciated, formally and precisely,
by the Common Councilmen of New York, in their report on the present commercial crisis. Here is
their collective opinion, published in the Times of November 23rd, 1857:—"Another erroneous idea is
that luxurious living, extravagant dressing, splendid turn-outs and fine houses, are the cause of
distress to a nation. No more erroneous impression could exist. Every extravagance that the man of
100,000 or 1,000,000 dollars indulges in adds to the means, the support, the wealth of ten or a
hundred who had little or nothing else but their labour, their intellect, or their taste. If a man of
1,000,000 dollars spends principal and interest in ten years, and finds himself beggared at the end of
that time, he has actually made a hundred who have catered to his extravagance, employers or
employed, so much richer by the division of his wealth. He may be ruined, but the nation is better off
and richer, for one hundred minds and hands, with 10,000 dollars apiece, are far more productive
than one with the whole."
Yes, gentlemen of the Common Council! but what has been doing in the time of the transfer? The
spending of the fortune has taken a certain number of years (suppose ten), and during that time
1,000,000 dollars' worth of work has been done by the people, who have been paid that sum for it.
Where is the product of that work? By your own statement, wholly consumed; for the man for whom it
has been done is now a beggar. You have given, therefore, as a nation, 1,000,000 dollars' worth of
work, and ten years of time, and you have produced, as ultimate result, one beggar! Excellent
economy, gentlemen! and sure to conduce, in due sequence, to the production of more than one
beggar. Perhaps the matter may be made clearer to you, however, by a more familiar instance. If a
schoolboy goes out in the morning with five shillings in his pocket, and comes home at night
penniless, having spent his all in tarts; principal and interest are gone, and fruiterer and baker are
enriched. So far so good. But suppose the schoolboy, instead, has bought a book and a knife;
principal and interest are gone, and bookseller and cutler are enriched. But the schoolboy is enriched
also, and may help his schoolfellows next day with knife and book, instead of lying in bed and
incurring a debt to the doctor.
 67

that a nation is not to be discouraged in its fancies when it is either too weak or
foolish to be moved to exertion by anything but fancies, or has attended to its serious
business first. If a nation will not forge iron, but likes distilling lavender, by all means
give it lavender to distil; only do not let its economists suppose that lavender is as
profitable to it as oats, or that it helps poor people to live, any more than the
schoolboy's kite provides him his dinner. Luxuries, whether national or personal,
must be paid for by labour withdrawn from useful things; and no nation has a right to
indulge in them until all its poor are comfortably housed and fed.

The enervating influence of luxury, and its tendencies to increase vice, are points
which I keep entirely out of consideration in the present essay; but, so far as they
bear on any question discussed, they merely furnish additional evidence on the side
which I have taken. Thus, in the present case, I assume that the luxuries of civilized
life are in possession harmless, and in acquirement, serviceable as a motive for
exertion; and even on these favourable terms, we arrive at the conclusion that the
nation ought not to indulge in them except under severe limitations. Much less ought
it to indulge in them if the temptation consequent on their possession, or fatality
incident to their manufacture, more than counterbalances the good done by the effort
to obtain them.

Note 6

I have been much impressed lately by one of the results of the quantity of our books;
namely, the stern impossibility of getting anything understood, that required patience
to understand. I observe always, in the case of my own writings, that if ever I state
anything which has cost me any trouble to ascertain, and which, therefore, will
probably require a minute or two of reflection from the reader before it can be
accepted,—that statement will not only be misunderstood, but in all probability taken
to mean something very nearly the reverse of what it does mean. Now, whatever
faults there may be in my modes of expression, I know that the words I use will
always be found, by Johnson's dictionary, to bear, first of all, the sense I use them in;
and that the sentences, whether awkwardly turned or not, will, by the ordinary rules
of grammar, bear no other interpretation than that I mean them to bear; so that the
misunderstanding of them must result, ultimately, from the mere fact that their matter
sometimes requires a little patience. And I see the same kind of misinterpretation put
on the words of other writers, whenever they require the same kind of thought.

I was at first a little despondent about this; but, on the whole, I believe it will have a
good effect upon our literature for some time to come; and then, perhaps, the public
may recover its patience again. For certainly it is excellent discipline for an author to
feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is
sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly
misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way;
and we want downright facts at present more than any thing else. And though I often
hear moral people complaining of the bad effects of want of thought, for my part, it
 68

seems to me that one of the worst diseases to which the human creature is liable is
its disease of thinking. If it would only just look 15 at a thing instead of thinking what it
must be like, or do a thing, instead of thinking it cannot be done, we should all get on
far better.

Note 7

While, however, undoubtedly, these responsibilities attach to every person

possessed of wealth, it is necessary both to avoid any stringency of statement
respecting the benevolent modes of spending money, and to admit and approve so
much liberty of spending it for selfish pleasures as may distinctly make wealth a
personal reward for toil, and secure in the minds of all men the right of property. For
although, without doubt, the purest pleasures it can procure are not selfish, it is only
as a means of personal gratification that it will be desired by a large majority of
workers; and it would be no less false ethics than false policy to check their energy
by any forms of public opinion which bore hardly against the wanton expenditure of
honestly got wealth. It would be hard if a man who had passed the greater part of his
life at the desk or counter could not at last innocently gratify a caprice; and all the
best and most sacred ends of almsgiving would be at once disappointed, if the idea
of a moral claim took the place of affectionate gratitude in the mind of the receiver.

Some distinction is made by us naturally in this respect between earned and

inherited wealth; that which is inherited appearing to involve the most definite
responsibilities, especially when consisting in revenues derived from the soil. The
form of taxation which constitutes rental of lands places annually a certain portion of
the national wealth in the hands of the nobles, or other proprietors of the soil, under
conditions peculiarly calculated to induce them to give their best care to its efficient
administration. The want of instruction in even the simplest principles of commerce
and economy, which hitherto has disgraced our schools and universities, has indeed
been the cause of ruin or total inutility of life to multitudes of our men of estate; but
this deficiency in our public education cannot exist much longer, and it appears to be
highly advantageous for the State that a certain number of persons distinguished by
race should be permitted to set examples of wise expenditure, whether in the
advancement of science, or in patronage of art and literature; only they must see to it
that they take their right standing more firmly than they have done hitherto, for the

15
There can be no question, however, of the mischievous tendency of the hurry of the present day, in
the way people undertake this very looking. I gave three years' close and incessant labour to the
examination of the chronology of the architecture of Venice; two long winters being wholly spent in the
drawing of details on the spot: and yet I see constantly that architects who pass three or four days in a
gondola going up and down the Grand Canal, think that their first impressions are just as likely to be
true as my patiently wrought conclusions. Mr. Street, for instance, glances hastily at the façade of the
Ducal Palace—so hastily that he does not even see what its pattern is, and misses the alternation of
red and black in the centres of its squares—and yet he instantly ventures on an opinion on the
chronology of its capitals, which is one of the most complicated and difficult subjects in the whole
range of Gothic archæology. It may, nevertheless, be ascertained with very fair probability of
correctness by any person who will give a month's hard work to it, but it can be ascertained no
otherwise.
 69

position of a rich man in relation to those around him is, in our present real life, and
is also contemplated generally by political economists as being, precisely the reverse
of what it ought to be. A rich man ought to be continually examining how he may
spend his money for the advantage of others: at present, others are continually
plotting how they may beguile him into spending it apparently for his own. The
aspect which he presents to the eyes of the world is generally that of a person
holding a bag of money with a staunch grasp, and resolved to part with none of it
unless he is forced, and all the people about him are plotting how they may force
him; that is to say, how they may persuade him that he wants this thing or that; or
how they may produce things that he will covet and buy. One man tries to persuade
him that he wants perfumes; another that he wants jewellery; another that he wants
sugarplums; another that he wants roses at Christmas. Anybody who can invent a
new want for him is supposed to be a benefactor to society: and thus the energies of
the poorer people about him are continually directed to the production of covetable,
instead of serviceable things; and the rich man has the general aspect of a fool,
plotted against by all the world. Whereas the real aspect which he ought to have is
that of a person wiser than others, entrusted with the management of a larger
quantity of capital, which he administers for the profit of all, directing each man to the
labour which is most healthy for him, and most serviceable for the community.

Note 8

In various places throughout these lectures I have had to allude to the distinction
between productive and unproductive labour, and between true and false wealth. I
shall here endeavour, as clearly as I can, to explain the distinction I mean.

Property may be divided generally into two kinds; that which produces life, and that
which produces the objects of life. That which produces or maintains life consists of
food, in so far as it is nourishing; of furniture and clothing, in so far as they are
protective or cherishing; of fuel; and of all land, instruments, or materials, necessary
to produce food, houses, clothes and fuel. It is specially and rightly called useful
property.

The property which produces the objects of life consists of all that gives pleasure or
suggests and preserves thought: of food, furniture, and land, in so far as they are
pleasing to the appetite or the eye, of luxurious dress; and all other kinds of luxuries;
of books, pictures, and architecture. But the modes of connection of certain minor
forms of property with human labour render it desirable to arrange them under more
than these two heads. Property may therefore be conveniently considered as of five
kinds.

1st. Property necessary to life, but not producible by labour, and therefore belonging
of right, in a due measure, to every human being as soon as he is born, and morally
unalienable. As, for instance, his proper share of the atmosphere, without which he
 70

cannot breathe, and of water, which he needs to quench his thirst. As much land as
he needs to feed from is also inalienable; but in well regulated communities this
quantity of land may often be represented by other possessions, or its need supplied
by wages and privileges.

2. Property necessary to life, but only producible by labour, and of which the
possession is morally connected with labour, so that no person capable of doing the
work necessary for its production has a right to it until he has done that work:—"he
that will not work, neither should he eat." It consists of simple food, clothing, and
habitation, with their seeds and materials, or instruments and machinery, and
animals used for necessary draught or locomotion, etc. It is to be observed of this
kind of property, that its increase cannot usually be carried beyond a certain point,
because it depends not on labour only, but on things of which the supply is limited by
nature. The possible accumulation of corn depends on the quantity of corn-growing
land possessed or commercially accessible; and that of steel, similarly, on the
accessible quantity of coal and ironstone. It follows from this natural limitation of
supply that the accumulation of property of this kind in large masses at one point, or
in one person's hands, commonly involves, more or less, the scarcity of it at another
point and in other persons' hands; so that the accidents or energies which may
enable one man to procure a great deal of it, may, and in all likelihood will partially
prevent other men procuring a sufficiency of it, however willing they may be to work
for it; therefore, the modes of its accumulation and distribution need to be in some
degree regulated by law and by national treaties, in order to secure justice to all
men.

Another point requiring notice respecting this sort of property is, that no work can be
wasted in producing it, provided only the kind of it produced be preservable and
distributable, since for every grain of such commodities we produce we are rendering
so much more life possible on earth. 16 But though we are sure, thus, that we are
employing people well, we cannot be sure we might not have employed them better;
for it is possible to direct labour to the production of life, until little or none is left for
that of the objects of life, and thus to increase population at the expense of
civilization, learning, and morality: on the other hand, it is just as possible—and the
16
This point has sometimes been disputed; for instance, opening Mill's "Political Economy" the other
day, I chanced on a passage in which he says that a man who makes a coat, if the person who wears
the coat does nothing useful while he wears it, has done no more good to society than the man who
has only raised a pineapple. But this is a fallacy induced by endeavour after too much subtlety. None
of us have a right to say that the life of a man is of no use to him, though it may be of no use to us;
and the man who made the coat, and thereby prolonged another man's life, has done a gracious and
useful work, whatever may come of the life so prolonged. We may say to the wearer of the coat, "You
who are wearing coats, and doing nothing in them, are at present wasting your own life and other
people's;" but we have no right to say that his existence, however wasted, is wasted away. It may be
just dragging itself on, in its thin golden line, with nothing dependent upon it, to the point where it is to
strengthen into good chain cable, and have thousands of other lives dependent on it. Meantime, the
simple fact respecting the coat-maker is, that he has given so much life to the creature, the results of
which he cannot calculate; they may be—in all probability will be—infinite results in some way. But the
raiser of pines, who has only given a pleasant taste in the mouth to some one, may see with tolerable
clearness to the end of the taste in the mouth, and of all conceivable results therefrom.
 71

error is one to which the world is, on the whole, more liable—to direct labour to the
objects of life till too little is left for life, and thus to increase luxury or learning at the
expense of population. Right political economy holds its aim poised justly between
the two extremes, desiring neither to crowd its dominions with a race of savages, nor
to found courts and colleges in the midst of a desert.

3. The third kind of property is that which conduces to bodily pleasures and
conveniences, without directly tending to sustain life; perhaps sometimes indirectly
tending to destroy it. All dainty (as distinguished from nourishing) food, and means of
producing it; all scents not needed for health; substances valued only for their
appearance and rarity (as gold and jewels); flowers of difficult culture; animals used
for delight (as horses for racing), and such like, form property of this class; to which
the term "luxury, or luxuries," ought exclusively to belong.

Respecting which we have to note first, that all such property is of doubtful
advantage even to its possessor. Furniture tempting to indolence, sweet odours, and
luscious food, are more or less injurious to health: while jewels, liveries, and other
such common belongings of wealthy people, certainly convey no pleasure to their
owners proportionate to their cost.

Farther, such property, for the most part, perishes in the using. Jewels form a great
exception—but rich food, fine dresses, horses and carriages, are consumed by the
owner's use. It ought much oftener to be brought to the notice of rich men what sums
of interest of money they are paying towards the close of their lives, for luxuries
consumed in the middle of them. It would be very interesting, for instance, to know
the exact sum which the money spent in London for ices, at its desserts and balls,
during the last twenty years, had it been saved and put out at compound interest,
would at this moment have furnished for useful purposes.

Also, in most cases, the enjoyment of such property is wholly selfish, and limited to
its possessor. Splendid dress and equipage, however, when so arranged as to
produce real beauty of effect, may often be rather a generous than a selfish channel
of expenditure. They will, however, necessarily in such case involve some of the arts
of design; and therefore take their place in a higher category than that of luxuries
merely.

4. The fourth kind of property is that which bestows intellectual or emotional

pleasure, consisting of land set apart for purposes of delight more than for
agriculture, of books, works of art, and objects of natural history.

It is, of course, impossible to fix an accurate limit between property of the last class
and of this class, since things which are a mere luxury to one person are a means of
intellectual occupation to another. Flowers in a London ball-room are a luxury; in a
botanical garden, a delight of the intellect; and in their native fields, both; while the
most noble works of art are continually made material of vulgar luxury or of criminal
pride; but, when rightly used, property of this fourth class is the only kind which
 72

deserves the name of real property; it is the only kind which a man can truly be said
to "possess." What a man eats, or drinks, or wears, so long as it is only what is
needful for life, can no more be thought of as his possession than the air he
breathes. The air is as needful to him as the food; but we do not talk of a man's
wealth of air; and what food or clothing a man possesses more than he himself
requires, must be for others to use (and, to him, therefore, not a real property in
itself, but only a means of obtaining some real property in exchange for it). Whereas
the things that give intellectual or emotional enjoyment may be accumulated and do
not perish in using; but continually supply new pleasures and new powers of giving
pleasures to others. And these, therefore, are the only things which can rightly be
thought of as giving "wealth" or "well being." Food conduces only to "being," but
these to "well being." And there is not any broader general distinction between lower
and higher orders of men than rests on their possession of this real property. The
human race may be properly divided by zoologists into "men who have gardens,
libraries, or works of art; and who have none;" and the former class will include all
noble persons, except only a few who make the world their garden or museum; while
the people who have not, or, which is the same thing, do not care for gardens or
libraries, but care for nothing but money or luxuries, will include none but ignoble
persons: only it is necessary to understand that I mean by the term "garden" as
much the Carthusian's plot of ground fifteen feet square between his monastery
buttresses, as I do the grounds of Chatsworth or Kew; and I mean by the term "art"
as much the old sailor's print of the Arethusa bearing up to engage the Belle Poule,
as I do Raphael's "Disputa," and even rather more; for when abundant, beautiful
possessions of this kind are almost always associated with vulgar luxury, and
become then anything but indicative of noble character in their possessors. The ideal
of human life is a union of Spartan simplicity of manners with Athenian sensibility
and imagination, but in actual results, we are continually mistaking ignorance for
simplicity, and sensuality for refinement.

5. The fifth kind of property is representative property, consisting of documents or

money, or rather documents only, for money itself is only a transferable document,
current among societies of men, giving claim, at sight, to some definite benefit or
advantage, most commonly to a certain share of real property existing in those
societies. The money is only genuine when the property it gives claim to is real, or
the advantages it gives claim to certain; otherwise, it is false money, and may be
considered as much "forged" when issued by a government, or a bank, as when by
an individual. Thus, if a dozen of men, cast ashore on a desert island, pick up a
number of stones, put a red spot on each stone, and pass a law that every stone
marked with a red spot shall give claim to a peck of wheat;—so long as no wheat
exists, or can exist, on the island, the stones are not money. But the moment as
much wheat exists as shall render it possible for the society always to give a peck for
every spotted stone, the spotted stones would become money, and might be
exchanged by their possessors for whatever other commodities they chose, to the
value of the peck of wheat which the stones represented. If more stones were issued
 73

than the quantity of wheat could answer the demand of, the value of the stone
coinage would be depreciated, in proportion to its increase above the quantity
needed to answer it.

Again, supposing a certain number of the men so cast ashore were set aside by lot,
or any other convention, to do the rougher labour necessary for the whole society,
they themselves being maintained by the daily allotment of a certain quantity of food,
clothing, etc. Then, if it were agreed that the stones spotted with red should be signs
of a Government order for the labour of these men; and that any person presenting a
spotted stone at the office of the labourers, should be entitled to a man's work for a
week or a day, the red stones would be money; and might—probably would—
immediately pass current in the island for as much food, or clothing, or iron, or any
other article as a man's work for the period secured by the stone was worth. But if
the Government issued so many spotted stones that it was impossible for the body
of men they employed to comply with the orders; as, suppose, if they only employed
twelve men, and issued eighteen spotted stones daily, ordering a day's work each,
then the six extra stones would be forged or false money; and the effect of this
forgery would be the depreciation of the value of the whole coinage by one-third, that
being the period of shortcoming which would, on the average, necessarily ensue in
the execution of each order. Much occasional work may be done in a state or
society, by help of an issue of false money (or false promises) by way of stimulants;
and the fruit of this work, if it comes into the promiser's hands, may sometimes
enable the false promises at last to be fulfilled: hence the frequent issue of false
money by governments and banks, and the not unfrequent escapes from the natural
and proper consequences of such false issues, so as to cause a confused
conception in most people's minds of what money really is. I am not sure whether
some quantity of such false issue may not really be permissible in a nation,
accurately proportioned to the minimum average produce of the labour it excites; but
all such procedures are more or less unsound; and the notion of unlimited issue of
currency is simply one of the absurdest and most monstrous that ever came into
disjointed human wits.

The use of objects of real or supposed value for currency, as gold, jewellery, etc., is
barbarous; and it always expresses either the measure of the distrust in the society
of its own government, or the proportion of distrustful or barbarous nations with
whom it has to deal. A metal not easily corroded or imitated, is a desirable medium
of currency for the sake of cleanliness and convenience, but were it possible to
prevent forgery, the more worthless the metal itself, the better. The use of worthless
media, unrestrained by the use of valuable media, has always hitherto involved, and
is therefore supposed to involve necessarily, unlimited, or at least improperly
extended, issue; but we might as well suppose that a man must necessarily issue
unlimited promises because his words cost nothing. Intercourse with foreign nations
must, indeed, for ages yet to come, at the world's present rate of progress, be
carried on by valuable currencies; but such transactions are nothing more than forms
 74

of barter. The gold used at present as a currency is not, in point of fact, currency at
all, but the real property 17 which the currency gives claim to, stamped to measure its
quantity, and mingling with the real currency occasionally by barter.

The evils necessarily resulting from the use of baseless currencies have been
terribly illustrated while these sheets have been passing through the press; I have
not had time to examine the various conditions of dishonest or absurd trading which
have led to the late "panic" in America and England; this only I know, that no
merchant deserving the name ought to be more liable to "panic" than a soldier
should; for his name should never be on more paper than he can at any instant meet
the call of, happen what will. I do not say this without feeling at the same time how
difficult it is to mark, in existing commerce, the just limits between the spirit of
enterprise and of speculation. Something of the same temper which makes the
English soldier do always all that is possible, and attempt more than is possible, joins
its influence with that of mere avarice in tempting the English merchant into risks
which he cannot justify, and efforts which he cannot sustain; and the same passion
for adventure which our travellers gratify every summer on perilous snow wreaths,
and cloud-encompassed precipices, surrounds with a romantic fascination the
glittering of a hollow investment, and gilds the clouds that curl round gulfs of ruin.
Nay, a higher and a more serious feeling frequently mingles in the motley temptation;
and men apply themselves to the task of growing rich, as to a labour of providential
appointment, from which they cannot pause without culpability, nor retire without
dishonour. Our large trading cities bear to me very nearly the aspect of monastic
establishments in which the roar of the mill-wheel and the crane takes the place of
other devotional music; and in which the worship of Mammon or Moloch is
conducted with a tender reverence and an exact propriety; the merchant rising to his
Mammon matins with the self-denial of an anchorite, and expiating the frivolities into
which he may be beguiled, in the course of the day by late attendance at Mammon
vespers. But, with every allowance that can be made for these conscientious and
romantic persons, the fact remains the same, that by far the greater number of the
transactions which lead to these times of commercial embarrassment may be ranged
simply under two great heads,—gambling and stealing; and both of these in their
most culpable form, namely, gambling with money which is not ours, and stealing
from those who trust us. I have sometimes thought a day might come, when the
nation would perceive that a well-educated man who steals a hundred thousand
pounds, involving the entire means of subsistence of a hundred families, deserves,
on the whole, as severe a punishment as an ill-educated man who steals a purse
17
Or rather, equivalent, to such real property, because everybody has been accustomed to look upon
it as valuable: and therefore everybody is willing to give labour or goods for it. But real property does
ultimately consist only in things that nourish body or mind; gold would be useless to us if we could not
get mutton or books for it. Ultimately all commercial mistakes and embarrassments result from people
expecting to get goods without working for them, or wasting them after they have got them. A nation
which labours, and takes care of the fruits of labour, would be rich and happy; though there were no
gold in the universe. A nation which is idle, and wastes the produce of what work it does, would be
poor and miserable, though all its mountains were of gold, and had glens filled with diamonds instead
of glacier.
 75

from a pocket, or a mug from a pantry. But without hoping for this excess of
clearsightedness, we may at least labour for a system of greater honesty and
kindness in the minor commerce of our daily life; since the great dishonesty of the
great buyers and sellers is nothing more than the natural growth and outcome from
the little dishonesty of the little buyers and sellers. Every person who tries to buy an
article for less than its proper value, or who tries to sell it at more than its proper
value—every consumer who keeps a tradesman waiting for his money, and every
tradesman who bribes a consumer to extravagance by credit, is helping forward,
according to his own measure of power, a system of baseless and dishonourable
commerce, and forcing his country down into poverty and shame. And people of
moderate means and average powers of mind would do far more real good by
merely carrying out stern principles of justice and honesty in common matters of
trade, than by the most ingenious schemes of extended philanthropy, or vociferous
declarations of theological doctrine. There are three weighty matters of the law—
justice, mercy, and truth; and of these the Teacher puts truth last, because that
cannot be known but by a course of acts of justice and love. But men put, in all their
efforts, truth first, because they mean by it their own opinions; and thus, while the
world has many people who would suffer martyrdom in the cause of what they call
truth, it has few who will suffer even a little inconvenience, in that of justice and
mercy.
 76

UNTO THIS LAST: FOUR ESSAYS ON THE

FIRST PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

**********************************

"FRIEND, I DO THEE NO WRONG. DID'ST NOT THOU AGREE WITH ME FOR A

PENNY? TAKE THAT THINE IS, AND GO THY WAY. I WILL GIVE UNTO THIS
LAST EVEN AS UNTO THEE."

**********************************

"IF YE THINK GOOD, GIVE ME MY PRICE; AND IF NOT, FORBEAR. SO THEY

WEIGHED FOR MY PRICE THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER."
 77

PREFACE

The four following essays were published eighteen months ago in the Cornhill
Magazine, and were reprobated in a violent manner, as far as I could hear, by most
of the readers they met with.

Not a whit the less, I believe them to be the best, that is to say, the truest, rightest-
worded, and most serviceable things I have ever written; and the last of them, having
had especial pains spent on it, is probably the best I shall ever write.

"This," the reader may reply, "it might be, yet not therefore well written." Which, in no
mock humility, admitting, I yet rest satisfied with the work, though with nothing else
that I have done; and purposing shortly to follow out the subjects opened in these
papers, as I may find leisure, I wish the introductory statements to be within the
reach of any one who may care to refer to them. So I republish the essays as they
appeared. One word only is changed, correcting the estimate of a weight; and no
word is added.

Although, however, I find nothing to modify in these papers, it is a matter of regret to

me that the most startling of all the statements in them—that respecting the
necessity of the organization of labour, with fixed wages,—should have found its way
into the first essay; it being quite one of the least important, though by no means the
least certain, of the positions to be defended. The real gist of these papers, their
central meaning and aim, is to give, as I believe for the first time in plain English—it
has often been incidentally given in good Greek by Plato and Xenophon, and good
Latin by Cicero and Horace,—a logical definition of WEALTH: such definition being
absolutely needed for a basis of economical science. The most reputed essay on
that subject which has appeared in modern times, after opening with the statement
that "writers on political economy profess to teach, or to investigate, 18 the nature of
wealth," thus follows up the declaration of its thesis—"Every one has a notion,
sufficiently correct for common purposes, of what is meant by wealth." ... "It is no
part of the design of this treatise to aim at metaphysical nicety of definition." 19

Metaphysical nicety, we assuredly do not need; but physical nicety, and logical
accuracy, with respect to a physical subject, we as assuredly do.

Suppose the subject of inquiry, instead of being House-law (Oikonomia), had been
Star-law (Astronomia), and that, ignoring distinction between stars fixed and
wandering, as here between wealth radiant and wealth reflective, the writer had
begun thus: "Every one has a notion, sufficiently correct for common purposes, of
what is meant by stars. Metaphysical nicety in the definition of a star is not the object
of this treatise;"—the essay so opened might yet have been far more true in its final

18
Which? for where investigation is necessary, teaching is impossible.
19
"Principles of Political Economy." By J. S. Mill. Preliminary remarks, p. 2.
 78

statements, and a thousand-fold more serviceable to the navigator, than any treatise
on wealth, which founds its conclusions on the popular conception of wealth, can
ever become to the economist.

************************************************

It was, therefore, the first object of these following papers to give an accurate and
stable definition of wealth. Their second object was to show that the acquisition of
wealth was finally possible only under certain moral conditions of society, of which
quite the first was a belief in the existence and even, for practical purposes, in the
attainability of honesty.

Without venturing to pronounce—since on such a matter human judgment is by no

means conclusive—what is, or is not, the noblest of God's works, we may yet admit
so much of Pope's assertion as that an honest man is among His best works
presently visible, and, as things stand, a somewhat rare one; but not an incredible or
miraculous work; still less an abnormal one. Honesty is not a disturbing force, which
deranges the orbits of economy; but a consistent and commanding force, by
obedience to which—and by no other obedience—those orbits can continue clear of
chaos.

It is true, I have sometimes heard Pope condemned for the lowness, instead of the
height, of his standard:—"Honesty is indeed a respectable virtue; but how much
higher may men attain! Shall nothing more be asked of us than that we be honest?"

For the present, good friends, nothing. It seems that in our aspirations to be more
than that, we have to some extent lost sight of the propriety of being so much as
that. What else we may have lost faith in, there shall be here no question; but
assuredly we have lost faith in common honesty, and in the working power of it. And
this faith, with the facts on which it may rest, it is quite our first business to recover
and keep: not only believing, but even by experience assuring ourselves, that there
are yet in the world men who can be restrained from fraud otherwise than by the fear
of losing employment; 20 nay that it is even accurately in proportion to the number of
such men in any State, that the said State does or can prolong its existence.

To these two points, then, the following essays are mainly directed. The subject of
the organization of labour is only casually touched upon; because, if we once can get
a sufficient quantity of honesty in our captains, the organization of labour is easy,
and will develop itself without quarrel or difficulty; but if we cannot get honesty in our
captains, the organization of labour is for evermore impossible.

The several conditions of its possibility I purpose to examine at length in the sequel.
Yet, lest the reader should be alarmed by the hints thrown out during the following

20
"The effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is not that of his corporation, but of his
customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds, and corrects his
negligence" (Wealth of Nations, Book I. chap. 10).
 79

investigation of first principles, as if they were leading him into unexpectedly

dangerous ground, I will, for his better assurance, state at once the worst of the
political creed at which I wish him to arrive.

1. First,—that there should be training schools for youth established, at Government

cost, 21 and under Government discipline, over the whole country; that every child
born in the country should, at the parent's wish, be permitted (and, in certain cases,
be under penalty required) to pass through them; and that, in these schools, the child
should (with other minor pieces of knowledge hereafter to be considered)
imperatively be taught, with the best skill of teaching that the country could produce,
the following three things:—

(a) the laws of health, and the exercises enjoined by them;

(b) habits of gentleness and justice; and

(c) the calling by which he is to live.

2. Secondly,—that, in connection with these training schools, there should be

established, also entirely under Government regulation, manufactories and
workshops, for the production and sale of every necessary of life, and for the
exercise of every useful art. And that, interfering no whit with private enterprise, nor
setting any restraints or tax on private trade, but leaving both to do their best, and
beat the Government if they could,—there should, at these Government
manufactories and shops, be authoritatively good and exemplary work done, and
pure and true substance sold; so that a man could be sure, if he chose to pay the
Government price, that he got for his money bread that was bread, ale that was ale,
and work that was work.

3. Thirdly,—that any man, or woman, or boy, or girl, out of employment, should be at

once received at the nearest Government school, and set to such work as it
appeared, on trial, they were fit for, at a fixed rate of wages determinable every
year:—that, being found incapable of work through ignorance, they should be taught,
or being found incapable of work through sickness, should be tended; but that being
found objecting to work, they should be set, under compulsion of the strictest nature,
to the more painful and degrading forms of necessary toil, especially to that in mines
and other places of danger (such danger being, however, diminished to the utmost
by careful regulation and discipline) and the due wages of such work be retained—
cost of compulsion first abstracted—to be at the workman's command, so soon as he
has come to sounder mind respecting the laws of employment.

21
It will probably be inquired by near-sighted persons, out of what funds such schools could be
supported. The expedient modes of direct provision for them I will examine hereafter; indirectly, they
would be far more than self-supporting. The economy in crime alone (quite one of the most costly
articles of luxury in the modern European market), which such schools would induce, would suffice to
support them ten times over. Their economy of labour would be pure gain, and that too large to be
presently calculable.
 80

4. Lastly,—that for the old and destitute, comfort and home should be provided;
which provision, when misfortune had been by the working of such a system sifted
from guilt, would be honourable instead of disgraceful to the receiver. For (I repeat
this passage out of my Political Economy of Art, to which the reader is referred for
farther detail 22) "a labourer serves his country with his spade, just as a man in the
middle ranks of life serves it with sword, pen, or lancet: if the service is less, and,
therefore the wages during health less, then the reward, when health is broken, may
be less, but not, therefore, less honourable; and it ought to be quite as natural and
straightforward a matter for a labourer to take his pension from his parish, because
he has deserved well of his parish, as for a man in higher rank to take his pension
from his country, because he has deserved well of his country."

To which statement, I will only add, for conclusion, respecting the discipline and pay
of life and death, that, for both high and low, Livy's last words touching Valerius
Publicola, "de publico est elatus," 23 ought not to be a dishonourable close of epitaph.

These things, then, I believe, and am about, as I find power, to explain and illustrate
in their various bearings; following out also what belongs to them of collateral inquiry.
Here I state them only in brief, to prevent the reader casting about in alarm for my
ultimate meaning; yet requesting him, for the present to remember, that in a science
dealing with so subtle elements as those of human nature, it is only possible to
answer for the final truth of principles, not for the direct success of plans: and that in
the best of these last, what can be immediately accomplished is always
questionable, and what can be finally accomplished, inconceivable.

Denmark Hill, 10th May, 1862.

22
"The Political Economy of Art:" Addenda, p. 93.
23
"P. Valerius, omnium consensu princeps belli pacisque artibus, anno post moritur; gloriâ ingenti,
copiis familiaribus adeo exiguis, ut funeri sumtus deesset: de publico est elatus. Luxêre matronæ ut
Brutum."—Lib. II. c. xvi.
 81

ESSAY 1. THE ROOTS OF HONOUR

Among the delusions which at different periods have possessed themselves of the
minds of large masses of the human race, perhaps the most curious—certainly the
least creditable—is the modern soi-disant science of political economy, based on the
idea that an advantageous code of social action may be determined irrespectively of
the influence of social affection.

Of course, as in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such

popular creeds, political economy has a plausible idea at the root of it. "The social
affections," says the economist, "are accidental and disturbing elements in human
nature; but avarice and the desire of progress are constant elements. Let us
eliminate the inconstants, and, considering the human being merely as a covetous
machine, examine by what laws of labour, purchase, and sale, the greatest
accumulative result in wealth is obtainable. Those laws once determined, it will be for
each individual afterwards to introduce as much of the disturbing affectionate
element as he chooses, and to determine for himself the result on the new conditions
supposed."

This would be a perfectly logical and successful method of analysis, if the

accidentals afterwards to be introduced were of the same nature as the powers first
examined. Supposing a body in motion to be influenced by constant and inconstant
forces, it is usually the simplest way of examining its course to trace it first under the
persistent conditions, and afterwards introduce the causes of variation. But the
disturbing elements in the social problem are not of the same nature as the
constant ones; they alter the essence of the creature under examination the moment
they are added; they operate, not mathematically, but chemically, introducing
conditions which render all our previous knowledge unavailable. We made learned
experiments upon pure nitrogen, and have convinced ourselves that it is a very
manageable gas: but behold! the thing which we have practically to deal with is its
chloride; and this, the moment we touch it on our established principles, sends us
and our apparatus through the ceiling.

Observe, I neither impugn nor doubt the conclusions of the science, if its terms are
accepted. I am simply uninterested in them, as I should be in those of a science of
gymnastics which assumed that men had no skeletons. It might be shown, on that
supposition, that it would be advantageous to roll the students up into pellets, flatten
them into cakes, or stretch them into cables; and that when these results were
effected, the re-insertion of the skeleton would be attended with various
inconveniences to their constitution. The reasoning might be admirable, the
conclusions true, and the science deficient only in applicability. Modern political
economy stands on a precisely similar basis. Assuming, not that the human being
has no skeleton, but that it is all skeleton, it founds an ossifiant theory of progress on
this negation of a soul; and having shown the utmost that may be made of bones,
 82

and constructed a number of interesting geometrical figures with death's-heads and

humeri, successfully proves the inconvenience of the reappearance of a soul among
these corpuscular structures. I do not deny the truth of this theory: I simply deny its
applicability to the present phase of the world.

This inapplicability has been curiously manifested during the embarrassment caused
by the late strikes of our workmen. Here occurs one of the simplest cases, in a
pertinent and positive form, of the first vital problem which political economy has to
deal with (the relation between employer and employed); and at a severe crisis,
when lives in multitudes, and wealth in masses, are at stake, the political economists
are helpless—practically mute; no demonstrable solution of the difficulty can be
given by them, such as may convince or calm the opposing parties. Obstinately the
masters take one view of the matter; obstinately the operatives another; and no
political science can set them at one.

It would be strange if it could, it being not by "science" of any kind that men were
ever intended to be set at one. Disputant after disputant vainly strives to show that
the interests of the masters are, or are not, antagonistic to those of the men: none of
the pleaders ever seeming to remember that it does not absolutely or always follow
that the persons must be antagonistic because their interests are. If there is only a
crust of bread in the house, and mother and children are starving, their interests are
not the same. If the mother eats it, the children want it; if the children eat it, the
mother must go hungry to her work. Yet it does not necessarily follow that there will
be "antagonism" between them, that they will fight for the crust, and that the mother,
being strongest, will get it, and eat it. Neither, in any other case, whatever the
relations of the persons may be, can it be assumed for certain that, because their
interests are diverse, they must necessarily regard each other with hostility, and use
violence or cunning to obtain the advantage.

Even if this were so, and it were as just as it is convenient to consider men as
actuated by no other moral influences than those which affect rats or swine, the
logical conditions of the question are still indeterminable. It can never be shown
generally either that the interests of master and labourer are alike, or that they are
opposed; for, according to circumstances, they may be either. It is, indeed, always
the interest of both that the work should be rightly done, and a just price obtained for
it; but, in the division of profits, the gain of the one may or may not be the loss of the
other. It is not the master's interest to pay wages so low as to leave the men sickly
and depressed, nor the workman's interest to be paid high wages if the smallness of
the master's profit hinders him from enlarging his business, or conducting it in a safe
and liberal way. A stoker ought not to desire high pay if the company is too poor to
keep the engine-wheels in repair.

And the varieties of circumstance which influence these reciprocal interests are so
endless, that all endeavour to deduce rules of action from balance of expediency is
in vain. And it is meant to be in vain. For no human actions ever were intended by
 83

the Maker of men to be guided by balances of expediency, but by balances of

justice. He has therefore rendered all endeavours to determine expediency futile for
evermore. No man ever knew or can know, what will be the ultimate result to himself,
or to others, of any given line of conduct. But every man may know, and most of us
do know, what is a just and unjust act. And all of us may know also, that the
consequences of justice will be ultimately the best possible, both to others and
ourselves, though we can neither say what is best, or how it is likely to come to pass.

I have said balances of justice, meaning, in the term justice, to include affection,—
such affection as one man owes to another. All right relations between master and
operative, and all their best interests, ultimately depend on these.

We shall find the best and simplest illustration of the relations of master and
operative in the position of domestic servants.

We will suppose that the master of a household desires only to get as much work out
of his servants as he can, at the rate of wages he gives. He never allows them to be
idle; feeds them as poorly and lodges them as ill as they will endure, and in all things
pushes his requirements to the exact point beyond which he cannot go without
forcing the servant to leave him. In doing this, there is no violation on his part of what
is commonly called "justice." He agrees with the domestic for his whole time and
service, and takes them;—the limits of hardship in treatment being fixed by the
practice of other masters in his neighbourhood; that is to say, by the current rate of
wages for domestic labour. If the servant can get a better place, he is free to take
one, and the master can only tell what is the real market value of his labour, by
requiring as much as he will give.

This is the politico-economical view of the case, according to the doctors of that
science; who assert that by this procedure the greatest average of work will be
obtained from the servant, and therefore, the greatest benefit to the community, and
through the community, by reversion, to the servant himself.

That, however, is not so. It would be so if the servant were an engine of which the
motive power was steam, magnetism, gravitation, or any other agent of calculable
force. But he being, on the contrary, an engine whose motive power is a Soul, the
force of this very peculiar agent, as an unknown quantity, enters into all the political
economist's equations, without his knowledge, and falsifies every one of their results.
The largest quantity of work will not be done by this curious engine for pay, or under
pressure, or by help of any kind of fuel which may be supplied by the chaldron. It will
be done only when the motive force, that is to say, the will or spirit of the creature, is
brought to its greatest strength by its own proper fuel; namely, by the affections.

It may indeed happen, and does happen often, that if the master is a man of sense
and energy, a large quantity of material work may be done under mechanical
pressure, enforced by strong will and guided by wise method; also it may happen,
and does happen often, that if the master is indolent and weak (however good-
 84

natured), a very small quantity of work, and that bad, may be produced by the
servant's undirected strength, and contemptuous gratitude. But the universal law of
the matter is that, assuming any given quantity of energy and sense in master and
servant, the greatest material result obtainable by them will be, not through
antagonism to each other, but through affection for each other; and that if the
master, instead of endeavouring to get as much work as possible from the servant,
seeks rather to render his appointed and necessary work beneficial to him, and to
forward his interests in all just and wholesome ways, the real amount of work
ultimately done, or of good rendered, by the person so cared for, will indeed be the
greatest possible.

Observe, I say, "of good rendered," for a servant's work is not necessarily or always
the best thing he can give his master. But good of all kinds, whether in material
service, in protective watchfulness of his master's interest and credit, or in joyful
readiness to seize unexpected and irregular occasions of help.

Nor is this one whit less generally true because indulgence will be frequently abused,
and kindness met with ingratitude. For the servant who, gently treated, is ungrateful,
treated ungently, will be revengeful; and the man who is dishonest to a liberal master
will be injurious to an unjust one.

In any case, and with any person, this unselfish treatment will produce the most
effective return. Observe, I am here considering the affections wholly as a motive
power; not at all as things in themselves desirable or noble, or in any other way
abstractedly good. I look at them simply as an anomalous force, rendering every one
of the ordinary political economist's calculations nugatory; while, even if he desired to
introduce this new element into his estimates, he has no power of dealing with it; for
the affections only become a true motive power when they ignore every other motive
and condition of political economy. Treat the servant kindly, with the idea of turning
his gratitude to account, and you will get, as you deserve, no gratitude, nor any value
for your kindness; but treat him kindly without any economical purpose, and all
economical purposes will be answered; in this, as in all other matters, whosoever will
save his life shall lose it, whoso loses it shall find it. 24

24
The difference between the two modes of treatment, and between their effective material results,
may be seen very accurately by a comparison of the relations of Esther and Charlie in Bleak House,
with those of Miss Brass and the Marchioness in Master Humphrey's Clock.
The essential value and truth of Dickens's writings have been unwisely lost sight of by many
thoughtful persons, merely because he presents his truth with some colour of caricature. Unwisely,
because Dickens's caricature, though often gross, is never mistaken. Allowing for his manner of telling
them, the things he tells us are always true. I wish that he could think it right to limit his brilliant
exaggeration to works written only for public amusement; and when he takes up a subject of high
national importance, such as that which he handled in Hard Times, that he would use severer and
more accurate analysis. The usefulness of that work (to my mind, in several respects, the greatest he
has written) is with many persons seriously diminished because Mr. Bounderby is a dramatic monster,
instead of a characteristic example of a worldly master; and Stephen Blackpool a dramatic perfection,
instead of a characteristic example of an honest workman. But let us not lose the use of Dickens's wit
and insight, because he chooses to speak in a circle of stage fire. He is entirely right in his main drift
 85

The next clearest and simplest example of relation between master and operative is
that which exists between the commander of a regiment and his men.

Supposing the officer only desires to apply the rules of discipline so as, with least
trouble to himself, to make the regiment most effective, he will not be able, by any
rules, or administration of rules, on this selfish principle, to develop the full strength
of his subordinates. If a man of sense and firmness, he may, as in the former
instance, produce a better result than would be obtained by the irregular kindness of
a weak officer; but let the sense and firmness be the same in both cases, and
assuredly the officer who has the most direct personal relations with his men, the
most care for their interests, and the most value for their lives, will develop their
effective strength, through their affection for his own person, and trust in his
character, to a degree wholly unattainable by other means. The law applies still more
stringently as the numbers concerned are larger; a charge may often be successful,
though the men dislike their officers; a battle has rarely been won, unless they loved
their general.

Passing from these simple examples to the more complicated relations existing
between a manufacturer and his workmen, we are met first by certain curious
difficulties, resulting, apparently, from a harder and colder state of moral elements. It
is easy to imagine an enthusiastic affection existing among soldiers for the colonel,
not so easy to imagine an enthusiastic affection among cotton-spinners for the
proprietor of the mill. A body of men associated for purposes of robbery (as a
Highland clan in ancient times) shall be animated by perfect affection, and every
member of it be ready to lay down his life for the life of his chief. But a band of men
associated for purposes of legal production and accumulation is usually animated, it
appears, by no such emotions, and none of them are in anywise willing to give his
life for the life of his chief. Not only are we met by this apparent anomaly, in moral
matters, but by others connected with it, in administration of system. For a servant or
a soldier is engaged at a definite rate of wages, for a definite period; but a workman
at a rate of wages variable according to the demand for labour, and with the risk of
being at any time thrown out of his situation by chances of trade. Now, as, under
these contingencies, no action of the affections can take place, but only an explosive
action of disaffections, two points offer themselves for consideration in the matter.

The first—How far the rate of wages may be so regulated as not to vary with the
demand for labour.

The second—How far it is possible that bodies of workmen may be engaged and
maintained at such fixed rate of wages (whatever the state of trade may be), without
enlarging or diminishing their number, so as to give them permanent interest in the

and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially Hard Times, should be
studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions. They will find much that
is partial, and, because partial, apparently unjust; but if they examine all the evidence on the other
side, which Dickens seems to overlook, it will appear, after all their trouble, that his view was the
finally right one, grossly and sharply told.
 86

establishment with which they are connected, like that of the domestic servants in an
old family, or an esprit de corps, like that of the soldiers in a crack regiment.

The first question is, I say, how far it may be possible to fix the rate of wages
irrespectively of the demand for labour.

Perhaps one of the most curious facts in the history of human error is the denial by
the common political economist of the possibility of thus regulating wages; while, for
all the important, and much of the unimportant, labour on the earth, wages are
already so regulated.

We do not sell our prime-ministership by Dutch auction; nor, on the decease of a

bishop, whatever may be the general advantages of simony, do we (yet) offer his
diocese to the clergyman who will take the episcopacy at the lowest contract. We
(with exquisite sagacity of political economy!) do indeed sell commissions, but not,
openly, generalships: sick, we do not inquire for a physician who takes less than a
guinea; litigious, we never think of reducing six-and-eightpence to four-and-sixpence;
caught in a shower, we do not canvass the cabmen, to find one who values his
driving at less than a sixpence a mile.

It is true that in all these cases there is, and in every conceivable case there must
be, ultimate reference to the presumed difficulty of the work, or number of candidates
for the office. If it were thought that the labour necessary to make a good physician
would be gone through by a sufficient number of students with the prospect of only
half-guinea fees, public consent would soon withdraw the unnecessary half-guinea.
In this ultimate sense, the price of labour is indeed always regulated by the demand
for it; but so far as the practical and immediate administration of the matter is
regarded, the best labour always has been, and is, as all labour ought to be, paid by
an invariable standard.

"What!" the reader, perhaps, answers amazedly: "pay good and bad workmen
alike?"

Certainly. The difference between one prelate's sermons and his successor's,—or
between one physician's opinion and another's,—is far greater, as respects the
qualities of mind involved, and far more important in result to you personally, than
the difference between good and bad laying of bricks (though that is greater than
most people suppose). Yet you pay with equal fee, contentedly, the good and bad
workmen upon your soul, and the good and bad workmen upon your body; much
more may you pay, contentedly, with equal fees, the good and bad workmen upon
your house.

"Nay, but I choose my physician and (?) my clergyman, thus indicating my sense of
the quality of their work." By all means, also, choose your bricklayer; that is the
proper reward of the good workman, to be "chosen." The natural and right system
respecting all labour is, that it should be paid at a fixed rate, but the good workman
 87

employed, and the bad workmen unemployed. The false, unnatural, and destructive
system is, when the bad workman is allowed to offer his work at half-price, and either
take the place of the good, or force him by his competition to work for an inadequate
sum.

This equality of wages, then, being the first object towards which we have to
discover the directest available road; the second is, as above stated, that of
maintaining constant numbers of workmen in employment, whatever may be the
accidental demand for the article they produce.

I believe the sudden and extensive inequalities of demand which necessarily arise in
the mercantile operations of an active nation, constitute the only essential difficulty
which has to be overcome in a just organization of labour. The subject opens into too
many branches to admit of being investigated in a paper of this kind; but the
following general facts bearing on it may be noted.

The wages which enable any workman to live are necessarily higher, if his work is
liable to intermission, than if it is assured and continuous; and however severe the
struggle for work may become, the general law will always hold, that men must get
more daily pay if, on the average, they can only calculate on work three days a
week, than they would require if they were sure of work six days a week. Supposing
that a man cannot live on less than a shilling a day, his seven shillings he must get,
either for three days' violent work, or six days' deliberate work. The tendency of all
modern mercantile operations is to throw both wages and trade into the form of a
lottery, and to make the workman's pay depend on intermittent exertion, and the
principal's profit on dexterously used chance.

In what partial degree, I repeat, this may be necessary, in consequence of the

activities of modern trade, I do not here investigate; contenting myself with the fact,
that in its fatallest aspects it is assuredly unnecessary, and results merely from love
of gambling on the part of the masters, and from ignorance and sensuality in the
men. The masters cannot bear to let any opportunity of gain escape them, and
frantically rush at every gap and breach in the walls of Fortune, raging to be rich, and
affronting, with impatient covetousness, every risk of ruin; while the men prefer three
days of violent labour, and three days of drunkenness, to six days of moderate work
and wise rest. There is no way in which a principal, who really desires to help his
workmen, may do it more effectually than by checking these disorderly habits both in
himself and them; keeping his own business operations on a scale which will enable
him to pursue them securely, not yielding to temptations of precarious gain; and, at
the same time, leading his workmen into regular habits of labour and life, either by
inducing them rather to take low wages in the form of a fixed salary, than high
wages, subject to the chance of their being thrown out of work; or, if this be
impossible, by discouraging the system of violent exertion for nominally high day
wages, and leading the men to take lower pay for more regular labour.
 88

In effecting any radical changes of this kind, doubtless there would be great
inconvenience and loss incurred by all the originators of movement. That which can
be done with perfect convenience and without loss, is not always the thing that most
needs to be done, or which we are most imperatively required to do.

I have already alluded to the difference hitherto existing between regiments of men
associated for purposes of violence, and for purposes of manufacture; in that the
former appear capable of self-sacrifice—the latter, not; which singular fact is the real
reason of the general lowness of estimate in which the profession of commerce is
held, as compared with that of arms. Philosophically, it does not, at first sight, appear
reasonable (many writers have endeavoured to prove it unreasonable) that a
peaceable and rational person, whose trade is buying and selling, should be held in
less honour than an unpeaceable and often irrational person, whose trade is slaying.
Nevertheless, the consent of mankind has always, in spite of the philosophers, given
precedence to the soldier.

And this is right.

For the soldier's trade, verily and essentially, is not slaying, but being slain. This,
without well knowing its own meaning, the world honours it for. A bravo's trade is
slaying; but the world has never respected bravos more than merchants: the reason
it honours the soldier is, because he holds his life at the service of the State.
Reckless he may be—fond of pleasure or of adventure—all kinds of bye-motives and
mean impulses may have determined the choice of his profession, and may affect (to
all appearance exclusively) his daily conduct in it; but our estimate of him is based
on this ultimate fact—of which we are well assured—that, put him in a fortress
breach, with all the pleasures of the world behind him, and only death and his duty in
front of him, he will keep his face to the front; and he knows that this choice may be
put to him at any moment, and has beforehand taken his part—virtually takes such
part continually—does, in reality, die daily.

Not less is the respect we pay to the lawyer and physician, founded ultimately on
their self-sacrifice. Whatever the learning or acuteness of a great lawyer, our chief
respect for him depends on our belief that, set in a judge's seat, he will strive to
judge justly, come of it what may. Could we suppose that he would take bribes, and
use his acuteness and legal knowledge to give plausibility to iniquitous decisions, no
degree of intellect would win for him our respect. Nothing will win it, short of our tacit
conviction, that in all important acts of his life justice is first with him; his own interest,
second.

In the case of a physician, the ground of the honour we render him is clearer still.
Whatever his science, we should shrink from him in horror if we found him regard his
patients merely as subjects to experiment upon; much more, if we found that,
receiving bribes from persons interested in their deaths, he was using his best skill to
give poison in the mask of medicine.
 89

Finally, the principle holds with utmost clearness as it respects clergymen. No

goodness of disposition will excuse want of science in a physician, or of shrewdness
in an advocate; but a clergyman, even though his power of intellect be small, is
respected on the presumed ground of his unselfishness and serviceableness.

Now there can be no question but that the tact, foresight, decision, and other mental
powers, required for the successful management of a large mercantile concern, if not
such as could be compared with those of a great lawyer, general, or divine, would at
least match the general conditions of mind required in the subordinate officers of a
ship, or of a regiment, or in the curate of a country parish. If, therefore, all the
efficient members of the so-called liberal professions are still, somehow, in public
estimate of honour, preferred before the head of a commercial firm, the reason must
lie deeper than in the measurement of their several powers of mind.

And the essential reason for such preference will be found to lie in the fact that the
merchant is presumed to act always selfishly. His work may be very necessary to the
community; but the motive of it is understood to be wholly personal. The merchant's
first object in all his dealings must be (the public believe) to get as much for himself,
and leave as little to his neighbour (or customer) as possible. Enforcing this upon
him, by political statute, as the necessary principle of his action; recommending it to
him on all occasions, and themselves reciprocally adopting it; proclaiming
vociferously, for law of the universe, that a buyer's function is to cheapen, and a
seller's to cheat,—the public, nevertheless, involuntarily condemn the man of
commerce for his compliance with their own statement, and stamp him for ever as
belonging to an inferior grade of human personality.

This they will find, eventually, they must give up doing. They must not cease to
condemn selfishness; but they will have to discover a kind of commerce which is not
exclusively selfish. Or, rather, they will have to discover that there never was, or can
be, any other kind of commerce; that this which they have called commerce was not
commerce at all, but cozening; and that a true merchant differs as much from a
merchant according to laws of modern political economy, as the hero of
the Excursion from Autolycus. They will find that commerce is an occupation which
gentlemen will every day see more need to engage in, rather than in the businesses
of talking to men, or slaying them; that, in true commerce, as in true preaching, or
true fighting, it is necessary to admit the idea of occasional voluntary loss; that
sixpences have to be lost, as well as lives, under a sense of duty; that the market
may have its martyrdoms as well as the pulpit; and trade its heroisms, as well as
war.

May have—in the final issue, must have—and only has not had yet, because men of
heroic temper have always been misguided in their youth into other fields, not
recognizing what is in our days, perhaps, the most important of all fields; so that,
while many a zealous person loses his life in trying to teach the form of a gospel,
very few will lose a hundred pounds in showing the practice of one.
 90

The fact is, that people never have had clearly explained to them the true functions
of a merchant with respect to other people. I should like the reader to be very clear
about this.

Five great intellectual professions, relating to daily necessities of life, have hitherto
existed—three exist necessarily, in every civilized nation:

The Soldier's profession is to defend it.

The Pastor's, to teach it.

The Physician's, to keep it in health.

The Lawyer's, to enforce justice in it.

The Merchant's, to provide for it.

And the duty of all these men is, on due occasion, to die for it.

"On due occasion," namely:—

The Soldier, rather than leave his post in battle.

The Physician, rather than leave his post in plague.

The Pastor, rather than teach Falsehood.

The Lawyer, rather than countenance Injustice.

The Merchant—What is his "due occasion" of death? It is the main question for the
merchant, as for all of us. For, truly, the man who does not know when to die, does
not know how to live.

Observe, the merchant's function (or manufacturer's, for in the broad sense in which
it is here used the word must be understood to include both) is to provide for the
nation. It is no more his function to get profit for himself out of that provision than it is
a clergyman's function to get his stipend. The stipend is a due and necessary
adjunct, but not the object, of his life, if he be a true clergyman, any more than his
fee (or honorarium) is the object of life to a true physician. Neither is his fee the
object of life to a true merchant. All three, if true men, have a work to be done
irrespective of fee—to be done even at any cost, or for quite the contrary of fee; the
pastor's function being to teach, the physician's to heal, and the merchant's, as I
have said, to provide. That is to say, he has to understand to their very root the
qualities of the thing he deals in, and the means of obtaining or producing it; and he
has to apply all his sagacity and energy to the producing or obtaining it in perfect
state, and distributing it at the cheapest possible price where it is most needed.

And because the production or obtaining of any commodity involves necessarily the
agency of many lives and hands, the merchant becomes in the course of his
 91

business the master and governor of large masses of men in a more direct, though
less confessed way, than a military officer or pastor; so that on him falls, in great
part, the responsibility for the kind of life they lead: and it becomes his duty, not only
to be always considering how to produce what he sells in the purest and cheapest
forms, but how to make the various employments involved in the production, or
transference of it, most beneficial to the men employed.

And as into these two functions, requiring for their right exercise the highest
intelligence, as well as patience, kindness, and tact, the merchant is bound to put all
his energy, so for their just discharge he is bound, as soldier or physician is bound,
to give up, if need be, his life, in such way as it may be demanded of him. Two main
points he has in his providing function to maintain: first, his engagements
(faithfulness to engagements being the real root of all possibilities in commerce);
and, secondly, the perfectness and purity of the thing provided; so that, rather than
fail in any engagement, or consent to any deterioration, adulteration, or unjust and
exorbitant price of that which he provides, he is bound to meet fearlessly any form of
distress, poverty, or labour, which may, through maintenance of these points, come
upon him.

Again: in his office as governor of the men employed by him, the merchant or
manufacturer is invested with a distinctly paternal authority and responsibility. In
most cases, a youth entering a commercial establishment is withdrawn altogether
from home influence; his master must become his father, else he has, for practical
and constant help, no father at hand: in all cases the master's authority, together with
the general tone and atmosphere of his business, and the character of the men with
whom the youth is compelled in the course of it to associate, have more immediate
and pressing weight than the home influence, and will usually neutralize it either for
good or evil; so that the only means which the master has of doing justice to the men
employed by him is to ask himself sternly whether he is dealing with such
subordinate as he would with his own son, if compelled by circumstances to take
such a position.

Supposing the captain of a frigate saw it right, or were by any chance obliged, to
place his own son in the position of a common sailor; as he would then treat his son,
he is bound always to treat every one of the men under him. So, also; supposing the
master of a manufactory saw it right, or were by any chance obliged, to place his
own son in the position of an ordinary workman; as he would then treat his son, he is
bound always to treat every one of his men. This is the only effective true, or
practical Rule which can be given on this point of political economy.

And as the captain of a ship is bound to be the last man to leave his ship in case of
wreck, and to share his last crust with the sailors in case of famine, so the
manufacturer, in any commercial crisis or distress, is bound to take the suffering of it
with his men, and even to take more of it for himself than he allows his men to feel;
as a father would in a famine, shipwreck, or battle, sacrifice himself for his son.
 92

All which sounds very strange: the only real strangeness in the matter being,
nevertheless, that it should so sound. For all this is true, and that not partially nor
theoretically, but everlastingly and practically: all other doctrine than this respecting
matters political being false in premises, absurd in deduction, and impossible in
practice, consistently with any progressive state of national life; all the life which we
now possess as a nation showing itself in the resolute denial and scorn, by a few
strong minds and faithful hearts, of the economic principles taught to our multitudes,
which principles, so far as accepted, lead straight to national destruction. Respecting
the modes and forms of destruction to which they lead, and, on the other hand,
respecting the farther practical working of true polity, I hope to reason further in a
following paper.
 93

ESSAY 2. THE VEINS OF WEALTH

The answer which would be made by any ordinary political economist to the
statements contained in the preceding paper, is in few words as follows:—

"It is indeed true that certain advantages of a general nature may be obtained by the
development of social affections. But political economists never professed, nor
profess, to take advantages of a general nature into consideration. Our science is
simply the science of getting rich. So far from being a fallacious or visionary one, it is
found by experience to be practically effective. Persons who follow its precepts do
actually become rich, and persons who disobey them become poor. Every capitalist
of Europe has acquired his fortune by following the known laws of our science, and
increases his capital daily by an adherence to them. It is vain to bring forward tricks
of logic, against the force of accomplished facts. Every man of business knows by
experience how money is made, and how it is lost."

Pardon me. Men of business do indeed know how they themselves made their
money, or how, on occasion, they lost it. Playing a long-practised game, they are
familiar with the chances of its cards, and can rightly explain their losses and gains.
But they neither know who keeps the bank of the gambling-house, nor what other
games may be played with the same cards, nor what other losses and gains, far
away among the dark streets, are essentially, though invisibly, dependent on theirs
in the lighted rooms. They have learned a few, and only a few, of the laws of
mercantile economy; but not one of those of political economy.

Primarily, which is very notable and curious, I observe that men of business rarely
know the meaning of the word "rich." At least if they know, they do not in their
reasonings allow for the fact that it is a relative word, implying its opposite "poor" as
positively as the word "north" implies its opposite "south." Men nearly always speak
and write as if riches were absolute, and it were possible, by following certain
scientific precepts, for everybody to be rich. Whereas riches are a power like that of
electricity, acting only through inequalities or negations of itself. The force of the
guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your
neighbour's pocket. If he did not want it, it would be of no use to you; the degree of
power it possesses depends accurately upon the need or desire he has for it,—and
the art of making yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist's sense, is
therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour poor.

I would not contend in this matter (and rarely in any matter), for the acceptance of
terms. But I wish the reader clearly and deeply to understand the difference between
the two economies, to which the terms "Political" and "Mercantile" might not
unadvisably be attached.
 94

Political economy (the economy of a State, or of citizens) consists simply in the

production, preservation, and distribution, at fittest time and place, of useful or
pleasurable things. The farmer who cuts his hay at the right time; the shipwright who
drives his bolts well home in sound wood; the builder who lays good bricks in well-
tempered mortar; the housewife who takes care of her furniture in the parlour, and
guards against all waste in her kitchen; and the singer who rightly disciplines, and
never overstrains her voice: are all political economists in the true and final sense;
adding continually to the riches and well-being of the nation to which they belong.

But mercantile economy, the economy of "merces" or of "pay," signifies the

accumulation, in the hands of individuals, of legal, or moral claim upon, or power
over, the labour of others; every such claim implying precisely as much poverty or
debt on one side, as it implies riches or right on the other.

It does not, therefore, necessarily involve an addition to the actual property, or well-
being, of the State in which it exists. But since this commercial wealth, or power over
labour, is nearly always convertible at once into real property, while real property is
not always convertible at once into power over labour, the idea of riches among
active men in civilized nations, generally refers to commercial wealth; and in
estimating their possessions, they rather calculate the value of their horses and
fields by the number of guineas they could get for them, than the value of their
guineas by the number of horses and fields they could buy with them.

There is, however, another reason for this habit of mind; namely, that an
accumulation of real property is of little use to its owner, unless, together with it, he
has commercial power over labour. Thus, suppose any person to be put in
possession of a large estate of fruitful land, with rich beds of gold in its gravel,
countless herds of cattle in its pastures; houses, and gardens, and storehouses full
of useful stores; but suppose, after all, that he could get no servants? In order that
he may be able to have servants, some one in his neighbourhood must be poor, and
in want of his gold—or his corn. Assume that no one is in want of either, and that no
servants are to be had. He must, therefore, bake his own bread, make his own
clothes, plough his own ground, and shepherd his own flocks. His gold will be as
useful to him as any other yellow pebbles on his estate. His stores must rot, for he
cannot consume them. He can eat no more than another man could eat, and wear
no more than another man could wear. He must lead a life of severe and common
labour to procure even ordinary comforts; he will be ultimately unable to keep either
houses in repair, or fields in cultivation; and forced to content himself with a poor
man's portion of cottage and garden, in the midst of a desert of waste land, trampled
by wild cattle, and encumbered by ruins of palaces, which he will hardly mock at
himself by calling "his own."

The most covetous of mankind would, with small exultation, I presume, accept riches
of this kind on these terms. What is really desired, under the name of riches, is,
essentially, power over men; in its simplest sense, the power of obtaining for our own
 95

advantage the labour of servant, tradesman, and artist; in wider sense, authority of
directing large masses of the nation to various ends (good, trivial, or hurtful,
according to the mind of the rich person). And this power of wealth of course is
greater or less in direct proportion to the poverty of the men over whom it is
exercised, and in inverse proportion to the number of persons who are as rich as
ourselves, and who are ready to give the same price for an article of which the
supply is limited. If the musician is poor, he will sing for small pay, as long as there is
only one person who can pay him; but if there be two or three, he will sing for the
one who offers him most. And thus the power of the riches of the patron (always
imperfect and doubtful, as we shall see presently, even when most authoritative)
depends first on the poverty of the artist, and then on the limitation of the number of
equally wealthy persons, who also wants seats at the concert. So that, as above
stated, the art of becoming "rich," in the common sense, is not absolutely nor finally
the art of accumulating much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our
neighbours shall have less. In accurate terms, it is "the art of establishing the
maximum inequality in our own favour."

Now the establishment of such inequality cannot be shown in the abstract to be

either advantageous or disadvantageous to the body of the nation. The rash and
absurd assumption that such inequalities are necessarily advantageous, lies at the
root of most of the popular fallacies on the subject of political economy. For the
eternal and inevitable law in this matter is, that the beneficialness of the inequality
depends, first, on the methods by which it was accomplished, and, secondly, on the
purposes to which it is applied. Inequalities of wealth, unjustly established, have
assuredly injured the nation in which they exist during their establishment; and,
unjustly directed, injure it yet more during their existence. But inequalities of wealth
justly established, benefit the nation in the course of their establishment; and, nobly
used, aid it yet more by their existence. That is to say, among every active and well-
governed people, the various strength of individuals, tested by full exertion and
specially applied to various need, issues in unequal, but harmonious results,
receiving reward or authority according to its class and service; 25 while, in the

25
I have been naturally asked several times, with respect to the sentence in the first of these papers,
"the bad workmen unemployed," "But what are you to do with your bad unemployed workmen?" Well,
it seems to me the question might have occurred to you before. Your housemaid's place is vacant—
you give twenty pounds a year—two girls come for it, one neatly dressed, the other dirtily; one with
good recommendations, the other with none. You do not, under these circumstances, usually ask the
dirty one if she will come for fifteen pounds, or twelve; and, on her consenting, take her instead of the
well-recommended one. Still less do you try to beat both down by making them bid against each
other, till you can hire both, one at twelve pounds a year, and the other at eight. You simply take the
one fittest for the place, and send away the other, not perhaps concerning yourself quite as much as
you should with the question which you now impatiently put to me, "What is to become of her?" For all
that I advise you to do, is to deal with workmen as with servants; and verily the question is of weight:
"Your bad workman, idler, and rogue—what are you to do with him?"
We will consider of this presently: remember that the administration of a complete system of national
commerce and industry cannot be explained in full detail within the space of twelve pages. Meantime,
consider whether, there being confessedly some difficulty in dealing with rogues and idlers, it may not
be advisable to produce as few of them as possible. If you examine into the history of rogues, you will
find they are as truly manufactured articles as anything else, and it is just because our present system
 96

inactive or ill-governed nation, the gradations of decay and the victories of treason
work out also their own rugged system of subjection and success; and substitute, for
the melodious inequalities of concurrent power, the iniquitous dominances and
depressions of guilt and misfortune.

Thus the circulation of wealth in a nation resembles that of the blood in the natural
body. There is one quickness of the current which comes of cheerful emotion or
wholesome exercise; and another which comes of shame or of fever. There is a flush
of the body which is full of warmth and life; and another which will pass into
putrefaction.

The analogy will hold, down even to minute particulars. For as diseased local
determination of the blood involves depression of the general health of the system,
all morbid local action of riches will be found ultimately to involve a weakening of the
resources of the body politic.

The mode in which this is produced may be at once understood by examining one or
two instances of the development of wealth in the simplest possible circumstances.

Suppose two sailors cast away on an uninhabited coast, and obliged to maintain
themselves there by their own labour for a series of years.

If they both kept their health, and worked steadily, and in amity with each other, they
might build themselves a convenient house, and in time come to possess a certain
quantity of cultivated land, together with various stores laid up for future use. All
these things would be real riches or property; and, supposing the men both to have
worked equally hard, they would each have right to equal share or use of it. Their
political economy would consist merely in careful preservation and just division of
these possessions. Perhaps, however, after some time one or other might be
dissatisfied with the results of their common farming; and they might in consequence
agree to divide the land they had brought under the spade into equal shares, so that
each might thenceforward work in his own field and live by it. Suppose that after this
arrangement had been made, one of them were to fall ill, and be unable to work on
his land at a critical time—say of sowing or harvest.

He would naturally ask the other to sow or reap for him.

Then his companion might say, with perfect justice, "I will do this additional work for
you; but if I do it, you must promise to do as much for me at another time. I will count
how many hours I spend on your ground, and you shall give me a written promise to
work for the same number of hours on mine, whenever I need your help, and you are
able to give it."

of political economy gives so large a stimulus to that manufacture that you may know it to be a false
one. We had better seek for a system which will develop honest men, than for one which will deal
cunningly with vagabonds. Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our
prisons.
 97

Suppose the disabled man's sickness to continue, and that under various
circumstances, for several years, requiring the help of the other, he on each
occasion gave a written pledge to work, as soon as he was able, at his companion's
orders, for the same number of hours which the other had given up to him. What will
the positions of the two men be when the invalid is able to resume work?

Considered as a "Polis," or state, they will be poorer than they would have been
otherwise: poorer by the withdrawal of what the sick man's labour would have
produced in the interval. His friend may perhaps have toiled with an energy
quickened by the enlarged need, but in the end his own land and property must have
suffered by the withdrawal of so much of his time and thought from them; and the
united property of the two men will be certainly less than it would have been if both
had remained in health and activity.

But the relations in which they stand to each other are also widely altered. The sick
man has not only pledged his labour for some years, but will probably have
exhausted his own share of the accumulated stores, and will be in consequence for
some time dependent on the other for food, which he can only "pay" or reward him
for by yet more deeply pledging his own labour.

Supposing the written promises to be held entirely valid (among civilized nations
their validity is secured by legal measures 26), the person who had hitherto worked for
both might now, if he chose, rest altogether, and pass his time in idleness, not only
forcing his companion to redeem all the engagements he had already entered into,
but exacting from him pledges for further labour, to an arbitrary amount, for what
food he had to advance to him.

There might not, from first to last, be the least illegality (in the ordinary sense of the
word) in the arrangement; but if a stranger arrived on the coast at this advanced
epoch of their political economy, he would find one man commercially Rich; the other
commercially Poor. He would see, perhaps with no small surprise, one passing his
days in idleness; the other labouring for both, and living sparely, in the hope of
recovering his independence, at some distant period.

This is, of course, an example of one only out of many ways in which inequality of
possession may be established between different persons, giving rise to the
Mercantile forms of Riches and Poverty. In the instance before us, one of the men

26
The disputes which exist respecting the real nature of money arise more from the disputants
examining its functions on different sides, than from any real dissent in their opinions. All money,
properly so called, is an acknowledgment of debt; but as such, it may either be considered to
represent the labour and property of the creditor, or the idleness and penury of the debtor. The
intricacy of the question has been much increased by the (hitherto necessary) use of marketable
commodities, such as gold, silver, salt, shells, etc., to give intrinsic value or security to currency; but
the final and best definition of money is that it is a documentary promise ratified and guaranteed by
the nation to give or find a certain quantity of labour on demand. A man's labour for a day is a better
standard of value than a measure of any produce, because no produce ever maintains a consistent
rate of productibility.
 98

might from the first have deliberately chosen to be idle, and to put his life in pawn for
present ease; or he might have mismanaged his land, and been compelled to have
recourse to his neighbour for food and help, pledging his future labour for it. But what
I want the reader to note especially is the fact, common to a large number of typical
cases of this kind, that the establishment of the mercantile wealth which consists in a
claim upon labour, signifies a political diminution of the real wealth which consists in
substantial possessions.

Take another example, more consistent with the ordinary course of affairs of trade.
Suppose that three men, instead of two, formed the little isolated republic, and found
themselves obliged to separate in order to farm different pieces of land at some
distance from each other along the coast; each estate furnishing a distinct kind of
produce, and each more or less in need of the material raised on the other. Suppose
that the third man, in order to save the time of all three, undertakes simply to
superintend the transference of commodities from one farm to the other; on condition
of receiving some sufficiently remunerative share of every parcel of goods conveyed,
or of some other parcel received in exchange for it.

If this carrier or messenger always brings to each estate, from the other, what is
chiefly wanted, at the right time, the operations of the two farmers will go on
prosperously, and the largest possible result in produce, or wealth, will be attained
by the little community. But suppose no intercourse between the landowners is
possible, except through the travelling agent; and that, after a time, this agent,
watching the course of each man's agriculture, keeps back the articles with which he
has been entrusted until there comes a period of extreme necessity for them, on one
side or other, and then exacts in exchange for them all that the distressed farmer can
spare of other kinds of produce; it is easy to see that by ingeniously watching his
opportunities, he might possess himself regularly of the greater part of the
superfluous produce of the two estates, and at last, in some year of severest trial or
scarcity, purchase both for himself, and maintain the former proprietors
thenceforward as his labourers or servants.

This would be a case of commercial wealth acquired on the exactest principles of

modern political economy. But more distinctly even than in the former instance, it is
manifest in this that the wealth of the State, or of the three men considered as a
society, is collectively less than it would have been had the merchant been content
with juster profit. The operations of the two agriculturists have been cramped to the
utmost; and the continual limitations of the supply of things they wanted at critical
times, together with the failure of courage consequent on the prolongation of a
struggle for mere existence, without any sense of permanent gain, must have
seriously diminished the effective results of their labour; and the stores finally
accumulated in the merchant's hands will not in anywise be of equivalent value to
those which, had his dealings been honest, would have filled at once the granaries of
the farmers and his own.
 99

The whole question, therefore, respecting not only the advantage, but even the
quantity, of national wealth, resolves itself finally into one of abstract justice. It is
impossible to conclude, of any given mass of acquired wealth, merely by the fact of
its existence, whether it signifies good or evil to the nation in the midst of which it
exists. Its real value depends on the moral sign attached to it, just as sternly as that
of a mathematical quantity depends on the algebraical sign attached to it. Any given
accumulation of commercial wealth may be indicative, on the one hand, of faithful
industries, progressive energies, and productive ingenuities; or, on the other, it may
be indicative of mortal luxury, merciless tyranny, ruinous chicane. Some treasures
are heavy with human tears, as an ill-stored harvest with untimely rain; and some
gold is brighter in sunshine than it is in substance.

And these are not, observe, merely moral or pathetic attributes of riches, which the
seeker of riches may, if he chooses, despise; they are, literally and sternly, material
attributes of riches, depreciating or exalting, incalculably, the monetary signification
of the sum in question. One mass of money is the outcome of action which has
created,—another, of action which has annihilated,—ten times as much in the
gathering of it; such and such strong hands have been paralysed, as if they had
been numbed by nightshade: so many strong men's courage broken, so many
productive operations hindered; this and the other false direction given to labour, and
lying image of prosperity set up, on Dura plains dug into seven-times-heated
furnaces. That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of
far-reaching ruin; a wrecker's handful of coin gleaned from the beach to which he
has beguiled an argosy; a camp-follower's bundle of rags unwrapped from the
breasts of goodly soldiers dead; the purchase-pieces of potter's fields, wherein shall
be buried together the citizen and the stranger.

And therefore, the idea that directions can be given for the gaining of wealth,
irrespectively of the consideration of its moral sources, or that any general and
technical law of purchase and gain can be set down for national practice, is perhaps
the most insolently futile of all that ever beguiled men through their vices. So far as I
know, there is not in history record of anything so disgraceful to the human intellect
as the modern idea that the commercial text, "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in
the dearest," represents, or under any circumstances could represent, an available
principle of national economy. Buy in the cheapest market?—yes; but what made
your market cheap? Charcoal may be cheap among your roof timbers after a fire,
and bricks may be cheap in your streets after an earthquake; but fire and earthquake
may not therefore be national benefits. Sell in the dearest?—yes, truly; but what
made your market dear? You sold your bread well to-day; was it to a dying man who
gave his last coin for it, and will never need bread more, or to a rich man who to-
morrow will buy your farm over your head; or to a soldier on his way to pillage the
bank in which you have put your fortune?

None of these things you can know. One thing only you can know, namely, whether
this dealing of yours is a just and faithful one, which is all you need concern yourself
 100

about respecting it; sure thus to have done your own part in bringing about ultimately
in the world a state of things which will not issue in pillage or in death. And thus
every question concerning these things merges itself ultimately in the great question
of justice, which, the ground being thus far cleared for it, I will enter upon in the next
paper, leaving only, in this, three final points for the reader's consideration.

It has been shown that the chief value and virtue of money consists in its having
power over human beings; that, without this power, large material possessions are
useless, and, to any person possessing such power, comparatively unnecessary.
But power over human beings is attainable by other means than by money. As I said
a few pages back, the money power is always imperfect and doubtful; there are
many things which cannot be reached with it, others which cannot be retained by it.
Many joys may be given to men which cannot be bought for gold, and many fidelities
found in them which cannot be rewarded with it.

Trite enough,—the reader thinks. Yes: but it is not so trite,—I wish it were,—that in
this moral power, quite inscrutable and immeasurable though it be, there is a
monetary value just as real as that represented by more ponderous currencies. A
man's hand may be full of invisible gold, and the wave of it, or the grasp, shall do
more than another's with a shower of bullion. This invisible gold, also, does not
necessarily diminish in spending. Political economists will do well some day to take
heed of it, though they cannot take measure.

But farther. Since the essence of wealth consists in its authority over men, if the
apparent or nominal wealth fail in this power, it fails in essence; in fact, ceases to be
wealth at all. It does not appear lately in England, that our authority over men is
absolute. The servants show some disposition to rush riotously upstairs, under an
impression that their wages are not regularly paid. We should augur ill of any
gentleman's property to whom this happened every other day in his drawing-room.

So also, the power of our wealth seems limited as respects the comfort of the
servants, no less than their quietude. The persons in the kitchen appear to be ill-
dressed, squalid, half-starved. One cannot help imagining that the riches of the
establishment must be of a very theoretical and documentary character.

Finally. Since the essence of wealth consists in power over men, will it not follow that
the nobler and the more in number the persons are over whom it has power, the
greater the wealth? Perhaps it may even appear after some consideration, that the
persons themselves are the wealth—that these pieces of gold with which we are in
the habit of guiding them, are, in fact, nothing more than a kind of Byzantine harness
or trappings, very glittering and beautiful in barbaric sight, wherewith we bridle the
creatures; but that if these same living creatures could be guided without the fretting
and jingling of the byzants in their mouths and ears, they might themselves be more
valuable than their bridles. In fact, it may be discovered that the true veins of wealth
are purple—and not in Rock, but in Flesh—perhaps even that the final outcome and
 101

consummation of all wealth is in the producing as many as possible full-breathed,

bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human creatures. Our modern wealth, I think, has
rather a tendency the other way;—most political economists appearing to consider
multitudes of human creatures not conducive to wealth, or at best conducive to it
only by remaining in a dim-eyed and narrow-chested state of being.

Nevertheless, it is open, I repeat, to serious question, which I leave to the reader's

pondering, whether, among national manufactures, that of Souls of a good quality
may not at last turn out a quite leadingly lucrative one? Nay, in some faraway and
yet undreamt-of hour, I can even imagine that England may cast all thoughts of
possessive wealth back to the barbaric nations among whom they first arose; and
that, while the sands of the Indus and adamant of Golconda may yet stiffen the
housings of the charger, and flash from the turban of the slave, she, as a Christian
mother, may at last attain to the virtues and the treasures of a Heathen one, and be
able to lead forth her Sons, saying—

"These are MY Jewels."

 102

ESSAY 3. "QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM"

Some centuries before the Christian era, a Jew merchant, largely engaged in
business on the Gold Coast, and reported to have made one of the largest fortunes
of his time (held also in repute for much practical sagacity), left among his ledgers
some general maxims concerning wealth, which have been preserved, strangely
enough, even to our own days. They were held in considerable respect by the most
active traders of the middle ages, especially by the Venetians, who even went so far
in their admiration as to place a statue of the old Jew on the angle of one of their
principal public buildings. Of late years these writings have fallen into disrepute,
being opposed in every particular to the spirit of modern commerce. Nevertheless, I
shall reproduce a passage or two from them here, partly because they may interest
the reader by their novelty; and chiefly because they will show him that it is possible
for a very practical and acquisitive tradesman to hold, through a not unsuccessful
career, that principle of distinction between well-gotten and ill-gotten wealth, which,
partially insisted on in my last paper, it must be our work more completely to
examine in this.

He says, for instance, in one place: "The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a
vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death:" adding in another, with the same
meaning (he has a curious way of doubling his sayings): "Treasures of wickedness
profit nothing: but justice delivers from death." Both these passages are notable for
their assertion of death as the only real issue and sum of attainment by any unjust
scheme of wealth. If we read, instead of "lying tongue," "lying label, title, pretence, or
advertisement," we shall more clearly perceive the bearing of the words on modern
business. The seeking of death is a grand expression of the true course of men's toil
in such business. We usually speak as if death pursued us, and we fled from him;
but that is only so in rare instances. Ordinarily, he masks himself—makes himself
beautiful—all-glorious; not like the King's daughter, all-glorious within, but outwardly:
his clothing of wrought gold. We pursue him frantically all our days, he flying or
hiding from us. Our crowning success at three-score and ten is utterly and perfectly
to seize, and hold him in his eternal integrity—-robes, ashes, and sting.

Again: the merchant says, "He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, shall
surely come to want." And again, more strongly: "Rob not the poor because he is
poor; neither oppress the afflicted in the place of business. For God shall spoil the
soul of those that spoiled them."

This "robbing the poor because he is poor" is especially the mercantile form of theft,
consisting in taking advantage of a man's necessities in order to obtain his labour or
property at a reduced price. The ordinary highwayman's opposite form of robbery—
of the rich, because he is rich—does not appear to occur so often to the old
merchant's mind; probably because, being less profitable and more dangerous than
the robbery of the poor, it is rarely practised by persons of discretion.
 103

But the two most remarkable passages in their deep general significance are the
following:—

"The rich and the poor have met. God is their maker."

"The rich and the poor have met. God is their light."

They "have met:" more literally, have stood in each other's way, (obviaverunt). That
is to say, as long as the world lasts, the action and counteraction of wealth and
poverty, the meeting, face to face, of rich and poor, is just as appointed and
necessary a law of that world as the flow of stream to sea, or the interchange of
power among the electric clouds:—"God is their maker." But, also, this action may be
either gentle and just, or convulsive and destructive: it may be by rage of devouring
flood, or by lapse of serviceable wave;—in blackness of thunderstroke, or continual
force of vital fire, soft, and shapeable into love-syllables from far away. And which of
these it shall be depends on both rich and poor knowing that God is their light; that in
the mystery of human life, there is no other light than this by which they can see
each other's faces, and live;—light, which is called in another of the books among
which the merchant's maxims have been preserved, the "sun of justice," 27 of which it
is promised that it shall rise at last with "healing" (health-giving or helping, making
whole or setting at one) in its wings. For truly this healing is only possible by means
of justice; no love, no faith, no hope will do it; men will be unwisely fond—vainly
faithful, unless primarily they are just; and the mistake of the best men through
generation after generation, has been that great one of thinking to help the poor by
almsgiving, and by preaching of patience or of hope, and by every other means,
emollient or consolatory, except the one thing which God orders for them, justice.
But this justice, with its accompanying holiness or helpfulness, being even by the
best men denied in its trial time, is by the mass of men hated wherever it appears: so
that, when the choice was one day fairly put to them, they denied the Helpful One
and the Just; 28 and desired a murderer, sedition-raiser, and robber, to be granted to
them;—the murderer instead of the Lord of Life, the sedition-raiser instead of the
Prince of Peace, and the robber instead of the Just Judge of all the world.

I have just spoken of the flowing of streams to the sea as a partial image of the
action of wealth. In one respect it is not a partial, but a perfect image. The popular
economist thinks himself wise in having discovered that wealth, or the forms of
27
More accurately, Sun of Justness; but, instead of the harsh word "Justness," the old English
"Righteousness" being commonly employed, has, by getting confused with "godliness," or attracting
about it various vague and broken meanings, prevented most persons from receiving the force of the
passages in which it occurs. The word "righteousness" properly refers to the justice of rule, or right, as
distinguished from "equity," which refers to the justice of balance. More broadly, Righteousness is
King's justice; and Equity, Judge's justice; the King guiding or ruling all, the Judge dividing or
discerning between opposites (therefore, the double question, "Man, who made me a ruler—
δικαστὴς—or a divider—μεριστὴς—over you?") Thus, with respect to the Justice of Choice (selection,
the feebler and passive justice), we have from lego,—lex, legal, loi, and loyal; and with respect to the
Justice of Rule (direction, the stronger and active justice), we have from rego,—rex, regal, roi, and
royal.
28
In another place written with the same meaning, "Just, and having salvation."
 104

property in general, must go where they are required; that where demand is, supply
must follow. He farther declares that this course of demand and supply cannot be
forbidden by human laws. Precisely in the same sense, and with the same certainty,
the waters of the world go where they are required. Where the land falls, the water
flows. The course neither of clouds nor rivers can be forbidden by human will. But
the disposition and administration of them can be altered by human forethought.
Whether the stream shall be a curse or a blessing, depends upon man's labour, and
administrating intelligence. For centuries after centuries, great districts of the world,
rich in soil, and favoured in climate, have lain desert under the rage of their own
rivers; not only desert, but plague-struck. The stream which, rightly directed, would
have flowed in soft irrigation from field to field—would have purified the air, given
food to man and beast, and carried their burdens for them on its bosom—now
overwhelms the plain, and poisons the wind; its breath pestilence, and its work
famine. In like manner this wealth "goes where it is required." No human laws can
withstand its flow. They can only guide it: but this, the leading trench and limiting
mound can do so thoroughly, that it shall become water of life—the riches of the
hand of wisdom; 29 or, on the contrary, by leaving it to its own lawless flow, they may
make it, what it has been too often, the last and deadliest of national plagues: water
of Marah—the water which feeds the roots of all evil.

The necessity of these laws of distribution or restraint is curiously overlooked in the

ordinary political economist's definition of his own "science." He calls it, shortly, the
"science of getting rich." But there are many sciences, as well as many arts, of
getting rich. Poisoning people of large estates was one employed largely in the
middle ages; adulteration of food of people of small estates is one employed largely
now. The ancient and honourable Highland method of black mail; the more modern
and less honourable system of obtaining goods on credit, and the other variously
improved methods of appropriation—which, in major and minor scales of industry,
down to the most artistic pocket-picking, we owe to recent genius,—all come under
the general head of sciences, or arts, of getting rich.

So that it is clear the popular economist, in calling his science the science par
excellence of getting rich, must attach some peculiar ideas of limitation to its
character. I hope I do not misrepresent him, by assuming that he means his science
to be the science of "getting rich by legal or just means." In this definition, is the word
"just," or "legal," finally to stand? For it is possible among certain nations, or under
certain rulers, or by help of certain advocates, that proceedings may be legal which
are by no means just. If, therefore, we leave at last only the word "just" in that place
of our definition, the insertion of this solitary and small word will make a notable
difference in the grammar of our science. For then it will follow that, in order to grow
rich scientifically we must grow rich justly; and, therefore, know what is just; so that
our economy will no longer depend merely on prudence, but on jurisprudence—and
that of divine, not human law. Which prudence is indeed of no mean order, holding

29
"Length of days in her right hand; in her left, riches and honour."
 105

itself, as it were, high in the air of heaven, and gazing for ever on the light of the sun
of justice; hence the souls which have excelled in it are represented by Dante as
stars forming in heaven for ever the figure of the eye of an eagle: they having been
in life the discerners of light from darkness; or to the whole human race, as the light
of the body, which is the eye; while those souls which form the wings of the bird
(giving power and dominion to justice, "healing in its wings") trace also in light the
inscription in heaven: "DILIGITE JUSTITIAM QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM." "Ye who
judge the earth, give" (not, observe, merely love, but) "diligent love to justice:" the
love which seeks diligently, that is to say, choosingly, and by preference to all things
else. Which judging or doing judgment in the earth is, according to their capacity and
position, required not of judges only, nor of rulers only, but of all men: 30 a truth
sorrowfully lost sight of even by those who are ready enough to apply to themselves
passages in which Christian men are spoken of as called to be "saints" (i.e., to
helpful or healing functions); and "chosen to be kings" (i.e., to knowing or directing
functions); the true meaning of these titles having been long lost through the
pretences of unhelpful and unable persons to saintly and kingly character; also
through the once popular idea that both the sanctity and royalty are to consist in
wearing long robes and high crowns, instead of in mercy and judgment; whereas all
true sanctity is saving power, as all true royalty is ruling power; and injustice is part
and parcel of the denial of such power, which "makes men as the creeping things, as
the fishes of the sea, that have no ruler over them." 31

Absolute justice is indeed no more attainable than absolute truth; but the righteous
man is distinguished from the unrighteous by his desire and hope of justice, as the
true man from the false by his desire and hope of truth. And though absolute justice
be unattainable, as much justice as we need for all practical use is attainable by all
those who make it their aim.

We have to examine, then, in the subject before us, what are the laws of justice
respecting payment of labour—no small part, these, of the foundations of all
jurisprudence.

I reduced, in my last paper, the idea of money payment to its simplest or radical
terms. In those terms its nature, and the conditions of justice respecting it, can be
best ascertained.

Money payment, as there stated, consists radically in a promise to some person

working for us, that for the time and labour he spends in our service to-day we will
30
I hear that several of our lawyers have been greatly amused by the statement in the first of these
papers that a lawyer's function was to do justice. I did not intend it for a jest; nevertheless it will be
seen that in the above passage neither the determination nor doing of justice are contemplated as
functions wholly peculiar to the lawyer. Possibly, the more our standing armies, whether of soldiers,
pastors, or legislators (the generic term "pastor" including all teachers, and the generic term "lawyer"
including makers as well as interpreters of law), can be superseded by the force of national heroism,
wisdom, and honesty, the better it may be for the nation.
31
It being the privilege of the fishes, as it is of rats and wolves, to live by the laws of demand and
supply; but the distinction of humanity, to live by those of right.
 106

give or procure equivalent time and labour in his service at any future time when he
may demand it. 32

If we promise to give him less labour than he has given us, we under-pay him. If we
promise to give him more labour than he has given us, we over-pay him. In practice,
according to the laws of demand and supply, when two men are ready to do the
work, and only one man wants to have it done, the two men under-bid each other for
it; and the one who gets it to do, is under-paid. But when two men want the work
done, and there is only one man ready to do it, the two men who want it done over-
bid each other, and the workman is over-paid.

I will examine these two points of injustice in succession, but first I wish the reader to
clearly understand the central principle lying between the two, of right or just
payment.

When we ask a service of any man, he may either give it us freely, or demand
payment for it. Respecting free gift of service, there is no question at present, that
being a matter of affection—not of traffic. But if he demand payment for it, and we
wish to treat him with absolute equity, it is evident that this equity can only consist in
giving time for time, strength for strength, and skill for skill. If a man works an hour
for us, and we only promise to work half an hour for him in return, we obtain an
unjust advantage. If, on the contrary, we promise to work an hour and a half for him
in return, he has an unjust advantage. The justice consists in absolute exchange; or,
if there be any respect to the stations of the parties, it will not be in favour of the
employer: there is certainly no equitable reason in a man's being poor, that if he give
me a pound of bread to-day, I should return him less than a pound of bread to-
morrow; or any equitable reason in a man's being uneducated, that if he uses a
certain quantity of skill and knowledge in my service, I should use a less quantity of
skill and knowledge in his. Perhaps, ultimately, it may appear desirable, or, to say
the least, gracious, that I should give in return somewhat more than I received. But at
present, we are concerned on the law of justice only, which is that of perfect and
accurate exchange;—one circumstance only interfering with the simplicity of this
radical idea of just payment—that inasmuch as labour (rightly directed) is fruitful just
as seed is, the fruit (or "interest" as it is called) of the labour first given, or
"advanced," ought to be taken into account, and balanced by an additional quantity
of labour in the subsequent repayment. Supposing the repayment to take place at
the end of a year, or of any other given time, this calculation could be approximately
made; but as money (that is to say, cash) payment involves no reference to time (it
being optional with the person paid to spend what he receives at once or after any

32
It might appear at first that the market price of labour expressed such an exchange: but this is a
fallacy, for the market price is the momentary price of the kind of labour required, but the just price is
its equivalent of the productive labour of mankind. This difference will be analysed in its place. It must
be noted also that I speak here only of the exchangeable value of labour, not of that of commodities.
The exchangeable value of a commodity is that of the labour required to produce it, multiplied into the
force of the demand for it. If the value of the labour = x and the force of demand = y, the
exchangeable value of the commodity is xy, in which if either x = 0, or y = 0, xy = 0.
 107

number of years), we can only assume, generally, that some slight advantage must
in equity be allowed to the person who advances the labour, so that the typical form
of bargain will be: If you give me an hour to-day, I will give you an hour and five
minutes on demand. If you give me a pound of bread to-day, I will give you
seventeen ounces on demand, and so on. All that is necessary for the reader to note
is, that the amount returned is at least in equity not to be less than the amount given.

The abstract idea, then, of just or due wages, as respects the labourer, is that they
will consist in a sum of money which will at any time procure for him at least as much
labour as he has given, rather more than less. And this equity or justice of payment
is, observe, wholly independent of any reference to the number of men who are
willing to do the work. I want a horseshoe for my horse. Twenty smiths, or twenty
thousand smiths, may be ready to forge it; their number does not in one atom's
weight affect the question of the equitable payment of the one who does forge it. It
costs him a quarter of an hour of his life, and so much skill and strength of arm to
make that horseshoe for me. Then at some future time I am bound in equity to give a
quarter of an hour, and some minutes more, of my life (or of some other person's at
my disposal), and also as much strength of arm and skill, and a little more, in making
or doing what the smith may have need of.

Such being the abstract theory of just remunerative payment, its application is
practically modified by the fact that the order for labour, given in payment, is general,
while the labour received is special. The current coin or document is practically an
order on the nation for so much work of any kind; and this universal applicability to
immediate need renders it so much more valuable than special labour can be, that
an order for a less quantity of this general toil will always be accepted as a just
equivalent for a greater quantity of special toil. Any given craftsman will always be
willing to give an hour of his own work in order to receive command over half an
hour, or even much less, of national work. This source of uncertainty, together with
the difficulty of determining the monetary value of skill, 33 renders the ascertainment

33
Under the term "skill" I mean to include the united force of experience, intellect, and passion in their
operation on manual labour: and under the term "passion," to include the entire range and agency of
the moral feelings; from the simple patience and gentleness of mind which will give continuity and
fineness to the touch, or enable one person to work without fatigue, and with good effect, twice as
long as another, up to the qualities of character which render science possible—(the retardation of
science by envy is one of the most tremendous losses in the economy of the present century)—and to
the incommunicable emotion and imagination which are the first and mightiest sources of all value in
art.
It is highly singular that political economists should not yet have perceived, if not the moral, at least
the passionate element, to be an inextricable quantity in every calculation. I cannot conceive, for
instance, how it was possible that Mr. Mill should have followed the true clue so far as to write,—"No
limit can be set to the importance—even in a purely productive and material point of view—of mere
thought," without seeing that it was logically necessary to add also, "and of mere feeling." And this the
more, because in his first definition of labour he includes in the idea of it "all feelings of a disagreeable
kind connected with the employment of one's thoughts in a particular occupation." True; but why not
also, "feelings of an agreeable kind?" It can hardly be supposed that the feelings which retard labour
are more essentially a part of the labour than those which accelerate it. The first are paid for as pain,
the second as power. The workman is merely indemnified for the first; but the second both produce a
part of the exchangeable value of the work, and materially increase its actual quantity.
 108

(even approximate) of the proper wages of any given labour in terms of currency,
matter of considerable complexity. But they do not affect the principle of exchange.
The worth of the work may not be easily known; but it has a worth, just as fixed and
real as the specific gravity of a substance, though such specific gravity may not be
easily ascertainable when the substance is united with many others. Nor is there so
much difficulty or chance in determining it as in determining the ordinary maxima and
minima of vulgar political economy. There are few bargains in which the buyer can
ascertain with anything like precision that the seller would have taken no less;—or
the seller acquire more than a comfortable faith that the purchaser would have given
no more. This impossibility of precise knowledge prevents neither from striving to
attain the desired point of greatest vexation and injury to the other, nor from
accepting it for a scientific principle that he is to buy for the least and sell for the most
possible, though what the real least or most may be he cannot tell. In like manner, a
just person lays it down for a scientific principle that he is to pay a just price, and,
without being able precisely to ascertain the limits of such a price, will nevertheless
strive to attain the closest possible approximation to them. A practically serviceable
approximation he can obtain. It is easier to determine scientifically what a man ought
to have for his work, than what his necessities will compel him to take for it. His
necessities can only be ascertained by empirical, but his due by analytical,
investigation. In the one case, you try your answer to the sum like a puzzled
schoolboy—till you find one that fits; in the other, you bring out your result within
certain limits, by process of calculation.

Supposing, then, the just wages of any quantity of given labour to have been
ascertained, let us examine the first results of just and unjust payment, when in
favour of the purchaser or employer; i.e., when two men are ready to do the work,
and only one wants to have it done.

The unjust purchaser forces the two to bid against each other till he has reduced
their demand to its lowest terms. Let us assume that the lowest bidder offers to do
the work at half its just price.

The purchaser employs him, and does not employ the other. The first
or apparent result, is, therefore, that one of the two men is left out of employ, or to
starvation, just as definitely as by the just procedure of giving fair price to the best
workman. The various writers who endeavoured to invalidate the positions of my first
paper never saw this, and assumed that the unjust hirer employed both. He employs
both no more than the just hirer. The only difference (in the outset) is that the just

"Fritz is with us. He is worth fifty thousand men." Truly, a large addition to the material force;—
consisting, however, be it observed, not more in operations carried on in Fritz's head, than in
operations carried on in his armies' heart. "No limit can be set to the importance of mere thought."
Perhaps not! Nay, suppose some day it should turn out that "mere" thought was in itself a
recommendable object of production, and that all Material production was only a step towards this
more precious Immaterial one?
 109

man pays sufficiently, the unjust man insufficiently, for the labour of the single person
employed.

I say, in "the outset;" for this first or apparent difference is not the actual difference.
By the unjust procedure, half the proper price of the work is left in the hands of the
employer. This enables him to hire another man at the same unjust rate on some
other kind of work; and the final result is that he has two men working for him at half-
price, and two are out of employ.

By the just procedure, the whole price of the first piece of work goes into the hands
of the man who does it. No surplus being left in the employer's hands, he cannot hire
another man for another piece of labour. But by precisely so much as his power is
diminished, the hired workman's power is increased; that is to say, by the additional
half of the price he has received; which additional half he has the power of using to
employ another man in his service. I will suppose, for the moment, the least
favourable, though quite probable, case—that, though justly treated himself, he yet
will act unjustly to his subordinate; and hire at half-price, if he can. The final result
will then be, that one man works for the employer, at just price; one for the workman,
at half-price; and two, as in the first case, are still out of employ. These two, as I said
before, are out of employ in both cases. The difference between the just and unjust
procedure does not lie in the number of men hired, but in the price paid to them, and
the persons by whom it is paid. The essential difference, that which I want the reader
to see clearly, is, that in the unjust case, two men work for one, the first hirer. In the
just case, one man works for the first hirer, one for the person hired, and so on,
down or up through the various grades of service; the influence being carried forward
by justice, and arrested by injustice. The universal and constant action of justice in
this matter is therefore to diminish the power of wealth, in the hands of one
individual, over masses of men, and to distribute it through a chain of men. The
actual power exerted by the wealth is the same in both cases; but by injustice it is
put all into one man's hands, so that he directs at once and with equal force the
labour of a circle of men about him; by the just procedure, he is permitted to touch
the nearest only, through whom, with diminished force, modified by new minds, the
energy of the wealth passes on to others, and so till it exhausts itself.

The immediate operation of justice in this respect is, therefore, to diminish the power
of wealth, first in acquisition of luxury, and, secondly, in exercise of moral influence.
The employer cannot concentrate so multitudinous labour on his own interests, nor
can he subdue so multitudinous mind to his own will. But the secondary operation of
justice is not less important. The insufficient payment of the group of men working for
one, places each under a maximum of difficulty in rising above his position. The
tendency of the system is to check advancement. But the sufficient or just payment,
distributed through a descending series of offices or grades of labour, 34 gives each
34
I am sorry to lose time by answering, however curtly, the equivocations of the writers who sought to
obscure the instances given of regulated labour in the first of these papers, by confusing kinds, ranks,
and quantities of labour with its qualities. I never said that a colonel should have the same pay as a
 110

subordinated person fair and sufficient means of rising in the social scale, if he
chooses to use them; and thus not only diminishes the immediate power of wealth,
but removes the worst disabilities of poverty.

It is on this vital problem that the entire destiny of the labourer is ultimately
dependent. Many minor interests may sometimes appear to interfere with it, but all
branch from it. For instance, considerable agitation is often caused in the minds of
the lower classes when they discover the share which they nominally, and to all
appearance, actually, pay out of their wages in taxation (I believe thirty-five or forty
per cent.). This sounds very grievous; but in reality the labourer does not pay it, but
his employer. If the workman had not to pay it, his wages would be less by just that
sum: competition would still reduce them to the lowest rate at which life was
possible. Similarly the lower orders agitated for the repeal of the corn laws, 35 thinking
they would be better off if bread were cheaper; never perceiving that as soon as
bread was permanently cheaper, wages would permanently fall in precisely that

private, nor a bishop the same pay as a curate. Neither did I say that more work ought to be paid as
less work (so that the curate of a parish of two thousand souls should have no more than the curate of
a parish of five hundred). But I said that, so far as you employ it at all, bad work should be paid no
less than good work; as a bad clergyman yet takes his tithes, a bad physician takes his fee, and a bad
lawyer his costs. And this, as will be farther shown in the conclusion, I said, and say, partly because
the best work never was, nor ever will be, done for money at all; but chiefly because, the moment
people know they have to pay the bad and good alike, they will try to discern the one from the other,
and not use the bad. A sagacious writer in the Scotsman asks me if I should like any common
scribbler to be paid by Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. [the original publishers of this work] as their good
authors are. I should, if they employed him—but would seriously recommend them, for the scribbler's
sake, as well as their own, not to employ him. The quantity of its money which the country at present
invests in scribbling is not, in the outcome of it, economically spent; and even the highly ingenious
person to whom this question occurred, might perhaps have been more beneficially employed than in
printing it.
35
I have to acknowledge an interesting communication on the subject of free trade from Paisley (for a
short letter from "A Well-wisher" at ——, my thanks are yet more due). But the Scottish writer will, I
fear, be disagreeably surprised to hear, that I am, and always have been, an utterly fearless and
unscrupulous free trader. Seven years ago, speaking of the various signs of infancy in the European
mind (Stones of Venice, vol. iii. p. 168), I wrote: "The first principles of commerce were acknowledged
by the English parliament only a few months ago, in its free trade measures, and are still so little
understood by the million, that no nation dares to abolish its custom-houses."
It will be observed that I do not admit even the idea of reciprocity. Let other nations, if they like, keep
their ports shut; every wise nation will throw its own open. It is not the opening them, but a sudden,
inconsiderate, and blunderingly experimental manner of opening them, which does harm. If you have
been protecting a manufacture for a long series of years, you must not take the protection off in a
moment, so as to throw every one of its operatives at once out of employ, any more than you must
take all its wrappings off a feeble child at once in cold weather, though the cumber of them may have
been radically injuring its health. Little by little, you must restore it to freedom and to air.
Most people's minds are in curious confusion on the subject of free trade, because they suppose it to
imply enlarged competition. On the contrary, free trade puts an end to all competition. "Protection"
(among various other mischievous functions) endeavours to enable one country to compete with
another in the production of an article at a disadvantage. When trade is entirely free, no country can
be competed with in the articles for the production of which it is naturally calculated; nor can it
compete with any other, in the production of articles for which it is not naturally calculated. Tuscany,
for instance, cannot compete with England in steel, nor England with Tuscany in oil. They must
exchange their steel and oil. Which exchange should be as frank and free as honesty and the sea-
winds can make it. Competition, indeed, arises at first, and sharply, in order to prove which is
strongest in any given manufacture possible to both: this point once ascertained, competition is at an
end.
 111

proportion. The corn laws were rightly repealed; not, however, because they directly
oppressed the poor, but because they indirectly oppressed them in causing a large
quantity of their labour to be consumed unproductively. So also unnecessary
taxation oppresses them, through destruction of capital, but the destiny of the poor
depends primarily always on this one question of dueness of wages. Their distress
(irrespectively of that caused by sloth, minor error, or crime) arises on the grand
scale from the two reacting forces of competition and oppression. There is not yet,
nor will yet for ages be, any real over-population in the world; but a local over-
population, or, more accurately, a degree of population locally unmanageable under
existing circumstances for want of forethought and sufficient machinery, necessarily
shows itself by pressure of competition; and the taking advantage of this competition
by the purchaser to obtain their labour unjustly cheap, consummates at once their
suffering and his own; for in this (as I believe in every other kind of slavery) the
oppressor suffers at last more than the oppressed, and those magnificent lines of
Pope, even in all their force, fall short of the truth—

"Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf,Each does but HATE HIS NEIGHBOUR AS
HIMSELF:Damned to the mines, an equal fate betidesThe slave that digs it, and the
slave that hides."

The collateral and reversionary operations of justice in this matter I shall examine
hereafter (it being needful first to define the nature of value); proceeding then to
consider within what practical terms a juster system may be established; and
ultimately the vexed question of the destinies of the unemployed workmen. 36 Lest,
however, the reader should be alarmed at some of the issues to which our
investigations seem to be tending, as if in their bearing against the power of wealth
they had something in common with those of socialism, I wish him to know, in
accurate terms, one or two of the main points which I have in view.

Whether socialism has made more progress among the army and navy (where
payment is made on my principles), or among the manufacturing operatives (who are
36
I should be glad if the reader would first clear the ground for himself so far as to determine whether
the difficulty lies in getting the work or getting the pay for it. Does he consider occupation itself to be
an expensive luxury, difficult of attainment, of which too little is to be found in the world? or is it rather
that, while in the enjoyment even of the most athletic delight, men must nevertheless be maintained,
and this maintenance is not always forthcoming? We must be clear on this head before going farther,
as most people are loosely in the habit of talking of the difficulty of "finding employment." Is it
employment that we want to find, or support during employment? Is it idleness we wish to put an end
to, or hunger? We have to take up both questions in succession, only not both at the same time. No
doubt that work is a luxury, and a very great one. It is, indeed, at once a luxury and a necessity; no
man can retain either health of mind or body without it. So profoundly do I feel this, that, as will be
seen in the sequel, one of the principal objects I would recommend to benevolent and practical
persons, is to induce rich people to seek for a larger quantity of this luxury than they at present
possess. Nevertheless, it appears by experience that even this healthiest of pleasures may be
indulged in to excess, and that human beings are just as liable to surfeit of labour as to surfeit of
meat; so that, as on the one hand, it may be charitable to provide, for some people, lighter dinner, and
more work,—for others, it may be equally expedient to provide lighter work, and more dinner.
 112

paid on my opponents' principles), I leave it to those opponents to ascertain and

declare. Whatever their conclusions may be, I think it necessary to answer for myself
only this: that if there be any one point insisted on throughout my works more
frequently than another, that one point is the impossibility of Equality. My continual
aim has been to show the eternal superiority of some men to others, sometimes
even of one man to all others; and to show also the advisability of appointing such
persons or person to guide, to lead, or on occasion even to compel and subdue, their
inferiors, according to their own better knowledge and wiser will. My principles of
Political Economy were all involved in a single phrase spoken three years ago at
Manchester: "Soldiers of the Ploughshare as well as Soldiers of the Sword:" and
they were all summed in a single sentence in the last volume of Modern Painters—
"Government and co-operation are in all things the Laws of Life; Anarchy and
competition the Laws of Death."

And with respect to the mode in which these general principles affect the secure
possession of property, so far am I from invalidating such security, that the whole
gist of these papers will be found ultimately to aim at an extension in its range; and
whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the
property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no
right to the property of the poor.

But that the working of the system which I have undertaken to develop would in
many ways shorten the apparent and direct, though not the unseen and collateral,
power, both of wealth, as the Lady of Pleasure, and of capital, as the Lord of Toil, I
do not deny: on the contrary, I affirm it in all joyfulness; knowing that the attraction of
riches is already too strong, as their authority is already too weighty, for the reason
of mankind. I said in my last paper that nothing in history had ever been so
disgraceful to human intellect as the acceptance among us of the common doctrines
of political economy as a science. I have many grounds for saying this, but one of
the chief may be given in few words. I know no previous instance in history of a
nation's establishing a systematic disobedience to the first principles of its professed
religion. The writings which we (verbally) esteem as divine, not only denounce the
love of money as the source of all evil, and as an idolatry abhorred of the Deity, but
declare mammon service to be the accurate and irreconcileable opposite of God's
service; and, whenever they speak of riches absolute, and poverty absolute, declare
woe to the rich, and blessing to the poor. Whereupon we forthwith investigate a
science of becoming rich, as the shortest road to national prosperity.

"Tai Cristian dannerà l'Etiòpe,Quando si partiranno i due collegi,L'uno in eterno ricco,

e l'altro inòpe."
 113

ESSAY 4. AD VALOREM

In the last paper we saw that just payment of labour consisted in a sum of money
which would approximately obtain equivalent labour at a future time: we have now to
examine the means of obtaining such equivalence. Which question involves the
definition of Value, Wealth, Price, and Produce.

None of these terms are yet defined so as to be understood by the public. But the
last, Produce, which one might have thought the clearest of all, is, in use, the most
ambiguous; and the examination of the kind of ambiguity attendant on its present
employment will best open the way to our work.

In his Chapter on Capital, 37 Mr. J. S. Mill instances, as a capitalist, a hardware

manufacturer, who, having intended to spend a certain portion of the proceeds of his
business in buying plate and jewels, changes his mind, and "pays it as wages to
additional workpeople." The effect is stated by Mr. Mill to be that "more food is
appropriated to the consumption of productive labourers."

Now I do not ask, though, had I written this paragraph, it would surely have been
asked of me, What is to become of the silversmiths? If they are truly unproductive
persons, we will acquiesce in their extinction. And though in another part of the same
passage, the hardware merchant is supposed also to dispense with a number of
servants, whose "food is thus set free for productive purposes," I do not inquire what
will be the effect, painful or otherwise, upon the servants, of this emancipation of
their food. But I very seriously inquire why ironware is produce, and silverware is
not? That the merchant consumes the one, and sells the other, certainly does not
constitute the difference, unless it can be shown (which, indeed, I perceive it to be
becoming daily more and more the aim of tradesmen to show) that commodities are
made to be sold, and not to be consumed. The merchant is an agent of conveyance
to the consumer in one case, and is himself the consumer in the other: 38 but the
labourers are in either case equally productive, since they have produced goods to
the same value, if the hardware and the plate are both goods.

And what distinction separates them? It is indeed possible that in the "comparative
estimate of the moralist," with which Mr. Mill says political economy has nothing to do

37
Book I. chap. iv. s. 1. To save space, my future references to Mr. Mill's work will be by numerals
only, as in this instance, I. iv. 1. Ed. in 2 vols. 8vo, Parker, 1848.
38
If Mr. Mill had wished to show the difference in result between consumption and sale, he should
have represented the hardware merchant as consuming his own goods instead of selling them;
similarly, the silver merchant as consuming his own goods instead of selling them. Had he done this,
he would have made his position clearer, though less tenable; and perhaps this was the position he
really intended to take, tacitly involving his theory, elsewhere stated, and shown in the sequel of this
paper to be false, that demand for commodities is not demand for labour. But by the most diligent
scrutiny of the paragraph now under examination, I cannot determine whether it is a fallacy pure and
simple, or the half of one fallacy supported by the whole of a greater one; so that I treat it here on the
kinder assumption that it is one fallacy only.
 114

(III. i. 2), a steel fork might appear a more substantial production than a silver one:
we may grant also that knives, no less than forks, are good produce; and scythes
and ploughshares serviceable articles. But, how of bayonets? Supposing the
hardware merchant to effect large sales of these, by help of the "setting free" of the
food of his servants and his silversmith,—is he still employing productive labourers,
or, in Mr. Mill's words, labourers who increase "the stock of permanent means of
enjoyment" (I. iii. 4)? Or if, instead of bayonets, he supply bombs, will not the
absolute and final "enjoyment" of even these energetically productive articles (each
of which costs ten pounds 39) be dependent on a proper choice of time and place for
their enfantement; choice, that is to say, depending on those philosophical
considerations with which political economy has nothing to do? 40

I should have regretted the need of pointing out inconsistency in any portion of Mr.
Mill's work, had not the value of his work proceeded from its inconsistencies. He
deserves honour among economists by inadvertently disclaiming the principles
which he states, and tacitly introducing the moral considerations with which he
declares his science has no connection. Many of his chapters, are, therefore, true
and valuable; and the only conclusions of his which I have to dispute are those which
follow from his premises.

Thus, the idea which lies at the root of the passage we have just been examining,
namely, that labour applied to produce luxuries will not support so many persons as
labour applied to produce useful articles, is entirely true; but the instance given
fails—and in four directions of failure at once—because Mr. Mill has not defined the
real meaning of usefulness. The definition which he has given—"capacity to satisfy a
desire, or serve a purpose" (III. i. 2)—applies equally to the iron and silver; while the
true definition,—which he has not given, but which nevertheless underlies the false
verbal definition in his mind, and comes out once or twice by accident (as in the
words "any support to life or strength" in I. i. 5)—applies to some articles of iron, but
not to others, and to some articles of silver, but not to others. It applies to ploughs,
but not to bayonets; and to forks, but not to filigree. 41

The eliciting of the true definition will give us the reply to our first question, "What is
value?" respecting which, however, we must first hear the popular statements.

"The word 'value,' when used without adjunct, always means, in political economy,
value in exchange" (Mill, III. i. 3). So that, if two ships cannot exchange their rudders,
their rudders are, in politico-economic language, of no value to either.

But "the subject of political economy is wealth."—(Preliminary remarks, page 1.)

39
I take Mr. [afterwards Sir A.] Helps' estimate in his essay on War.
40
Also when the wrought silver vases of Spain were dashed to fragments by our custom-house
officers, because bullion might be imported free of duty, but not brains, was the axe that broke them
productive?—the artist who wrought them unproductive? Or again. If the woodman's axe is
productive, is the executioner's? as also, if the hemp of a cable be productive, does not the
productiveness of hemp in a halter depend on its moral more than on its material application?
41
Filigree: that is to say, generally, ornament dependent on complexity, not on art.
 115

And wealth "consists of all useful and agreeable objects which possess
exchangeable value."—(Preliminary remarks, page 10.)

It appears then, according to Mr. Mill, that usefulness and agreeableness underlie
the exchange value, and must be ascertained to exist in the thing, before we can
esteem it an object of wealth.

Now, the economical usefulness of a thing depends not merely on its own nature,
but on the number of people who can and will use it. A horse is useless, and
therefore unsaleable, if no one can ride,—a sword if no one can strike, and meat, if
no one can eat. Thus every material utility depends on its relative human capacity.

Similarly: The agreeableness of a thing depends not merely on its own likeableness,
but on the number of people who can be got to like it. The relative agreeableness,
and therefore saleableness, of "a pot of the smallest ale," and of "Adonis painted by
a running brook," depends virtually on the opinion of Demos, in the shape of
Christopher Sly. That is to say, the agreeableness of a thing depends on its relative
human disposition. 42 Therefore, political economy, being a science of wealth, must
be a science respecting human capacities and dispositions. But moral considerations
have nothing to do with political economy (III. i. 2). Therefore, moral considerations
have nothing to do with human capacities and dispositions.

I do not wholly like the look of this conclusion from Mr. Mill's statements:—let us try
Mr. Ricardo's.

"Utility is not the measure of exchangeable value, though it is absolutely essential to

it."—(Chap. 1. sect. i.) Essential to what degree, Mr. Ricardo? There may be greater
and less degrees of utility. Meat, for instance, may be so good as to be fit for any
one to eat, or so bad as to be fit for no one to eat. What is the exact degree of
goodness which is "essential" to its exchangeable value, but not "the measure" of it?
How good must the meat be, in order to possess any exchangeable value; and how
bad must it be—(I wish this were a settled question in London markets)—in order to
possess none?

There appears to be some hitch, I think, in the working even of Mr. Ricardo's
principles; but let him take his own example. "Suppose that in the early stages of

42
These statements sound crude in their brevity; but will be found of the utmost importance when
they are developed. Thus, in the above instance, economists have never perceived that disposition to
buy is a wholly moral element in demand: that is to say, when you give a man half-a-crown, it
depends on his disposition whether he is rich or poor with it—whether he will buy disease, ruin, and
hatred, or buy health, advancement, and domestic love. And thus the agreeableness or exchange
value of every offered commodity depends on production, not merely of the commodity, but of buyers
of it; therefore on the education of buyers, and on all the moral elements by which their disposition to
buy this, or that, is formed. I will illustrate and expand into final consequences every one of these
definitions in its place: at present they can only be given with extremest brevity; for in order to put the
subject at once in a connected form before the reader, I have thrown into one, the opening definitions
of four chapters; namely, of that on Value ("Ad Valorem"); on Price ("Thirty Pieces"); on Production
("Demeter"); and on Economy ("The Law of the House").
 116

society the bows and arrows of the hunter were of equal value with the implements
of the fisherman. Under such circumstances the value of the deer, the produce of the
hunter's day's labour, would be exactly" (italics mine) "equal to the value of the fish,
the product of the fisherman's day's labour. The comparative value of the fish and
game would be entirely regulated by the quantity of labour realized in each."
(Ricardo, chap. iii. On Value.)

Indeed! Therefore, if the fisherman catches one sprat, and the huntsman one deer,
one sprat will be equal in value to one deer; but if the fisherman catches no sprat,
and the huntsman two deer, no sprat will be equal in value to two deer?

Nay; but—Mr. Ricardo's supporters may say—he means, on an average;—if the

average product of a day's work of fisher and hunter be one fish and one deer, the
one fish will always be equal in value to the one deer.

Might I inquire the species of fish. Whale? or whitebait? 43

It would be waste of time to pursue these fallacies farther; we will seek for a true
definition.

Much store has been set for centuries upon the use of our English classical
education. It were to be wished that our well-educated merchants recalled to mind
always this much of their Latin schooling,—that the nominative of valorem (a word
already sufficiently familiar to them) is valor; a word which, therefore, ought to be
familiar to them. Valor, from valere, to be well, or strong (ὑγιαίνω);—strong, in life (if
a man), or valiant; strong, for life (if a thing), or valuable. To be "valuable," therefore,

43
Perhaps it may be said, in farther support of Mr. Ricardo, that he meant, "when the utility is constant
or given, the price varies as the quantity of labour." If he meant this, he should have said it; but, had
he meant it, he could have hardly missed the necessary result, that utility would be one measure of
price (which he expressly denies it to be); and that, to prove saleableness, he had to prove a given
quantity of utility, as well as a given quantity of labour: to wit, in his own instance, that the deer and
fish would each feed the same number of men, for the same number of days, with equal pleasure to
their palates. The fact is, he did not know what he meant himself. The general idea which he had
derived from commercial experience, without being able to analyse it, was, that when the demand is
constant, the price varies as the quantity of labour required for production; or,—using the formula I
gave in last paper—when y is constant, xy varies as x. But demand never is, nor can be, ultimately
constant, if x varies distinctly; for, as price rises, consumers fall away; and as soon as there is a
monopoly (and all scarcity is a form of monopoly; so that every commodity is affected occasionally by
some colour of monopoly), y becomes the most influential condition of the price. Thus the price of a
painting depends less on its merit than on the interest taken in it by the public; the price of singing
less on the labour of the singer than the number of persons who desire to hear him; and the price of
gold less on the scarcity which affects it in common with cerium or iridium, than on the sun-light colour
and unalterable purity by which it attracts the admiration and answers the trust of mankind.
It must be kept in mind, however, that I use the word "demand" in a somewhat different sense from
economists usually. They mean by it "the quantity of a thing sold." I mean by it "the force of the
buyer's capable intention to buy." In good English, a person's "demand" signifies, not what he gets,
but what he asks for.
Economists also do not notice that objects are not valued by absolute bulk or weight, but by such bulk
and weight as is necessary to bring them into use. They say, for instance, that water bears no price in
the market. It is true that a cupful does not, but a lake does; just as a handful of dust does not, but an
acre does. And were it possible to make even the possession of the cupful or handful permanent (i.e.,
to find a place for them), the earth and sea would be bought up by handfuls and cupfuls.
 117

is to "avail towards life." A truly valuable or availing thing is that which leads to life
with its whole strength. In proportion as it does not lead to life, or as its strength is
broken, it is less valuable; in proportion as it leads away from life, it is unvaluable or
malignant.

The value of a thing, therefore, is independent of opinion, and of quantity. Think what
you will of it, gain how much you may of it, the value of the thing itself is neither
greater nor less. For ever it avails, or avails not; no estimate can raise, no disdain
depress, the power which it holds from the Maker of things and of men.

The real science of political economy, which has yet to be distinguished from the
bastard science, as medicine from witchcraft, and astronomy from astrology, is that
which teaches nations to desire and labour for the things that lead to life; and which
teaches them to scorn and destroy the things that lead to destruction. And if, in a
state of infancy, they suppose indifferent things, such as excrescences of shellfish,
and pieces of blue and red stone, to be valuable, and spend large measure of the
labour which ought to be employed for the extension and ennobling of life, in diving
or digging for them, and cutting them into various shapes,—or if, in the same state of
infancy, they imagine precious and beneficent things, such as air, light, and
cleanliness, to be valueless,—or if, finally, they imagine the conditions of their own
existence, by which alone they can truly possess or use anything, such, for instance,
as peace, trust, and love, to be prudently exchangeable, when the market offers, for
gold, iron, or excrescences of shells—the great and only science of Political
Economy teaches them, in all these cases, what is vanity, and what substance; and
how the service of Death, the Lord of Waste, and of eternal emptiness, differs from
the service of Wisdom, the Lady of Saving, and of eternal fulness; she who has said,
"I will cause those that love me to inherit Substance; and I will Fill their treasures."

The "Lady of Saving," in a profounder sense than that of the savings' bank, though
that is a good one: Madonna della Salute,—Lady of Health—which, though
commonly spoken of as if separate from wealth, is indeed a part of wealth. This
word, "wealth," it will be remembered, is the next we have to define.

"To be wealthy," says Mr. Mill, is "to have a large stock of useful articles."

I accept this definition. Only let us perfectly understand it. My opponents often
lament my not giving them enough logic: I fear I must at present use a little more
than they will like; but this business of Political Economy is no light one, and we must
allow no loose terms in it.

We have, therefore, to ascertain in the above definition, first, what is the meaning of
"having," or the nature of Possession. Then, what is the meaning of "useful," or the
nature of Utility.

And first of possession. At the crossing of the transepts of Milan Cathedral has lain,
for three hundred years, the embalmed body of St. Carlo Borromeo. It holds a golden
 118

crosier, and has a cross of emeralds on its breast. Admitting the crosier and
emeralds to be useful articles, is the body to be considered as "having" them? Do
they, in the politico-economical sense of property, belong to it? If not, and if we may,
therefore, conclude generally that a dead body cannot possess property, what
degree and period of animation in the body will render possession possible?

As thus: lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt
about him with two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards
at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking—had he the gold? or had the gold him? 44

And if, instead of sinking him in the sea by its weight, the gold had struck him on the
forehead, and thereby caused incurable disease—suppose palsy or insanity,—would
the gold in that case have been more a "possession" than in the first? Without
pressing the inquiry up through instances of gradually increasing vital power over the
gold (which I will, however, give, if they are asked for), I presume the reader will see
that possession, or "having," is not an absolute, but a gradated, power; and consists
not only in the quantity or nature of the thing possessed, but also (and in a greater
degree) in its suitableness to the person possessing it, and in his vital power to use
it.

And our definition of Wealth, expanded, becomes: "The possession of useful

articles, which we can use." This is a very serious change. For wealth, instead of
depending merely on a "have," is thus seen to depend on a "can." Gladiator's death,
on a "habet"; but soldier's victory, and state's salvation, on a "quo plurimum posset."
(Liv. VII. 6.) And what we reasoned of only as accumulation of material, is seen to
demand also accumulation of capacity.

So much for our verb. Next for our adjective. What is the meaning of "useful?"

The inquiry is closely connected with the last. For what is capable of use in the
hands of some persons, is capable, in the hands of others, of the opposite of use,
called commonly, "from-use," or "ab-use." And it depends on the person, much more
than on the article, whether its usefulness or ab-usefulness will be the quality
developed in it. Thus, wine, which the Greeks, in their Bacchus, made, rightly, the
type of all passion, and which, when used, "cheereth god and man" (that is to say,
strengthens both the divine life, or reasoning power, and the earthly, or carnal power,
of man); yet, when abused, becomes "Dionusos," hurtful especially to the divine part
of man, or reason. And again, the body itself, being equally liable to use and to
abuse, and, when rightly disciplined, serviceable to the State, both for war and
labour;—but when not disciplined, or abused, valueless to the State, and capable
only of continuing the private or single existence of the individual (and that but
feebly)—the Greeks called such a body an "idiotic" or "private" body, from their word
signifying a person employed in no way directly useful to the State: whence, finally,
our "idiot," meaning a person entirely occupied with his own concerns.

44
Compare George Herbert, The Church Porch, Stanza 28.
 119

Hence, it follows, that if a thing is to be useful, it must be not only of an availing

nature, but in availing hands. Or, in accurate terms, usefulness is value in the hands
of the valiant; so that this science of wealth being, as we have just seen, when
regarded as the science of Accumulation, accumulative of capacity as well as of
material,—when regarded as the science of Distribution, is distribution not absolute,
but discriminate; not of every thing to every man, but of the right thing to the right
man. A difficult science, dependent on more than arithmetic.

Wealth, therefore, is "THE POSSESSION OF THE VALUABLE BY THE VALIANT;"

and in considering it as a power existing in a nation, the two elements, the value of
the thing, and the valour of its possessor, must be estimated together. Whence it
appears that many of the persons commonly considered wealthy, are in reality no
more wealthy than the locks of their own strong boxes are; they being inherently and
eternally incapable of wealth; and operating for the nation, in an economical point of
view, either as pools of dead water, and eddies in a stream (which, so long as the
stream flows, are useless, or serve only to drown people, but may become of
importance in a state of stagnation, should the stream dry); or else, as dams in a
river, of which the ultimate service depends not on the dam, but the miller; or else, as
mere accidental stays and impediments, acting, not as wealth, but (for we ought to
have a correspondent term) as "illth," causing various devastation and trouble
around them in all directions; or lastly, act not at all, but are merely animated
conditions of delay (no use being possible of anything they have until they are dead),
in which last condition they are nevertheless often useful as delays, and
"impedimenta," if a nation is apt to move too fast.

This being so, the difficulty of the true science of Political Economy lies not merely in
the need of developing manly character to deal with material value, but in the fact,
that while the manly character and material value only form wealth by their
conjunction, they have nevertheless a mutually destructive operation on each other.
For the manly character is apt to ignore, or even cast away, the material value:—
whence that of Pope:—

"Sure, of qualities demanding praiseMore go to ruin fortunes, than to raise."

And on the other hand, the material value is apt to undermine the manly character;
so that it must be our work, in the issue, to examine what evidence there is of the
effect of wealth on the minds of its possessors; also, what kind of person it is who
usually sets himself to obtain wealth, and succeeds in doing so; and whether the
world owes more gratitude to rich or to poor men, either for their moral influence
upon it, or for chief goods, discoveries, and practical advancements. I may, however,
anticipate future conclusions so far as to state that in a community regulated only by
laws of demand and supply, but protected from open violence, the persons who
become rich are, generally speaking, industrious, resolute, proud, covetous, prompt,
methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant. The persons who
 120

remain poor are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise, 45 the idle, the reckless, the
humble, the thoughtful, the dull, the imaginative, the sensitive, the well-informed, the
improvident, the irregularly and impulsively wicked, the clumsy knave, the open thief,
and the entirely merciful, just, and godly person.

Thus far then of wealth. Next, we have to ascertain the nature of Price; that is to say,
of exchange value, and its expression by currencies.

Note first, of exchange, there can be no profit in it. It is only in labour there can be
profit—that is to say a "making in advance," or "making in favour of" (from proficio).
In exchange, there is only advantage, i.e., a bringing of vantage or power to the
exchanging persons. Thus, one man, by sowing and reaping, turns one measure of
corn into two measures. That is Profit. Another by digging and forging, turns one
spade into two spades. That is Profit. But the man who has two measures of corn
wants sometimes to dig; and the man who has two spades wants sometimes to
eat:—They exchange the gained grain for the gained tool; and both are the better for
the exchange; but though there is much advantage in the transaction, there is no
profit. Nothing is constructed or produced. Only that which had been before
constructed is given to the person by whom it can be used. If labour is necessary to
effect the exchange, that labour is in reality involved in the production, and, like all
other labour, bears profit. Whatever number of men are concerned in the
manufacture, or in the conveyance, have share in the profit; but neither the
manufacture nor the conveyance are the exchange, and in the exchange itself there
is no profit.

There may, however, be acquisition, which is a very different thing. If, in the
exchange, one man is able to give what cost him little labour for what has cost the
other much, he "acquires" a certain quantity of the produce of the other's labour. And
precisely what he acquires, the other loses. In mercantile language, the person who
thus acquires is commonly said to have "made a profit;" and I believe that many of
our merchants are seriously under the impression that it is possible for everybody,
somehow, to make a profit in this manner. Whereas, by the unfortunate constitution
of the world we live in, the laws both of matter and motion have quite rigorously
forbidden universal acquisition of this kind. Profit, or material gain, is attainable only
by construction or by discovery; not by exchange. Whenever material gain follows
exchange, for every plus there is a precisely equal minus.

Unhappily for the progress of the science of Political Economy, the plus quantities,
or—if I may be allowed to coin an awkward plural—the pluses, make a very positive
and venerable appearance in the world, so that every one is eager to learn the
science which produces results so magnificent; whereas the minuses have, on the
other hand, a tendency to retire into back streets, and other places of shade,—or
even to get themselves wholly and finally put out of sight in graves: which renders

45
"ὁ Ζεὺς δήπου πένεται."—Arist. Plut.. 582. It would but weaken the grand words to lean on the
preceding ones:—"ὅτι τοῦ Πλούτου παρέχω βελτίονας ἄνδρας, καὶ τὴν γνώμην, καὶ τὴν ἰδέαν."
 121

the algebra of this science peculiar, and difficultly legible; a large number of its
negative signs being written by the account-keeper in a kind of red ink, which
starvation thins, and makes strangely pale, or even quite invisible ink, for the
present.

The science of Exchange, or, as I hear it has been proposed to call it, of
"Catallactics," considered as one of gain, is, therefore, simply nugatory; but
considered as one of acquisition, it is a very curious science, differing in its data and
basis from every other science known. Thus:—If I can exchange a needle with a
savage for a diamond, my power of doing so depends either on the savage's
ignorance of social arrangements in Europe, or on his want of power to take
advantage of them, by selling the diamond to any one else for more needles. If,
farther, I make the bargain as completely advantageous to myself as possible, by
giving to the savage a needle with no eye in it (reaching, thus, a sufficiently
satisfactory type of the perfect operation of catallactic science), the advantage to me
in the entire transaction depends wholly upon the ignorance, powerlessness, or
heedlessness of the person dealt with. Do away with these, and catallactic
advantage becomes impossible. So far, therefore as the science of exchange relates
to the advantage of one of the exchanging persons only, it is founded on the
ignorance or incapacity of the opposite person. Where these vanish, it also vanishes.
It is therefore a science founded on nescience, and an art founded on artlessness.
But all other sciences and arts, except this, have for their object the doing away with
their opposite nescience and artlessness. This science, alone of sciences, must, by
all available means, promulgate and prolong its opposite nescience; otherwise the
science itself is impossible. It is, therefore, peculiarly and alone, the science of
darkness; probably a bastard science—not by any means a divina scientia, but one
begotten of another father, that father who, advising his children to turn stones into
bread, is himself employed in turning bread into stones, and who, if you ask a fish of
him (fish not being producible on his estate), can but give you a serpent.

The general law, then, respecting just or economical exchange, is simply this:—
There must be advantage on both sides (or if only advantage on one, at least no
disadvantage on the other) to the persons exchanging; and just payment for his time,
intelligence, and labour, to any intermediate person effecting the transaction
(commonly called a merchant): and whatever advantage there is on either side, and
whatever pay is given to the intermediate person, should be thoroughly known to all
concerned. All attempt at concealment implies some practice of the opposite, or
undivine science, founded on nescience. Whence another saying of the Jew
merchant's—"As a nail between the stone joints, so doth sin stick fast between
buying and selling." Which peculiar riveting of stone and timber, in men's dealing
with each other, is again set forth in the house which was to be destroyed—timber
and stones together—when Zechariah's roll (more probably "curved sword") flew
over it: "the curse that goeth forth over all the earth upon every one that stealeth and
holdeth himself guiltless," instantly followed by the vision of the Great Measure;—the
 122

measure "of the injustice of them in all the earth" (αὔτη ἡ ἀδικία αὐτῶν ἐν πάσῇ τῇ
γῃ), with the weight of lead for its lid, and the woman, the spirit of wickedness, within
it;—that is to say, Wickedness hidden by Dulness, and formalized, outwardly, into
ponderously established cruelty. "It shall be set upon its own base in the land on
Babel." 46

I have hitherto carefully restricted myself, in speaking of exchange, to the use of the
term "advantage;" but that term includes two ideas: the advantage, namely, of
getting what we need, and that of getting what we wish for. Three-fourths of the
demands existing in the world are romantic; founded on visions, idealisms, hopes,
and affections; and the regulation of the purse is, in its essence, regulation of the
imagination and the heart. Hence, the right discussion of the nature of price is a very
high metaphysical and psychical problem; sometimes to be solved only in a
passionate manner, as by David in his counting the price of the water of the well by
the gate of Bethlehem; but its first conditions are the following:—The price of
anything is the quantity of labour given by the person desiring it, in order to obtain
possession of it. This price depends on four variable quantities. A. The quantity of
wish the purchaser has for the thing; opposed to α, the quantity of wish the seller has
to keep it. B. The quantity of labour the purchaser can afford, to obtain the thing;
opposed to β, the quantity of labour the seller can afford, to keep it. These quantities
are operative only in excess; i.e., the quantity of wish (A) means the quantity of wish
for this thing, above wish for other things; and the quantity of work (B) means the
quantity which can be spared to get this thing from the quantity needed to get other
things.

Phenomena of price, therefore, are intensely complex, curious, and interesting—too

complex, however, to be examined yet; every one of them, when traced far enough,
showing itself at last as a part of the bargain of the Poor of the Flock (or "flock of
slaughter"), "If ye think good, give ME my price, and if not, forbear"—Zech. xi. 12; but
as the price of everything is to be calculated finally in labour, it is necessary to define
the nature of that standard.

Labour is the contest of the life of man with an opposite:—the term "life" including his
intellect, soul, and physical power, contending with question, difficulty, trial, or
material force.

Labour is of a higher or lower order, as it includes more or fewer of the elements of

life: and labour of good quality, in any kind, includes always as much intellect and
feeling as will fully and harmoniously regulate the physical force.

In speaking of the value and price of labour, it is necessary always to understand

labour of a given rank and quality, as we should speak of gold or silver of a given

46
Zech. v. 11. See note on the passage, at pp. 191-2.
 123

standard. Bad (that is, heartless, inexperienced, or senseless) labour cannot be

valued; it is like gold of uncertain alloy, or flawed iron. 47

The quality and kind of labour being given, its value, like that of all other valuable
things, is invariable. But the quantity of it which must be given for other things is
variable: and in estimating this variation, the price of other things must always be
counted by the quantity of labour; not the price of labour by the quantity of other
things.

Thus, if we want to plant an apple sapling in rocky ground, it may take two hours'
work; in soft ground, perhaps only half an hour. Grant the soil equally good for the
tree in each case. Then the value of the sapling planted by two hours' work is nowise
greater than that of the sapling planted in half an hour. One will bear no more fruit
than the other. Also, one half-hour of work is as valuable as another half-hour;
nevertheless the one sapling has cost four such pieces of work, the other only one.
Now the proper statement of this fact is, not that the labour on the hard ground is
cheaper than on the soft; but that the tree is dearer. The exchange value may, or
may not, afterwards depend on this fact. If other people have plenty of soft ground to
plant in, they will take no cognizance of our two hours' labour, in the price they will
offer for the plant on the rock. And if, through want of sufficient botanical science, we
have planted an upas-tree instead of an apple, the exchange value will be a negative
quantity; still less proportionate to the labour expended.

What is commonly called cheapness of labour, signifies, therefore, in reality, that

many obstacles have to be overcome by it; so that much labour is required to
produce a small result. But this should never be spoken of as cheapness of labour,
but as dearness of the object wrought for. It would be just as rational to say that
walking was cheap, because we had ten miles to walk home to our dinner, as that
labour was cheap, because we had to work ten hours to earn it.

The last word which we have to define is "Production."

I have hitherto spoken of all labour as profitable; because it is impossible to consider

under one head the quality or value of labour, and its aim. But labour of the best
quality may be various in aim. It may be either constructive ("gathering," from con
and struo), as agriculture; nugatory, as jewel-cutting; or destructive ("scattering,"
from de and struo), as war. It is not, however, always easy to prove labour,

47
Labour which is entirely good of its kind, that is to say, effective, or efficient, the Greeks called
"weighable," or ἄξιος, translated usually "worthy," and because thus substantial and true, they called
its price τιμή, the "honourable estimate" of it (honorarium): this word being founded on their
conception of true labour as a divine thing, to be honoured with the kind of honour given to the gods;
whereas the price of false labour, or of that which led away from life, was to be, not honour, but
vengeance; for which they reserved another word, attributing the exaction of such price to a peculiar
goddess called Tisiphone, the "requiter (or quittance-taker) of death;" a person versed in the highest
branches of arithmetic, and punctual in her habits; with whom accounts current have been opened
also in modern days.
 124

apparently nugatory, to be actually so; 48 generally, the formula holds good, "he that
gathereth not, scattereth;" thus, the jeweller's art is probably very harmful in its
ministering to a clumsy and inelegant pride. So that, finally, I believe nearly all labour
may be shortly divided into positive and negative labour: positive, that which
produces life; negative, that which produces death; the most directly negative labour
being murder, and the most directly positive, the bearing and rearing of children: so
that in the precise degree in which murder is hateful, on the negative side of
idleness, in that exact degree child-rearing is admirable, on the positive side of
idleness. For which reason, and because of the honour that there is in
rearing 49 children, while the wife is said to be as the vine (for cheering), the children
are as the olive-branch, for praise; nor for praise only, but for peace (because large
families can only be reared in times of peace): though since, in their spreading and
voyaging in various directions, they distribute strength, they are, to the home
strength, as arrows in the hand of the giant—striking here and there, far away.

Labour being thus various in its result, the prosperity of any nation is in exact
proportion to the quantity of labour which it spends in obtaining and employing
means of life. Observe,—I say, obtaining and employing; that is to say, not merely
wisely producing, but wisely distributing and consuming. Economists usually speak
as if there were no good in consumption absolute. 50 So far from this being so,
consumption absolute is the end, crown, and perfection of production; and wise
consumption is a far more difficult art than wise production. Twenty people can gain
money for one who can use it; and the vital question, for individual and for nation, is,
never "how much do they make?" but "to what purpose do they spend?"

The reader may, perhaps, have been surprised at the slight reference I have hitherto
made to "capital," and its functions. It is here the place to define them.

Capital signifies "head, or source, or root material"—it is material by which some

derivative or secondary good is produced. It is only capital proper (caput vivum, not
caput mortuum) when it is thus producing something different from itself. It is a root,
which does not enter into vital function till it produces something else than a root;
namely, fruit. That fruit will in time again produce roots; and so all living capital

48
The most accurately nugatory labour is, perhaps, that of which not enough is given to answer a
purpose effectually, and which, therefore, has all to be done over again. Also, labour which fails of
effect through non-cooperation. The curé of a little village near Bellinzona, to whom I had expressed
wonder that the peasants allowed the Ticino to flood their fields, told me that they would not join to
build an effectual embankment high up the valley, because everybody said "that would help his
neighbours as much as himself." So every proprietor built a bit of low embankment about his own
field; and the Ticino, as soon as it had a mind, swept away and swallowed all up together.
49
Observe, I say, "rearing," not "begetting." The praise is in the seventh season, not in σπορητός, nor
in φυταλιὰ, but in ὀπώρα. It is strange that men always praise enthusiastically any person who, by a
momentary exertion, saves a life; but praise very hesitatingly a person who, by exertion and self-
denial prolonged through years, creates one. We give the crown "ob civem servatum,"—why not "ob
civem natum"? Born, I mean, to the full, in soul as well as body. England has oak enough, I think, for
both chaplets.
50
When Mr. Mill speaks of productive consumption, he only means consumption which results in
increase of capital, or material wealth. See I. iii. 4, and I. iii. 5.
 125

issues in reproduction of capital; but capital which produces nothing but capital is
only root producing root; bulb issuing in bulb, never in tulip; seed issuing in seed,
never in bread. The Political Economy of Europe has hitherto devoted itself wholly to
the multiplication, or (less even) the aggregation, of bulbs. It never saw, nor
conceived such a thing as a tulip. Nay, boiled bulbs they might have been—glass
bulbs—Prince Rupert's drops, consummated in powder (well, if it were glass-powder
and not gunpowder), for any end or meaning the economists had in defining the laws
of aggregation. We will try and get a clearer notion of them.

The best and simplest general type of capital is a well-made ploughshare. Now, if
that ploughshare did nothing but beget other ploughshares, in a polypous manner,—
however the great cluster of polypous plough might glitter in the sun, it would have
lost its function of capital. It becomes true capital only by another kind of
splendour,—when it is seen "splendescere sulco," to grow bright in the furrow; rather
with diminution of its substance, than addition, by the noble friction. And the true
home question, to every capitalist and to every nation, is not, "how many ploughs
have you?" but, "where are your furrows?" not—"how quickly will this capital
reproduce itself?"—but, "what will it do during reproduction?" What substance will it
furnish, good for life? what work construct, protective of life? if none, its own
reproduction is useless—if worse than none (for capital may destroy life as well as
support it), its own reproduction is worse than useless; it is merely an advance from
Tisiphone, on mortgage—not a profit by any means.

Not a profit, as the ancients truly saw, and showed in the type of Ixion;—for capital is
the head, or fountain head, of wealth—the "well-head" of wealth, as the clouds are
the well-heads of rain: but when clouds are without water, and only beget clouds,
they issue in wrath at last, instead of rain, and in lightning instead of harvest; whence
Ixion is said first to have invited his guests to a banquet, and then made them fall
into a pit filled with fire; which is the type of the temptation of riches issuing in
imprisoned torment,—torment in a pit (as also Demas' silver mine), after which, to
show the rage of riches passing from lust of pleasure to lust of power, yet power not
truly understood, Ixion is said to have desired Juno, and instead, embracing a cloud
(or phantasm), to have begotten the Centaurs; the power of mere wealth being, in
itself, as the embrace of a shadow,—comfortless (so also "Ephraim feedeth on wind
and followeth after the east wind"; or "that which is not"—Prov. xxiii. 5; and again
Dante's Geryon, the type of avaricious fraud, as he flies, gathers the air up with
retractile claws,—"l'aer a se raccolse" 51), but in its offspring, a mingling of the brutal

51
So also in the vision of the women bearing the ephah, before quoted, "the wind was in their wings,"
not wings "of a stork," as in our version; but "milvi," of a kite, in the Vulgate, or perhaps more
accurately still in the Septuagint, "hoopoe," a bird connected typically with the power of riches by
many traditions, of which that of its petition for a crest of gold is perhaps the most interesting. The
"Birds" of Aristophanes, in which its part is principal, is full of them; note especially the "fortification of
the air with baked bricks, like Babylon," l. 550; and, again, compare the Plutus of Dante, who (to show
the influence of riches in destroying the reason) is the only one of the powers of the Inferno who
cannot speak intelligibly; and also the cowardliest; he is not merely quelled or restrained, but literally
 126

with the human nature: human in sagacity—using both intellect and arrow; but brutal
in its body and hoof, for consuming, and trampling down. For which sin Ixion is at last
bound upon a wheel—fiery and toothed, and rolling perpetually in the air;—the type
of human labour when selfish and fruitless (kept far into the middle ages in their
wheel of fortune); the wheel which has in it no breath or spirit, but is whirled by
chance only; whereas of all true work the Ezekiel vision is true, that the Spirit of the
living creature is in the wheels, and where the angels go, the wheels go by them; but
move no otherwise.

This being the real nature of capital, it follows that there are two kinds of true
production, always going on in an active State; one of seed, and one of food; or
production for the Ground, and for the Mouth; both of which are by covetous persons
thought to be production only for the granary; whereas the function of the granary is
but intermediate and conservative, fulfilled in distribution; else it ends in nothing but
mildew, and nourishment of rats and worms. And since production for the Ground is
only useful with future hope of harvest, all essential production is for the Mouth; and
is finally measured by the mouth; hence, as I said above, consumption is the crown
of production; and the wealth of a nation is only to be estimated by what it
consumes.

The want of any clear sight of this fact is the capital error, issuing in rich interest and
revenue of error among the political economists. Their minds are continually set on
money-gain, not on mouth-gain; and they fall into every sort of net and snare,
dazzled by the coin-glitter as birds by the fowler's glass; or rather (for there is not
much else like birds in them) they are like children trying to jump on the heads of
their own shadows; the money-gain being only the shadow of the true gain, which is
humanity.

The final object of political economy, therefore, is to get good method of

consumption, and great quantity of consumption: in other words, to use everything,
and to use it nobly; whether it be substance, service, or service perfecting
substance. The most curious error in Mr. Mill's entire work (provided for him originally
by Ricardo) is his endeavour to distinguish between direct and indirect service, and
consequent assertion that a demand for commodities is not demand for labour (I. v.
9, et seq.). He distinguishes between labourers employed to lay out pleasure
grounds, and to manufacture velvet; declaring that it makes material difference to the
labouring classes in which of these two ways a capitalist spends his money; because
the employment of the gardeners is a demand for labour, but the purchase of velvet
is not. 52 Error colossal as well as strange. It will, indeed, make a difference to the

"collapses" at a word; the sudden and helpless operation of mercantile panic being all told in the brief
metaphor, "as the sails, swollen with the wind, fall, when the mast breaks."
52
The value of raw material, which has, indeed, to be deducted from the price of the labour, is not
contemplated in the passages referred to, Mr. Mill having fallen into the mistake solely by pursuing the
collateral results of the payment of wages to middlemen. He says:—"The consumer does not, with his
own funds, pay the weaver for his day's work." Pardon me; the consumer of the velvet pays the
weaver with his own funds as much as he pays the gardener. He pays, probably, an intermediate
 127

labourer whether we bid him swing his scythe in the spring winds, or drive the loom
in pestilential air; but, so far as his pocket is concerned, it makes to him absolutely
no difference whether we order him to make green velvet, with seed and a scythe, or
red velvet, with silk and scissors. Neither does it anywise concern him
whether, when the velvet is made, we consume it by walking on it, or wearing it, so
long as our consumption of it is wholly selfish. But if our consumption is to be in any
wise unselfish, not only our mode of consuming the articles we require interests him,
but also the kind of article we require with a view to consumption. As thus (returning
for a moment to Mr. Mill's great hardware theory 53): it matters, so far as the
labourer's immediate profit is concerned, not an iron filing whether I employ him in
growing a peach, or forging a bombshell; but my probable mode of consumption of
those articles matters seriously. Admit that it is to be in both cases "unselfish," and
the difference, to him, is final, whether when his child is ill, I walk into his cottage and
give it the peach, or drop the shell down his chimney, and blow his roof off.

The worst of it, for the peasant, is, that the capitalist's consumption of the peach is
apt to be selfish, and of the shell, distributive; 54 but, in all cases, this is the broad and
general fact, that on due catallactic commercial principles, somebody's roof must go
off in fulfilment of the bomb's destiny. You may grow for your neighbour, at your
liking, grapes or grapeshot; he will also, catallactically, grow grapes or grapeshot for
you, and you will each reap what you have sown.

It is, therefore, the manner and issue of consumption which are the real tests of
production. Production does not consist in things laboriously made, but in things
serviceably consumable; and the question for the nation is not how much labour it

ship-owner, velvet merchant, and shopman; pays carriage money, shop rent, damage money, time
money, and care money; all these are above and beside the velvet price (just as the wages of a head
gardener would be above the grass price); but the velvet is as much produced by the consumer's
capital, though he does not pay for it till six months after production, as the grass is produced by his
capital, though he does not pay the man who mowed and rolled it on Monday, till Saturday afternoon.
I do not know if Mr. Mill's conclusion—"the capital cannot be dispensed with, the purchasers can"—
has yet been reduced to practice in the City on any large scale.
53
Which, observe, is the precise opposite of the one under examination. The hardware theory
required us to discharge our gardeners and engage manufacturers; the velvet theory requires us to
discharge our manufacturers and engage gardeners.
54
It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe that it is entirely capitalists' wealth
which supports unjust wars. Just wars do not need so much money to support them; for most of the
men who wage such, wage them gratis; but for an unjust war, men's bodies and souls have both to be
bought; and the best tools of war for them besides; which makes such war costly to the maximum; not
to speak of the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, between nations which have not grace nor
honesty enough in all their multitudes to buy an hour's peace of mind with: as, at present, France and
England, purchasing of each other ten millions sterling worth of consternation annually (a remarkably
light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves,—sown, reaped, and granaried by "the science" of the
modern political economist, teaching covetousness instead of truth). And all unjust war being
supportable, if not by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these loans are repaid by
subsequent taxation of the people, who appear to have no will in the matter, the capitalists' will being
the primary root of the war; but its real root is the covetousness of the whole nation, rendering it
incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and bringing about, therefore, in due time, his own separate
loss and punishment to each person.
 128

employs, but how much life it produces. For as consumption is the end and aim of
production, so life is the end and aim of consumption.

I left this question to the reader's thought two months ago, choosing rather that he
should work it out for himself than have it sharply stated to him. But now, the ground
being sufficiently broken (and the details into which the several questions, here
opened, must lead us, being too complex for discussion in the pages of a periodical,
so that I must pursue them elsewhere), I desire, in closing the series of introductory
papers, to leave this one great fact clearly stated. There is no Wealth but Life. Life,
including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest
which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is
richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the
widest helpful influence, both personal and by means of his possessions, over the
lives of others.

A strange political economy; the only one, nevertheless, that ever was or can be: all
political economy founded on self-interest 55 being but the fulfilment of that which
once brought schism into the Policy of angels, and ruin into the Economy of Heaven.

"The greatest number of human beings noble and happy." But is the nobleness
consistent with the number? Yes, not only consistent with it, but essential to it. The
maximum of life can only be reached by the maximum of virtue. In this respect the
law of human population differs wholly from that of animal life. The multiplication of
animals is checked only by want of food, and by the hostility of races; the population
of the gnat is restrained by the hunger of the swallow, and that of the swallow by the
scarcity of gnats. Man, considered as an animal, is indeed limited by the same laws:
hunger, or plague, or war, are the necessary and only restraints upon his increase,—
effectual restraints hitherto,—his principal study having been how most swiftly to
destroy himself, or ravage his dwelling-places, and his highest skill directed to give
range to the famine, seed to the plague, and sway to the sword. But, considered as
other than an animal, his increase is not limited by these laws. It is limited only by the
limits of his courage and his love. Both of these have their bounds; and ought to
have: his race has its bounds also; but these have not yet been reached, nor will be
reached for ages.

In all the ranges of human thought I know none so melancholy as the speculations of
political economists on the population question. It is proposed to better the condition
of the labourer by giving him higher wages. "Nay," says the economist, "if you raise
his wages, he will either drag people down to the same point of misery at which you
found him, or drink your wages away." He will. I know it. Who gave him this will?
Suppose it were your own son of whom you spoke, declaring to me that you dared
not take him into your firm, nor even give him his just labourer's wages, because if
you did, he would die of drunkenness, and leave half a score of children to the

55
"In all reasoning about prices, the proviso must be understood, 'supposing all parties to take care of
their own interest.'"—Mill, III. i. 5.
 129

parish. "Who gave your son these dispositions?"—I should inquire. Has he them by
inheritance or by education? By one or other they must come; and as in him, so also
in the poor. Either these poor are of a race essentially different from ours, and
unredeemable (which, however often implied, I have heard none yet openly say), or
else by such care as we have ourselves received, we may make them continent and
sober as ourselves—wise and dispassionate as we are—models arduous of
imitation. "But," it is answered, "they cannot receive education." Why not? That is
precisely the point at issue. Charitable persons suppose the worst fault of the rich is
to refuse the people meat; and the people cry for their meat, kept back by fraud, to
the Lord of Multitudes. 56 Alas! it is not meat of which the refusal is cruelest, or to
which the claim is validest. The life is more than the meat. The rich not only refuse
food to the poor; they refuse wisdom; they refuse virtue; they refuse salvation. Ye
sheep without shepherd, it is not the pasture that has been shut from you, but the
presence. Meat! perhaps your right to that may be pleadable; but other rights have to
be pleaded first. Claim your crumbs from the table, if you will; but claim them as
children, not as dogs; claim your right to be fed, but claim more loudly your right to
be holy, perfect, and pure.

Strange words to be used of working people: "What! holy; without any long robes nor
anointing oils; these rough-jacketed, rough-worded persons set to nameless and
dishonoured service? Perfect!—these, with dim eyes and cramped limbs, and slowly
wakening minds? Pure!—these, with sensual desire and grovelling thought; foul of
body, and coarse of soul?" It may be so; nevertheless, such as they are, they are the
holiest, perfectest, purest persons the earth can at present show. They may be what
you have said; but if so, they yet are holier than we, who have left them thus.

But what can be done for them? Who can clothe—who teach—who restrain their
multitudes? What end can there be for them at last, but to consume one another?

I hope for another end, though not, indeed, from any of the three remedies for over-
population commonly suggested by economists.

56
James v. 4. Observe, in these statements I am not taking up, nor countenancing one whit, the
common socialist idea of division of property; division of property is its destruction; and with it the
destruction of all hope, all industry, and all justice: it is simply chaos—a chaos towards which the
believers in modern political economy are fast tending, and from which I am striving to save them.
The rich man does not keep back meat from the poor by retaining his riches; but by basely using
them. Riches are a form of strength; and a strong man does not injure others by keeping his strength,
but by using it injuriously. The socialist, seeing a strong man oppress a weak one, cries out—"Break
the strong man's arms"; but I say, "Teach him to use them to better purpose." The fortitude and
intelligence which acquire riches are intended, by the Giver of both, not to scatter, nor to give away,
but to employ those riches in the service of mankind; in other words, in the redemption of the erring
and aid of the weak—that is to say, there is first to be the work to gain money; then the Sabbath of
use for it—the Sabbath, whose law is, not to lose life, but to save. It is continually the fault or the folly
of the poor that they are poor, as it is usually a child's fault if it falls into a pond, and a cripple's
weakness that slips at a crossing; nevertheless, most passers-by would pull the child out, or help up
the cripple. Put it at the worst, that all the poor of the world are but disobedient children, or careless
cripples, and that all rich people are wise and strong, and you will see at once that neither is the
socialist right in desiring to make everybody poor, powerless, and foolish as he is himself, nor the rich
man right in leaving the children in the mire.
 130

These three are, in brief—Colonization; Bringing in of waste lands; or

Discouragement of Marriage.

The first and second of these expedients merely evade or delay the question. It will,
indeed, be long before the world has been all colonized, and its deserts all brought
under cultivation. But the radical question is not how much habitable land is in the
world, but how many human beings ought to be maintained on a given space of
habitable land.

Observe, I say, ought to be, not how many can be. Ricardo, with his usual
inaccuracy, defines what he calls the "natural rate of wages" as "that which will
maintain the labourer." Maintain him! yes; but how?—the question was instantly thus
asked of me by a working girl, to whom I read the passage. I will amplify her question
for her. "Maintain him, how?" As, first, to what length of life? Out of a given number
of fed persons how many are to be old—how many young; that is to say, will you
arrange their maintenance so as to kill them early—say at thirty or thirty-five on the
average, including deaths of weakly or ill-fed children?—or so as to enable them to
live out a natural life? You will feed a greater number, in the first case, 57 by rapidity
of succession; probably a happier number in the second: which does Mr. Ricardo
mean to be their natural state, and to which state belongs the natural rate of wages?

Again: A piece of land which will only support ten idle, ignorant, and improvident
persons, will support thirty or forty intelligent and industrious ones. Which of these is
their natural state, and to which of them belongs the natural rate of wages?

Again: If a piece of land support forty persons in industrious ignorance; and if, tired of
this ignorance, they set apart ten of their number to study the properties of cones,
and the sizes of stars; the labour of these ten, being withdrawn from the ground,
must either tend to the increase of food in some transitional manner, or the persons
set apart for sidereal and conic purposes must starve, or some one else starve
instead of them. What is, therefore, the natural rate of wages of the scientific
persons, and how does this rate relate to, or measure, their reverted or transitional
productiveness?

Again: If the ground maintains, at first, forty labourers in a peaceable and pious state
of mind, but they become in a few years so quarrelsome and impious that they have
to set apart five, to meditate upon and settle their disputes; ten, armed to the teeth
with costly instruments, to enforce the decisions; and five to remind everybody in an
eloquent manner of the existence of a God;—what will be the result upon the general
power of production, and what is the "natural rate of wages" of the meditative,
muscular, and oracular labourers?

Leaving these questions to be discussed, or waived, at their pleasure, by Mr.

Ricardo's followers, I proceed to state the main facts bearing on that probable future

57
The quantity of life is the same in both cases; but it is differently allotted.
 131

of the labouring classes which has been partially glanced at by Mr. Mill. That chapter
and the preceding one differ from the common writing of political economists in
admitting some value in the aspect of nature, and expressing regret at the probability
of the destruction of natural scenery. But we may spare our anxieties, on this head.
Men can neither drink steam, nor eat stone. The maximum of population on a given
space of land implies also the relative maximum of edible vegetable, whether for
men or cattle; it implies a maximum of pure air; and of pure water. Therefore: a
maximum of wood, to transmute the air, and of sloping ground, protected by herbage
from the extreme heat of the sun, to feed the streams. All England may, if it so
chooses, become one manufacturing town; and Englishmen, sacrificing themselves
to the good of general humanity, may live diminished lives in the midst of noise, of
darkness, and of deadly exhalation. But the world cannot become a factory, nor a
mine. No amount of ingenuity will ever make iron digestible by the million, nor
substitute hydrogen for wine. Neither the avarice nor the rage of men will ever feed
them, and however the apple of Sodom and the grape of Gomorrah may spread their
table for a time with dainties of ashes, and nectar of asps,—so long as men live by
bread, the far away valleys must laugh as they are covered with the gold of God, and
the shouts of His happy multitudes ring round the winepress and the well.

Nor need our more sentimental economists fear the too wide spread of the
formalities of a mechanical agriculture. The presence of a wise population implies
the search for felicity as well as for food; nor can any population reach its maximum
but through that wisdom which "rejoices" in the habitable parts of the earth. The
desert has its appointed place and work; the eternal engine, whose beam is the
earth's axle, whose beat is its year, and whose breath is its ocean, will still divide
imperiously to their desert kingdoms, bound with unfurrowable rock, and swept by
unarrested sand, their powers of frost and fire: but the zones and lands between,
habitable, will be loveliest in habitation. The desire of the heart is also the light of the
eyes. No scene is continually and untiringly loved, but one rich by joyful human
labour; smooth in field; fair in garden; full in orchard; trim, sweet, and frequent in
homestead; ringing with voices of vivid existence. No air is sweet that is silent; it is
only sweet when full of low currents of under sound—triplets of birds, and murmur
and chirp of insects, and deep-toned words of men, and wayward trebles of
childhood. As the art of life is learned, it will be found at last that all lovely things are
also necessary:—the wild flower by the wayside, as well as the tended corn; and the
wild birds and creatures of the forest, as well as the tended cattle; because man doth
not live by bread only, but also by the desert manna; by every wondrous word and
unknowable work of God. Happy, in that he knew them not, nor did his fathers know;
and that round about him reaches yet into the infinite, the amazement of his
existence.

Note, finally, that all effectual advancement towards this true felicity of the human
race must be by individual, not public effort. Certain general measures may aid,
certain revised laws guide, such advancement; but the measure and law which have
 132

first to be determined are those of each man's home. We continually hear it

recommended by sagacious people to complaining neighbours (usually less well
placed in the world than themselves), that they should "remain content in the station
in which Providence has placed them." There are perhaps some circumstances of
life in which Providence has no intention that people should be content.
Nevertheless, the maxim is on the whole a good one; but it is peculiarly for home
use. That your neighbour should, or should not, remain content with his position, is
not your business; but it is very much your business to remain content with your own.
What is chiefly needed in England at the present day is to show the quantity of
pleasure that may be obtained by a consistent, well-administered competence,
modest, confessed, and laborious. We need examples of people who, leaving
Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that
they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek—not greater wealth, but simpler
pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-
possession; and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of
peace.

Of which lowly peace it is written that "justice and peace have kissed each other;"
and that the fruit of justice is "sown in peace of them that make peace"; not "peace-
makers" in the common understanding—reconcilers of quarrels; (though that function
also follows on the greater one;) but peace-Creators; Givers of Calm. Which you
cannot give, unless you first gain; nor is this gain one which will follow assuredly on
any course of business, commonly so called. No form of gain is less probable,
business being (as is shown in the language of all nations—
πωλεῖν from πέλω, πρᾶσις from περάω, venire, vendre, and venal, from venio, etc.)
essentially restless—and probably contentious;—having a raven-like mind to the
motion to and fro, as to the carrion food; whereas the olive-feeding and bearing birds
look for rest for their feet: thus it is said of Wisdom that she "hath builded her house,
and hewn out her seven pillars;" and even when, though apt to wait long at the
doorposts, she has to leave her house and go abroad, her paths are peace also.

For us, at all events, her work must begin at the entry of the doors: all true economy
is "Law of the house." Strive to make that law strict, simple, generous: waste nothing,
and grudge nothing. Care in nowise to make more of money, but care to make much
of it; remembering always the great, palpable, inevitable fact—the rule and root of all
economy—that what one person has, another cannot have; and that every atom of
substance, of whatever kind, used or consumed, is so much human life spent; which,
if it issue in the saving present life, or gaining more, is well spent, but if not, is either
so much life prevented, or so much slain. In all buying, consider, first, what condition
of existence you cause in the producers of what you buy; secondly, whether the sum
you have paid is just to the producer, and in due proportion lodged in his
hands; 58 thirdly, to how much clear use, for food, knowledge, or joy, this that you

58
The proper offices of middlemen, namely, overseers (or authoritative workmen), conveyancers
(merchants, sailors, retail dealers, etc.), and order-takers (persons employed to receive directions
 133

have bought can be put; and fourthly, to whom and in what way it can be most
speedily and serviceably distributed: in all dealings whatsoever insisting on entire
openness and stern fulfilment; and in all doings, on perfection and loveliness of
accomplishment; especially on fineness and purity of all marketable commodity:
watching at the same time for all ways of gaining, or teaching, powers of simple
pleasure; and of showing "hoson en asphodelph geg honeiar"—the sum of
enjoyment depending not on the quantity of things tasted, but on the vivacity and
patience of taste.

And if, on due and honest thought over these things, it seems that the kind of
existence to which men are now summoned by every plea of pity and claim of right,
may, for some time at least, not be a luxurious one:—consider whether, even,
supposing it guiltless, luxury would be desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at our
sides the suffering which accompanies it in the world. Luxury is indeed possible in
the future—innocent and exquisite: luxury for all, and by the help of all; but luxury at
present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant; the cruelest man living could not sit at
his feast, unless he sat blindfold. Raise the veil boldly; face the light; and if, as yet,
the light of the eye can only be through tears, and the light of the body through
sackcloth, go thou forth weeping, bearing precious seed, until the time come, and the
kingdom, when Christ's gift of bread, and bequest of peace shall be Unto this last as
unto thee; and when, for earth's severed multitudes of the wicked and the weary,
there shall be holier reconciliation than that of the narrow home, and calm economy,
where the Wicked cease—not from trouble, but from troubling—and the Weary are at
rest.

from the consumer), must, of course, be examined before I can enter farther into the question of just
payment of the first producer. But I have not spoken of them in these introductory papers, because
the evils attendant on the abuse of such intermediate functions result not from any alleged principle of
modern political economy, but from private carelessness or iniquity.
 134

ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY

CONTRIBUTED TO "FRASER'S MAGAZINE" IN 1862 AND 1863, BEING A

SEQUEL TO PAPERS WHICH APPEARED IN THE "CORNHILL MAGAZINE,"
UNDER THE TITLE OF "UNTO THIS LAST."
 135

1. MAINTENANCE OF LIFE; WEALTH, MONEY, AND RICHES

As domestic economy regulates the acts and habits of a household, political

economy regulates those of a society or State, with reference to its maintenance.

Political economy is neither an art nor a science, 59 but a system of conduct and
legislature, founded on the sciences, directing the arts, and impossible, except under
certain conditions of moral culture.

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.

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 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 to
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, at all events, 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

59
The science which in modern days had been called Political Economy is in reality nothing more
than the investigation of the phenomena of commercial operations. It has no connexion with political
economy, as understood and treated of by the great thinkers of past ages; and as long as it is allowed
to pass under the same name, every word written by those thinkers—and chiefly the words of Plato,
Xenophon, Cicero, and Bacon—must be either misunderstood or misapplied. The reader must not,
therefore, be surprised at the care and insistence 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 a misused word always is liable to involve an obscured thought, and all
careful thinkers, either on this or any other subject, are sure to have used their words accurately, the
first condition, in order to be able to avail ourselves of their sayings at all, is a firm definition of terms.
 136

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. 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 vigour, and means 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.

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 discerned 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 for 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. 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.

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. 60 Whatever truly

60
It may be observed, in anticipation of some of our future results, that while some conditions of the
affections are aimed at by the economist as final, others are necessary to him as his own instruments:
as he obtains them in greater or less degree his own farther work becomes more or less possible.
 137

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.

On the other hand, whatever does not serve either of these purposes,—much more
whatever counteracts them,—is in like manner useless to man, unwholesome,
unhelpful, or unholy; and by seeking such things man shortens and diminishes his
life upon the earth. And neither with respect to things useful or useless can man's
estimate of them alter their nature. Certain substances being good for his food, and
others noxious to him, what he thinks or wishes respecting them can neither change
their nature, nor prevent their power. If he eats corn, he will live; if nightshade, he will
die. If he produce or make good and beautiful things, they will "recreate" him (note
the solemnity and weight of the word); if bad and ugly things, they will "corrupt" or
break in pieces—that is, in the exact degree of their power, kill him. For every hour of
labour, however enthusiastic or well intended, which he spends for that which is not
bread, so much possibility of life is lost to him. His fancies, likings, beliefs, however

Such, for instance, are the fortifying virtues, which the wisest men of all time have, with more or less
distinctness, arranged under the general heads of Prudence, or Discretion (the spirit which discerns
and adopts rightly); Justice (the spirit which rules and divides rightly); Fortitude (the spirit which
persists and endures rightly); and Temperance (the spirit which stops and refuses rightly); or in
shorter terms still, the virtues which teach how to consist, assist, persist, and desist. These outermost
virtues are not only the means of protecting and prolonging life itself, but they are the chief guards or
sources of the material means of life, and are the visible governing powers and princes of economy.
Thus (reserving detailed statements for the sequel) precisely according to the number of just men in a
nation, is their power of avoiding either intestine or foreign war. All disputes may be peaceably settled,
if a sufficient number of persons have been trained to submit to the principles of justice. The necessity
for war is in direct ratio to the number of unjust persons who are incapable of determining a quarrel
but by violence. Whether the injustice take the form of the desire of dominion, or of refusal to submit
to it, or of lust of territory, or lust of money, or of mere irregular passion and wanton will, the result is
economically the same;—loss of the quantity of power and life consumed in repressing the injustice,
as well as of that requiring to be repressed, added to the material and moral destruction caused by
the fact of war. The early civil wars of England, and the existing war in America, are curious
examples—these under monarchical, this under republican institutions—of the results of the want of
education of large masses of nations in principles of justice. This latter war, especially, may perhaps
at least serve for some visible, or if that be impossible (for the Greeks told us that Plutus was blind, as
Dante that he was speechless), some feelable proof that true political economy is an ethical, and by
no means a commercial business. The Americans imagined themselves to know somewhat of money-
making; bowed low before their Dollar, expecting Divine help from it; more than potent—even
omnipotent. Yet all the while this apparently tangible, was indeed an imaginary Deity;—and had they
shown the substance of him to any true economist, or even true mineralogist, they would have been
told, long years ago,—"Alas, gentlemen, this that you are gaining is not gold,—not a particle of it. It is
yellow, and glittering, and like enough to the real metal,—but see—it is brittle, cat-gold, 'iron firestone.'
Out of this, heap it as high as you will, you will get so much steel and brimstone—nothing else; and in
a year or two, when (had you known a little of right economy) you might have had quiet roof-trees
over your heads, and a fair account at your banker's, you shall instead have to sleep a-field, under red
tapestries, costliest, yet comfortless; and at your banker's find deficit at compound interest." But the
mere dread or distrust resulting from the want of inner virtues of Faith and Charity among nations, is
often no less costly than war itself. The fear which France and England have of each other costs each
nation about fifteen millions sterling annually, besides various paralyses of commerce; that sum being
spent in the manufacture of means of destruction instead of means of production. There is no more
reason in the nature of things that France and England should be hostile to each other than that
England and Scotland should be, or Lancashire and Yorkshire; and the reciprocal terrors of the
opposite sides of the English Channel are neither more necessary, more economical, nor more
virtuous than the old riding and reiving on opposite flanks of the Cheviots, or than England's own
weaving for herself of crowns of thorn from the stems of her Red and White Roses.
 138

brilliant, eager, or obstinate, are of no avail if they are set on a false object. Of all that
he has laboured for, the eternal law of heaven and earth measures out to him for
reward, to the utmost atom, that part which he ought to have laboured for, and
withdraws from him (or enforces on him, it may be) inexorably that part which he
ought not to have laboured for. The dust and chaff are all, to the last speck,
winnowed away, and on his summer threshing-floor stands his heap of corn; little or
much, not according to his labour, but to his discretion. No "commercial
arrangements," no painting of surfaces nor alloying of substances, will avail him a
pennyweight. Nature asks of him calmly and inevitably, What have you found, or
formed—the right thing or the wrong? By the right thing you shall live; by the wrong
you shall die.

To thoughtless persons it seems otherwise. The world looks to them as if they could
cozen it out of some ways and means of life. But they cannot cozen IT; they can only
cozen their neighbours. The world is not to be cheated of a grain; not so much as a
breath of its air can be drawn surreptitiously. For every piece of wise work done, so
much life is granted; for every piece of foolish work, nothing; for every piece of
wicked work, so much death. This is as sure as the courses of day and night. But
when the means of life are once produced, men, by their various struggles and
industries of accumulation or exchange, may variously gather, waste, restrain, or
distribute them; necessitating, in proportion to the waste or restraint, accurately so
much more death. The rate and range of additional death is measured by the rate
and range of waste, and is inevitable;—the only question (determined mostly by
fraud in peace, and force in war) is, Who is to die, and how?

Such being the everlasting law of human existence, the essential work of the political
economist is to determine what are in reality useful and life-giving things, and by
what degrees and kinds of labour they are attainable and distributable. This
investigation divides itself under three great heads—first, of Wealth; secondly, of
Money; and thirdly, of Riches.

These terms are often used as synonymous, but they signify entirely different things.
"Wealth," consists of things in themselves valuable; "Money," of documentary claims
to the possession of such things; and "Riches" is a relative term, expressing the
magnitude of the possessions of one person or society as compared with those of
other persons or societies.

The study of Wealth is a province of natural science:—it deals with the essential
properties of things.

The study of Money is a province of commercial science:—it deals with conditions of

engagement and exchange.

The study of Riches is a province of moral science:—it deals with the due relations of
men to each other in regard of material possessions; and with the just laws of their
association for purposes of labour.
 139

I shall in this paper shortly sketch out the range of subjects which will come before
us as we follow these three branches of inquiry.

***************************************************

Section I.—WEALTH.

Wealth, it has been said, consists of things essentially valuable. We now, therefore,
need a definition of "value."

Value signifies the strength or "availing" of anything towards the sustaining of life,
and is always twofold; that is to say, primarily, Intrinsic, and, secondarily, Effectual.

The reader must, by anticipation, be warned against confusing value with cost, or
with price. Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labour
required to produce it; price, the quantity of labour which its possessor will take in
exchange for it. Cost and price are commercial conditions, to be studied under the
head of Money.

Intrinsic value is the absolute power of anything to support life. A sheaf of wheat of
given quality and weight has in it a measurable power of sustaining the substance of
the body; a cubic foot of pure air, a fixed power of sustaining its warmth; and a
cluster of flowers of given beauty, a fixed power of enlivening or animating the
senses and heart.

It does not in the least affect the intrinsic value of the wheat, the air, or the flowers,
that men refuse or despise them. Used or not, their own power is in them, and that
particular power is in nothing else.

But in order that this value of theirs may become effectual, a certain state is
necessary in the recipient of it. The digesting, the breathing, and perceiving functions
must be perfect in the human creature before the food, air, or flowers can become
their full value to it. The production of effectual value, therefore, always involves two
needs; first, the production of a thing essentially useful; then the production of the
capacity to use it. Where the intrinsic value and acceptant capacity come together
there is Effectual value, or wealth. Where there is either no intrinsic value, or no
acceptant capacity, there is no effectual value; that is to say, no wealth. A horse is
no wealth to us if we cannot ride, nor a picture if we cannot see, nor can any noble
thing be wealth, except to a noble person. As the aptness of the user increases, the
effectual value of the thing used increases; and in its entirety can co-exist only with
perfect skill of use, or harmony of nature. The effectual value of a given quantity of
any commodity existing in the world at any moment is therefore a mathematical
function of the capacity existing in the human race to enjoy it. Let its intrinsic value
be represented by x, and the recipient faculty by y; its effectual value is x y, in which
 140

the sum varies as either co-efficient varies, is increased by either's increase, 61 and
cancelled by either's absence.

Valuable material things may be conveniently referred to five heads:—

1. Land, with an associated air, water, and organisms.

2. Houses, furniture, and instruments.

3. Stored or prepared food and medicine, and articles of bodily luxury, including
clothing.

4. Books.

5. Works of art.

We shall enter into separate inquiry as to the conditions of value under each of these
heads. The following sketch of the entire subject may be useful for future
reference:—

1. Land. Its value is twofold—

A. As producing food and mechanical power.

B. As an object of sight and thought, producing intellectual power.

A. Its value, as a means of producing food and mechanical power, varies with its
form (as mountain or plain), with its substance (in soil or mineral contents), and with
its climate. All these conditions of intrinsic value, in order to give effectual value,
must be known and complied with by the men who have to deal with it; but at any
given time, or place, the intrinsic value is fixed; such and such a piece of land, with
its associated lakes and seas, rightly treated in surface and substance, can produce
precisely so much food and power, and no more. Its surface treatment (agriculture)
and substance treatment (practical geology and chemistry), are the first roots of
economical science. By surface treatment, however, I mean more than agriculture as
commonly understood; I mean land and sea culture;—dominion over both the fixed
and the flowing fields;—perfect acquaintance with the laws of climate, and of
vegetable and animal growth in the given tracts of earth or ocean, and of their
relations regulating especially the production of those articles of food which, being in
each particular spot producible in the highest perfection, will bring the best price in
commercial exchanges.

B. The second element of value in land is its beauty, united with such conditions of
space and form as are necessary for exercise, or pleasant to the eye, associated
with vital organism.

61
With this somewhat strange and ungeometrical limitation, however, which, here expressed for the
moment in the briefest terms, we must afterwards trace in detail—that x y may be indefinitely
increased by the increase of y only; but not by the increase of x, unless y increases also in a fixed
proportion.
 141

Land of the highest value in these respects is that lying in temperate climates, and
boldly varied in form; removed from unhealthy or dangerous influences (as of miasm
or volcano); and capable of sustaining a rich fauna and flora. Such land, carefully
tended by the hand of man, so far as to remove from it unsightlinesses and
evidences of decay; guarded from violence, and inhabited, under man's affectionate
protection, by every kind of living creature that can occupy it in peace, forms the
most precious "property" that human beings can possess.

The determination of the degree in which these two elements of value can be united
in land, or in which either element must, or should, in particular cases, be sacrificed
to the other, forms the most important branch of economical inquiry respecting
preferences of things.

2. Buildings, furniture, and instruments.

The value of buildings consists—A, in permanent strength, with convenience of form,

of size, and of position; so as to render employment peaceful, social intercourse
easy, temperature and air healthy. The advisable or possible magnitude of cities and
mode of their distribution in squares, streets, courts, etc., the relative value of sites of
land, and the modes of structure which are healthiest and most permanent, have to
be studied under this head.

B. The value of buildings consists, secondarily, in historical association and

architectural beauty, of which we have to examine the influence on manners and life.

The value of instruments consists—

A. In their power of shortening labour, or otherwise accomplishing (as ships) what

human strength unaided could not. The kinds of work which are severally best
accomplished by hand or by machine;—the effect of machinery in gathering and
multiplying population, and its influence on the minds and bodies of such population;
together with the conceivable uses of machinery on a colossal scale in
accomplishing mighty and useful works, hitherto unthought of, such as the
deepening of large river channels;—changing the surface of mountainous districts;—
irrigating tracts of desert in the torrid zone;—breaking up, and thus rendering
capable of quicker fusion edges of ice in the northern and southern Arctic seas, etc.,
so rendering parts of the earth habitable which hitherto have not been so, are to be
studied under this head.

B. The value of instruments is, secondarily, in their aid to abstract sciences. The
degree in which the multiplication of such instruments should be encouraged, so as
to make them, if large, easy of access to numbers (as costly telescopes), or so
cheap as that they might, in a serviceable form, become a common part of the
furniture of households, is to be considered under this head.

3. Food, medicine, and articles of luxury. Under this head we shall have to examine
the possible methods of obtaining pure and nourishing food in such security and
 142

equality of supply as to avoid both waste and famine; then the economy of medicine
and just range of sanitary law; finally, the economy of luxury, partly an aesthetic and
partly an ethical question.

4. Books. The value of these consists—

A. In their power of preserving and communicating the knowledge of facts.

B. In their power of exciting vital or noble emotion and intellectual action. They have
also their corresponding negative powers of disguising and effacing the memory of
facts, and killing the noble emotions, or exciting base ones. Under these two heads
we have to consider the economical and educational value, positive and negative, of
literature;—the means of producing and educating good authors, and the means and
advisability of rendering good books generally accessible, and directing the reader's
choice to them.

5. Works of art. The value of these is of the same nature as that of books, but the
laws of their production and possible modes of distribution are very different, and
require separate examination.

************************************************

Section II.—MONEY.

Under this head, we shall have to examine the laws of currency and exchange; of
which I will note here the first principles.

Money has been inaccurately spoken of as merely a means of circulation. It is, on

the contrary, an expression of right. It is not wealth, being the sign 62 of the relative
quantities of it, to which, at a given time, persons or societies are entitled.

If all the money in the world, notes and gold, were destroyed in an instant, it would
leave the world neither richer nor poorer than it was. But it would leave the individual
inhabitants of it in different relations.

Money is, therefore, correspondent in its nature to the title-deed of an estate. Though
the deed be burned, the estate still exists, but the right to it has become disputable.

The worth of money remains unchanged, as long as the proportion of the quantity of
existing money to the quantity of existing wealth, or available labour which it
professes to represent, remains unchanged.

If the wealth increases, but not the money, the worth of the money increases; if the
money increases, but not the wealth, the worth of the money diminishes.

Money, therefore, cannot be arbitrarily multiplied, any more than title-deeds can. So
long as the existing wealth or available labour is not fully represented by the

62
Always, and necessarily, an imperfect sign; but capable of approximate accuracy if rightly ordered.
 143

currency, the currency may be increased without diminution of the assigned worth of
its pieces. But when the existing wealth, or available labour, is once fully
represented, every piece of money thrown into circulation diminishes the worth of
every other existing piece, in the proportion it bears to the number of them, provided
the new piece be received with equal credit; if not, the depreciation of worth takes
place exclusively in the new piece, according to the inferiority of its credit.

When, however, new money, composed of some substance of supposed intrinsic

value (as of gold), is brought into the market, or when new notes are issued which
are supposed to be deserving of credit, the desire to obtain money will, under certain
circumstances, stimulate industry; an additional quantity of wealth is immediately
produced, and if this be in proportion to the new claims advanced, the value of the
existing currency is undepreciated. If the stimulus given be so great as to produce
more goods than are proportioned to the additional coinage, the worth of the existing
currency will be raised.

Arbitrary control and issues of currency affect the production of wealth, by acting on
the hopes and fears of men; and are, under certain circumstances, wise. But the
issue of additional currency to meet the exigencies of immediate expense, is merely
one of the disguised forms of borrowing or taxing.

It is, however, in the present low state of economical knowledge, often possible for
Governments to venture on an issue of currency, when they could not venture on an
additional loan or tax, because the real operation of such issue is not understood by
the people, and the pressure of it is irregularly distributed, and with an unperceived
gradation. Finally, the use of substances of intrinsic value as the materials of a
currency, is a barbarism;—a remnant of the conditions of barter, which alone can
render commerce possible among savage nations. It is, however, still necessary,
partly as a mechanical check on arbitrary issues; partly as a means of exchanges
with foreign nations. In proportion to the extension of civilization, and increase of
trustworthiness in Governments, it will cease. So long as it exists, the phenomena of
the cost and price of the articles used for currency, are mingled with those of
currency itself, in an almost inextricable manner; and the worth of money in the
market is affected by multitudinous accidental circumstances, which have been
traced, with more or less success, by writers on commercial operations; but with
these variations the true political economist has no more to do than an engineer
fortifying a harbour of refuge against Atlantic tide, has to concern himself with the
cries or quarrels of children who dig pools with their fingers for its ebbing currents
among the sand.

**********************************************

Section III.—RICHES.

According to the various industry, capacity, good fortune, and desires of men, they
obtain greater or smaller share of, and claim upon, the wealth of the world.
 144

The inequalities between these shares, always in some degree just and necessary,
may be either restrained by law (or circumstance) within certain limits; or may
increase indefinitely.

Where no moral or legal restraint is put upon the exercise of the will and intellect of
the stronger, shrewder, or more covetous men, these differences become ultimately
enormous. But as soon as they become so distinct in their extremes as that, on one
side, there shall be manifest redundance of possession, and on the other manifest
pressure of need,—the terms "riches" and "poverty" are used to express the opposite
states; being contrary only in the manner of the terms "warmth" and "cold"; which
neither of them imply an actual degree, but only a relation to other degrees, of
temperature.

Respecting riches, the economist has to inquire, first, into the advisable modes of
their collection; secondly, into the advisable modes of their administration.
Respecting the collection of national riches, he has to inquire, first, whether he is
justified in calling the nation rich; if the quantity of money it possesses relatively to
that possessed by other nations be large, irrespectively of the manner of its
distribution. Or does the mode of distribution in any wise affect the nature of the
riches? Thus, if the king alone be rich—suppose Crœsus or Mausolus—are the
Lydians and Carians therefore a rich nation? Or if one or two slave-masters be rich,
and the nation be otherwise composed of slaves, is it to be called a rich nation? For
if not, and the ideas of a certain mode of distribution or operation in the riches, and of
a certain degree of freedom in the people, enter into our idea of riches as attributed
to a people, we shall have to define the degree of fluency or circulative character
which is essential to their vitality; and the degree of independence of action required
in their possessors. Questions which look as if they would take time in answering.
And farther. Since there are two modes in which the inequality, which is indeed the
condition and constituent of riches, may be established—namely, by increase of
possession on the one side, and by decrease of it on the other—we have to inquire,
with respect to any given state of riches, precisely in what manner the correlative
poverty was produced; that is to say, whether by being surpassed only, or being
depressed, what are the advantages, or the contrary, conceivable in the depression.
For instance, it being one of the commonest advantages of being rich to entertain a
number of servants, we have to inquire, on the one side, what economical process
produced the poverty of the persons who serve him; and what advantage each (on
his own side) derives from the result.

These being the main questions touching the collection of riches, the next, or last,
part of the inquiry is into their administration.

They have in the main three great economical powers which require separate
examination: namely, the powers of selection, direction, and provision.
 145

A. Their power of Selection relates to things of which the supply is limited (as the
supply of best things is always). When it becomes matter of question to whom such
things are to belong, the richest person has necessarily the first choice, unless some
arbitrary mode of distribution be otherwise determined upon. The business of the
economist is to show how this choice may be a Wise one.

B. Their power of Direction arises out of the necessary relation of rich men to poor,
which ultimately, in one way or another, involves the direction of, or authority over,
the labour of the poor; and this nearly as much over their mental as their bodily
labour. The business of the economist is to show how this direction may be a Just
one.

C. Their power of Provision or "preparatory sight" (for pro-accumulation is by no

means necessarily pro-vision), is dependent upon their redundance; which may of
course by active persons be made available in preparation for future work or future
profit; in which function riches have generally received the name of capital; that is to
say, of head- or source-material. The business of the economist is to show how this
provision may be a Distant one.

The examination of these three functions of riches will embrace every final problem
of political economy;—and, above, or before all, this curious and vital problem,—
whether, since the wholesome action of riches in these three functions will depend (it
appears) on the Wisdom, Justice, and Far-sightedness of the holders; and it is by no
means to be assumed that persons primarily rich, must therefore be just and wise,—
it may not be ultimately possible so, or somewhat so, to arrange matters, as that
persons primarily just and wise, should therefore be rich.

Such being the general plan of the inquiry before us, I shall not limit myself to any
consecutive following of it, having hardly any good hope of being able to complete so
laborious a work as it must prove to me; but from time to time, as I have leisure, shall
endeavour to carry forward this part or that, as may be immediately possible;
indicating always with accuracy the place which the particular essay will or should
take in the completed system.
 146

2. NATURE OF WEALTH, VARIATIONS OF VALUE, THE

NATIONAL STORE, NATURE OF LABOUR, VALUE AND
PRICE, THE CURRENCY

The last paper having consisted of little more than definition of terms, I purpose, in
this, to expand and illustrate the given definitions, so as to avoid confusion in their
use when we enter into the detail of our subject.

The view which has been taken of the nature of wealth, namely, that it consists in an
intrinsic value developed by a vital power, is directly opposed to two nearly universal
conceptions of wealth. In the assertion that value is primarily intrinsic, it opposes the
idea that anything which is an object of desire to numbers, and is limited in quantity,
may be called, or virtually become, wealth. And in the assertion that value is
secondarily dependent upon power in the possessor, it opposes the idea that wealth
consists of things exchangeable at rated prices. Before going farther, we will make
these two positions clearer.

First. All wealth is intrinsic, and is not constituted by the judgment of men. This is
easily seen in the case of things affecting the body; we know that no force of fantasy
will make stones nourishing, or poison innocent; but it is less apparent in things
affecting the mind. We are easily—perhaps willingly—misled by the appearance of
beneficial results obtained by industries addressed wholly to the gratification of
fanciful desire; and apt to suppose that whatever is widely coveted, dearly bought,
and pleasurable in possession, must be included in our definition of wealth. It is the
more difficult to quit ourselves of this error because many things which are true
wealth in moderate use, yet become false wealth in immoderate; and many things
are mixed of good and evil,—as, mostly, books and works of art,—out of which one
person will get the good, and another the evil; so that it seems as if there were no
fixed good or evil in the things themselves, but only in the view taken, and use made
of them. But that is not so. The evil and good are fixed in essence and in proportion.
They are separable by instinct and judgment, but not interchangeable; and in things
in which evil depends upon excess, the point of excess, though indefinable, is fixed;
and the power of the thing is on the hither side for good, and on the farther side for
evil. And in all cases this power is inherent, not dependent on opinion or choice. Our
thoughts of things neither make, nor mar their eternal force; nor—which is the most
serious point for future consideration—can they prevent the effect of it upon
ourselves.

Therefore, the object of special analysis of wealth into which we have presently to
enter will be not so much to enumerate what is serviceable, as to distinguish what is
destructive; and to show that it is inevitably destructive; that to receive pleasure from
an evil thing is not to escape from, or alter the evil of it, but to be altered by it; that is,
to suffer from it to the utmost, having our own nature, in that degree, made evil also.
 147

And it will be shown farther that, through whatever length of time or subtleties of
connexion the harm is accomplished (being also less or more according to the
fineness and worth of the humanity on which it is wrought), still, nothing but harm
ever comes of a bad thing.

So that, finally, wealth is not the accidental object of a morbid desire, but the
constant object of a legitimate one. 63 By the fury of ignorance, and fitfulness of
caprice, large interests may be continually attached to things unserviceable or
hurtful; if their nature could be altered by our passions, the science of Political
Economy would be but as the weighing of clouds, and the portioning out of shadows.
But of ignorance there is no science; and of caprice no law. Their disturbing forces
interfere with the operations of economy, but have nothing in common with them; the
calm arbiter of national destiny regards only essential power for good in all it
accumulates, and alike disdains the wanderings of imagination and the thirsts of
disease.

Secondly. The assertion that wealth is not only intrinsic, but dependent, in order to
become effectual, on a given degree of vital power in its possessor, is opposed to
another popular view of wealth;—namely, that though it may always be constituted
by caprice, it is, when so constituted, a substantial thing, of which given quantities
may be counted as existing here, or there, and exchangeable at rated prices.

In this view there are three errors. The first and chief is the overlooking the fact that
all exchangeableness of commodity, or effective demand for it, depends on the sum
of capacity for its use existing, here or elsewhere. The book we cannot read, or
picture we take no delight in, may indeed be called part of our wealth, in so far as we
have power of exchanging either for something we like better. But our power of
effecting such exchange, and yet more, of effecting it to advantage, depends
absolutely on the number of accessible persons who can understand the book, or
enjoy the painting, and who will dispute the possession of them. Thus the actual
worth of either, even to us, depends no less on their essential goodness than on the
capacity consisting somewhere for the perception of it; and it is vain in any
63
Few passages of the Book which at least some part of the nations at present most advanced in
civilization accept as an expression of final truth, have been more distorted than those bearing on
Idolatry. For the idolatry there denounced is neither sculpture, nor veneration of sculpture. It is simply
the substitution of an "Eidolon," phantasm, or imagination of Good, for that which is real and enduring;
from the Highest Living Good, which gives life, to the lowest material good which ministers to it. The
Creator, and the things created, which He is said to have "seen good" in creating, are in this their
eternal goodness always called Helpful or Holy: and the sweep and range of idolatry extend to the
rejection of all or any of these, "calling evil good, or good evil,—putting bitter for sweet, and sweet for
bitter," so betraying the first of all Loyalties, to the fixed Law of life, and with resolute opposite loyalty
serving our own imagination of good, which is the law, not of the dwelling, but of the Grave (otherwise
called the law of error; or "mark missing," which we translate law of "Sin"), these "two masters,"
between whose services we have to choose, being otherwise distinguished as God and "Mammon,"
which Mammon, though we narrowly take it as the power of money only, is in truth the great evil spirit
of false and fond desire, or "Covetousness, which is Idolatry." So that Iconoclasm—image or likeness-
breaking—is easy; but an idol cannot be broken—it must be forsaken, and this is not so easy, either
in resolution or persuasion. For men may readily be convinced of the weakness of an image, but not
of the emptiness of a phantasm.
 148

completed system of production to think of obtaining one without the other. So that,
though the great political economist knows that co-existence of capacity for use with
temporary possession cannot be always secured, the final fact, on which he bases
all action and administration, is that, in the whole nation, or group of nations, he has
to deal with, for every grain of intrinsic value produced he must with exactest
chemistry produce its twin grain of governing capacity, or in the degrees of his failure
he has no wealth. Nature's challenge to us is in earnest, as the Assyrian's mock, "I
will give you two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon
them." Bavieca's paces are brave, if the Cid backs him; but woe to us, if we take the
dust of capacity, wearing the armour of it, for capacity itself, for so all procession,
however goodly in the show of it, is to the tomb.

The second error in this popular view of wealth is that, in estimating property which
we cannot use as wealth, because it is exchangeable, we in reality confuse wealth
with money. The land we have no skill to cultivate, the book which is sealed to us, or
dress which is superfluous, may indeed be exchangeable, but as such are nothing
more than a cumbrous form of bank-note, of doubtful and slow convertibility. As long
as we retain possession of them, we merely keep our bank-notes in the shape of
gravel or clay, of book leaves, or of embroidered tissue. Circumstances may perhaps
render such forms the safest, or a certain complacency may attach to the exhibition
of them;—into both these advantages we shall inquire afterwards; I wish the reader
only to observe here, that exchangeable property which we cannot use is, to us
personally, merely one of the forms of money, not of wealth.

The third error in the popular view is the confusion of guardianship with possession;
the real state of men of property being, too commonly that of curators, not
possessors of wealth. For a man's power of Use, Administration, Ostentation,
Destruction, or Bequest; and possession is in use only, which for each man is sternly
limited; so that such things, and so much of them, are well for him, or Wealth; and
more of them, or any other things, are ill for him, or Illth. Plunged to the lips in
Orinoco, he shall drink to his thirst measure,—more, at his peril; with a thousand
oxen on his lands, he shall eat to his hunger measure,—more, at his peril. He cannot
live in two houses at once; a few bales of silk or wool will suffice for the fabric of all
the clothes he can ever wear, and a few books will probably hold all the furniture
good for his brain. 64 Beyond these, in the best of us but narrow, capacities, we have

64
I reserve, until the completion and collection of these papers, any support by the authority of other
writers of the statements made in them; were, indeed, such authorities wisely sought for and shown,
there would be no occasion for my writing at all. Even in the scattered passages referring to this
subject in three books of Carlyle's:—"Sartor Resartus"; "Past and Present"; and the "Latter-Day
Pamphlets"; all has been said that needs to be said, and far better than I shall ever say it again. But
the habit of the public mind at the present is to require everything to be uttered diffusely, loudly, and
seven times over, before it will listen; and it has exclaimed against these papers of mine, as if they
contained things daring and new, when there is not one assertion in them of which the truth has not
been for ages known to the wisest, and proclaimed by the most eloquent of men. It will be a far
greater pleasure to me hereafter, to collect their words than add to mine; Horace's clear rendering of
the substance of the preceding passages in the text may be found room for at once:—
 149

but the power of administering, or if for harm, mal-administering, wealth (that is to

say, distributing, lending, or increasing it);—of exhibiting it (as in magnificence of
retinue or furniture), of destroying, or, finally, of bequeathing it. And with multitudes
of rich men, administration degenerates into curatorship; they merely hold their
property in charge, as Trustees, for the benefit of some person or persons to whom it
is to be delivered upon their death; and the position, explained in clear terms, would
hardly seem a covetable one. What would be the probable decision of a youth on his
entrance into life, to whom the career hoped for him was proposed in terms such as
these: "You must work unremittingly, and with your utmost intelligence, during all
your available years; you will thus accumulate wealth to a large amount; but you
must touch none of it, beyond what is needful for your support. Whatever sums you
may gain beyond those required for your decent and moderate maintenance shall be
properly taken care of, and on your death-bed you shall have the power of
determining to whom they shall belong, or to what purposes be applied?"

The labour of life, under such conditions, would probably be neither zealous nor
cheerful; yet the only difference between this position and that of the ordinary
capitalist is the power which the latter delights in supposing himself to possess, and
which is attributed to him by others, of spending his money at any moment. This
pleasure, taken in the imagination of power to part with that which we have no
intention of parting with, is one of the most curious though commonest forms of
Eidolon, or Phantasm of Wealth. But the political economist has nothing to do with
this idealism, and looks only to the practical issue of it,—namely, that the holder of
wealth, in such temper, may be regarded simply as a mechanical means of
collection; or as a money-chest with a slit in it, 65 set in the public thoroughfare;—
chest of which only Death has the key, and probably Chance the distribution of
contents. In his function of lender (which, however, is one of administration, not use,
as far as he is himself concerned), the capitalist takes, indeed, a more interesting
aspect; but even in that function, his relations with the state are apt to degenerate

Si quis emat citharas, emptas comportet in unum,

Nec studio citharae, nec Musae deditus ulli;
Si scalpra et formas, non sutor; nautica vela,
Aversus mercaturis: delirus et amens
Undique dicatur merito. Quî discrepat istis,
Qui nummos aurumque recondit, nescius uti
Compositis, metuensque velut contingere sacrum?
With which it is perhaps desirable also to give Xenophon's statement, it being clearer than any
English one can be, owing to the power of the general Greek term for wealth, "useable things":—
Ταῦτὰ ἄρα ὄντα, τῷ μὲν ἐπισταμένῳ χρῆσθαι αὐτῶν ἑκάστοις χρήματά ἐστι, τῷ δὲ μὴ ἐπισταμένῳ, οὐ
χρήματα· ὥσπέρ γε αὐλοὶ τῷ μὲν ἐπισταμένῳ ἀξὶως λόγου αὐλεῖν χρήματά εἰσι, τῷ δἐ μὴ ἐπισταμένῳ
οὐδὲν μᾶλλον ἤ ἄχρηστοι λίθοι, εἰ μὴ ἀπσδιδοῖτό γε αὐτούς. * * * Μὴ πωλούμενοι μὲν γὰρ οὐ χρήματά
εἰσιν οἱ αὐλοί· (οὐδὲν γὰρ χρήσιμοί εἰσι) πωλούμενοι δὲ χρήματα· Πρὸς ταῦτα δ’ ὁ Σωκράτης εἶπεν, ἢν
ἐπίστηταί γε πωλεῖν. Εί δὲ πωλοίη αὗ πρὸς τοὖτον ὃς μὴ ἐπίστηται χρῆσθαι, οὐδὲ πωλούμενοι εἰσὶ
χρήματα.
65
The orifice being not merely of a receptant, but of a suctional character. Among the types of human
virtue and vice presented grotesquely by the lower animals, perhaps none is more curiously definite
that that of avarice in the Cephalopod, a creature which has a purse for a body; a hawk's beak for a
mouth; suckers for feet and hands; and whose house is its own skeleton.
 150

into a mechanism for the convenient contraction of debt;—a function the more
mischievous, because a nation invariably appeases its conscience with respect to an
unjustifiable expense by meeting it with borrowed funds,—expresses its repentance
of a foolish piece of business by letting its tradesmen wait for their money,—and
always leaves its descendants to pay for the work which will be of the least service to
them. 66

Quit of these three sources of misconception, the reader will have little farther
difficulty in apprehending the real nature of Effectual value. He may, however, at first
not without surprise, perceive the consequences involved in the acceptance of our
definition. For if the actual existence of wealth be dependent on the power of its
possessor, it follows that the sum of wealth held by the nation, instead of being
constant or calculable, varies hourly, nay, momentarily, with the number and
character of its holders; and that in changing hands, it changes in quantity. And
farther, since the worth of the currency is proportioned to the sum of material wealth
which it represents, if the sum of the wealth changes, the worth of the currency
changes. And thus both the sum of the property, and power of the currency, of the
State, vary momentarily, as the character and number of the holders. And not only
so, but a different rate and manner of variation is caused by the character of the
holders of different kinds of wealth. The transitions of value caused by the character
of the holders of land differ in mode from those caused by character in holders of
works of art; and these again from those caused by character in holders of
machinery or other working capital. But we cannot examine these special
phenomena of any kind of wealth until we have a clear idea of the way in which true
currency expresses them; and of the resulting modes in which the cost and price of
any article are related to its value. To obtain this we must approach the subject in its
first elements.

Let us suppose a national store of wealth, real or imaginary (that is to say, composed
of material things either useful, or believed to be so), presided over by a
Government, 67 and that every workman, having produced any article involving labour

66
It would be well if a somewhat dogged conviction could be enforced on nations as on individuals,
that, with few exceptions, what they cannot at present pay for, they should not at present have.
67
The reader is to include here in the idea of "Government," any branch of the Executive, or even any
body of private persons, entrusted with the practical management of public interests unconnected
directly with their own personal ones. In theoretical discussions of legislative interference with political
economy, it is usually and of course unnecessarily, assumed that Government must be always of that
form and force in which we have been accustomed to see it;—that its abuses can never be less, nor
its wisdom greater, nor its powers more numerous. But, practically, the custom in most civilized
countries is, for every man to deprecate the interference of Government as long as things tell for his
personal advantage, and to call for it when they cease to do so. The request of the Manchester
Economists to be supplied with cotton by the Government (the system of supply and demand having,
for the time, fallen sorrowfully short of the expectations of scientific persons from it), is an interesting
case in point. It were to be wished that less wide and bitter suffering (suffering, too, of the innocent)
had been needed to force the nation, or some part of it, to ask itself why a body of men, already
confessedly capable of managing matters both military and divine, should not be permitted, or even
requested at need to provide in some wise for sustenance as well as for defence, and secure, if it
might be (and it might, I think, even the rather be), purity of bodily ailment, as well as of religious
 151

in its production, and for which he has no immediate use, brings it to add to this
store, receiving, from the Government, in exchange an order either for the return of
the thing itself, or of its equivalent in other things, 68 such as he may choose out of
the store at any time when he needs them. Now, supposing that the labourer
speedily uses this general order, or, in common language, "spends the money," he
has neither changed the circumstances of the nation nor his own, except in so far as
he may have produced useful and consumed useless articles, or vice versa. But if he
does not use, or uses in part only, the order he receives, and lays aside some
portion of it; and thus every day bringing his contribution to the national store, lays by
some percentage of the order received in exchange for it, he increases the national
wealth daily by as much as he does not use of the received order, and to the same
amount accumulates a monetary claim on the Government. It is of course always in
his power, as it is his legal right, to bring forward this accumulation of claim, and at
once to consume, to destroy, or distribute, the sum of his wealth. Supposing he
never does so, but dies, leaving his claim to others, he has enriched the State during
his life by the quantity of wealth over which that claim extends, or has, in other
words, rendered so much additional life possible in the State, of which additional life
he bequeaths the immediate possibility to those whom he invests with his claim, he
would distribute this possibility of life among the nation at large.

We hitherto consider the Government itself as simply a conservative power, taking

charge of the wealth entrusted to it.

But a Government may be far other than a conservative power. It may be on the one
hand constructive, on the other destructive.

If a constructive, or improving power, using all the wealth entrusted to it to the best
advantage, the nation is enriched in root and branch at once, and the Government is

conviction? Why, having made many roads for the passage of armies, they may not make a few for
the conveyance of food; and after organizing, with applause, various schemes of spiritual instruction
for the Public, organize, moreover, some methods of bodily nourishment for them? Or is the soul so
much less trustworthy in its instincts than the stomach, that legislation is necessary for the one, but
inconvenient to the other?
There is a strange fallacy running at this time through all talk about free trade. It is continually
assumed that every kind of Government interference takes away liberty of trade. Whereas liberty is
lost only when interference hinders, not when it helps. You do not take away a man's freedom by
showing him his road—nor by making it smoother for him (not that it is always desirable to do so, but
it may be); nor even by fencing it for him, if there is an open ditch at the side of it. The real mode in
which protection interferes with liberty, and the real evil of it, is not in its "protecting" one person, but in
its hindering another; a form of interference which invariably does most mischief to the person it is
intended to serve, which the Northern Americans are about discomfortably to discover, unless they
think better of it. There is also a ludicrous confusion in many persons' minds between protection and
encouragement; they differ materially. "Protection" is saying to the commercial schoolboy, "Nobody
shall hit you." "Encouragement," is saying to him, "That's the way to hit."
68
The question of equivalence (namely, how much wine a man is to receive in return for so much
corn, or how much coal in return for so much iron) is a quite separate one, which we will examine
presently. For the time let it be assumed that this equivalence has been determined, and that the
Government order in exchange for a fixed weight of any article (called, suppose, a), is either for the
return of that weight of the article itself, or of another fixed weight of the article b, or another of the
article c, and so on.
 152

enabled for every order presented, to return a quantity of wealth greater than the
order was written for, according to the fructification obtained in the interim. 69

This ability may be either concealed, in which case the currency does not completely
represent the wealth of the country, or it may be manifested by the continual
payment of the excess of value on each order, in which case there is (irrespectively,
observe, of collateral results afterwards to be examined) a perpetual rise in the worth
of the currency, that is to say, a fall in the price of all articles represented by it.

But if the Government be destructive, or a consuming power, it becomes unable to

return the value received on the presentation of the order.

This inability may either (A), be concealed by meeting demands to the full, until it
issue in bankruptcy, or in some form of national debt;—or (B), it may be concealed
during oscillatory movements between destructiveness and productiveness, which
result on the whole in stability;—or (C), it may be manifested by the consistent return
of less than value received on each presented order, in which case there is a
consistent fall in the worth of the currency, or rise in the price of the things
represented by it.

Now, if for this conception of a central Government, we substitute that of another

body of persons occupied in industrial pursuits, of whom each adds in his private
capacity to the common store: so that the store itself, instead of remaining a public
property of ascertainable quantity, for the guardianship of which a body of public
men are responsible, becomes disseminated private property, each man giving in
exchange for any article received from another, a general order for its equivalent in
whatever other article the claimant may desire (such general order being payable by
any member of the society in whose possession the demanded article may be
found), we at once obtain an approximation to the actual condition of a civilized
mercantile community from which approximation we might easily proceed into still
completer analysis. I purpose, however, to arrive at every result by the gradual
expansion of the simpler conception; but I wish the reader to observe, in the
meantime, that both the social conditions thus supposed (and I will by anticipation
say also all possible social conditions) agree in two great points; namely, in the
primal importance of the supposed national store or stock, and in its destructibility or
improvability by the holders of it.

I. Observe that in both conditions, that of central Government-holding, and diffused

private-holding, the quantity of stock is of the same national moment. In the one
case, indeed, its amount may be known by examination of the persons to whom it is
confided; in the other it cannot be known but by exposing the private affairs of every
individual. But, known or unknown, its significance is the same under each condition.

69
The reader must be warned in advance that the conditions here supposed have nothing to do with
the "interest" of money commonly so called.
 153

The riches of the nation consist in the abundance, and their wealth depends on the
nature of this store.

II. In the second place, both conditions (and all other possible ones) agree in the
destructibility or improvability of the store by its holders. Whether in private hands, or
under Government charge, the national store may be daily consumed, or daily
enlarged, by its possessors; and while the currency remains apparently unaltered,
the property it represents may diminish or increase.

The first question, then, which we have to put under our simple conception of central
Government, namely, "What store has it?" is one of equal importance, whatever may
be the constitution of the State; while the second question—namely, "Who are the
holders of the store?"—involves the discussion of the constitution of the State itself.

The first inquiry resolves itself into three heads:

1. What is the nature of the store?

2. What is its quantity in relation to the population?

3. What is its quantity in relation to the currency?

The second inquiry, into two:

1. Who are the Holders of the store, and in what proportions?

2. Who are the Claimants of the store (that is to say, the holders of the currency),
and in what proportions?

We will examine the range of the first three questions in the present paper; of the two
following, in the sequel.

Question First. What is the nature of the store? Has the nation hitherto worked for
and gathered the right thing or the wrong? On that issue rest the possibilities of its
life.

For example, let us imagine a society, of no great extent, occupied in procuring and
laying up store of corn, wine, wool, silk, and other such preservable materials of food
and clothing; and that it has a currency representing them. Imagine farther, that on
days of festivity, the society, discovering itself to derive satisfaction from
pyrotechnics, gradually turns its attention more and more to the manufacture of
gunpowder; so that an increasing number of labourers, giving what time they can
spare to this branch of industry, bring increasing quantities of combustibles into the
store, and use the general orders received in exchange to obtain such wine, wool, or
corn as they may have need of. The currency remains the same, and represents
precisely the same amount of material in the store, and of labour spent in producing
it. But the corn and wine gradually vanish, and in their place, as gradually, appear
sulphur and saltpetre; till at last, the labourers who have consumed corn and
 154

supplied nitre, presenting on a festal morning some of their currency to obtain

materials for the feast, discover that no amount of currency will command anything
Festive, except Fire. The supply of rockets is unlimited, but that of food limited in a
quite final manner; and the whole currency in the hands of the society represents an
infinite power of detonation, but none of existence.

The statement, caricatured as it may seem, is only exaggerated in assuming the

persistence of the folly to extremity, unchecked, as in reality it would be, by the
gradual rise in price of food. But it falls short of the actual facts of human life in
expression of the depth and intensity of the folly itself. For a great part (the reader
would not believe how great until he saw the statistics in detail) of the most earnest
and ingenious industry of the world is spent in producing munitions of war; gathering
that is to say the materials, not of festive, but of consuming fire; filling its stores with
all power of the instruments of pain, and all affluence of the ministries of death. It
was no true Trionfo della Morte which men have seen and feared (sometimes
scarcely feared) so long;—wherein he brought them rest from their labours. We see
and share another and higher form of his triumph now. Task-master instead of
Releaser, he rules the dust of the arena no less than of the tomb; and, content once
in the grave whither man went, to make his works cease and his devices to vanish,—
now, in the busy city and on the serviceable sea, makes his work to increase, and
his devices to multiply.

To this doubled loss, or negative power of labour, spent in producing means of

destruction, we have to add in our estimate of the consequences of human folly,
whatever more insidious waste of toil there is in the production of unnecessary
luxury. Such and such an occupation (it is said) supports so many labourers,
because so many obtain wages in following it; but it is never considered that unless
there be a supporting power in the product of the occupation, the wages given to one
man are merely withdrawn from another. We cannot say of any trade that it
maintains such and such a number of persons, unless we know how and where the
money, now spent in the purchase of its produce, would have been spent, if that
produce had not been manufactured. The purchasing funds truly support a number
of people in making This; but (probably) leave unsupported an equal number who
are making, or could have made That. The manufacturers of small watches thrive in
Geneva;—it is well;—but where would the money spent on small watches have
gone, had there been no small watches to buy?

If the so frequently uttered aphorism of mercantile economy—"labour is limited by

capital"—were true, this question would be a definite one. But it is untrue; and that
widely. Out of a given quantity of wages, more or less labour is to be had, according
to the quantity of will with which we can inspire the workman; and the true limit of
labour is only in the limit of this moral stimulus of the will, and the bodily power. In an
ultimate, but entirely practical sense, labour is limited by capital, as it is by matter—
that is to say, where there is no material, there can be no work—but in the practical
 155

sense, labour is limited only by the great original capital 70 of Head, Heart, and Hand.
Even in the most artificial relations of commerce, it is to capital as fire to fuel: out of
so much fuel you shall have so much fire—not in proportion to the mass of
combustibles, but to the force of wind that fans and water that quenches; and the
appliance of both. And labour is furthered, as conflagration is, not so much by added
fuel, as by admitted air.

For which reasons, I had to insert, above, the qualifying "probably"; for it can never
be said positively that the purchase money, or wages fund of any trade is withdrawn
from some other trade. The object itself may be the stimulus of the production of the
money which buys it; that is to say, the work by which the purchaser obtained the
means of buying it would not have been done by him, unless he had wanted that
particular thing. And the production of any article not intrinsically (nor in the process
of manufacture) injurious, is useful, if the desire of it causes productive labour in
other directions.

In the national store, therefore, the presence of things intrinsically valueless does not
imply an entirely correlative absence of things valuable. We cannot be certain that all
the labour spent on vanity has been diverted from reality, and that for every bad
thing produced, a precious thing has been lost. In great measure, the vain things
represent the results of roused indolence; they have been carved, as toys, in extra
time; and, if they had not been made, nothing else would have been made. Even to
munitions of war this principle applies; they partly represent the work of men who, if
they had not made spears, would never have made pruning-hooks, and who are
incapable of any activities but those of contest.

Thus, then, finally, the nature of the store has to be considered under two main
lights, the one, that of its immediate and actual utility; the other, that of the past
national character which it signifies by its production, and future character which it
must develop by its uses. And the issue of this investigation will be to show us that
Economy does not depend merely on principles of "demand and supply," but
primarily on what is demanded, and what is supplied.

Question Second. What is the quantity of the store in relation to the population? It
follows from what has been already stated that the accurate form in which this
question has to be put is—"What quantity of each article composing the store exists
in proportion to the real need for it by the population?" But we shall for the time
assume, in order to keep all our terms at the simplest, that the store is wholly
composed of useful articles, and accurately proportioned to the several needs of
them.

Now it does not follow, because the store is large in proportion to the number of
people, that the people must be in comfort, nor because it is small, that they must be

70
The aphorism, being hurried English for "labour is limited by want of capital," involves also awkward
English in its denial, which cannot be helped.
 156

in distress. An active and economical race always produces more than it requires,
and lives (if it is permitted to do so) in competence on the produce of its daily labour.
The quantity of its store, great or small, is therefore in many respects indifferent to it,
and cannot be inferred by its aspect. Similarly an inactive and wasteful population,
which cannot live by its daily labour, but is dependent, partly or wholly, on
consumption of its store, may be (by various difficulties hereafter to be examined, in
realization of getting at such store) retained in a state of abject distress, though its
possessions may be immense. But the results always involved in the magnitude of
store are, the commercial power of the nation, its security, and its mental character.
Its commercial power, in that according to the quantity of its store, may be the extent
of its dealings; its security, in that according to the quantity of its store are its means
of sudden exertion or sustained endurance; and its character, in that certain
conditions of civilization cannot be attained without permanent and continually
accumulating store, of great intrinsic value, and of peculiar nature.

Now, seeing that these three advantages arise from largeness of store in proportion
to population, the question arises immediately, "Given the store—is the nation
enriched by diminution of its numbers? Are a successful national speculation and a
pestilence, economically the same thing?"

This is in part a sophistical question; such as it would be to ask whether a man was
richer when struck by disease which must limit his life within a predicable period than
he was when in health. He is enabled to enlarge his current expenses, and has for
all purposes a larger sum at his immediate disposal (for, given the fortune, the
shorter the life the larger the annuity); yet no man considers himself richer because
he is condemned by his physician. The logical reply is that, since Wealth is by
definition only the means of life, a nation cannot be enriched by its own mortality. Or
in shorter words, the life is more than the meat; and existence itself more wealth than
the means of existence. Whence, of two nations who have equal store, the more
numerous is to be considered the richer, provided the type of the inhabitant be as
high (for, though the relative bulk of their store be less, its relative efficiency, or the
amount of effectual wealth, must be greater). But if the type of the population be
deteriorated by increase of its numbers, we have evidence of poverty in its worst
influence; and then, to determine whether the nation in its total may still be justifiably
esteemed rich, we must set or weigh the number of the poor against that of the rich.

To effect which piece of scalework, it is of course necessary to determine, first, who

are poor and who are rich; nor this only, but also how poor and how rich they are!
Which will prove a curious thermometrical investigation; for we shall have to do for
gold and for silver what we have done for quicksilver—determine, namely, their
freezing-point, their zero, their temperate and fever-heat points; finally, their
vaporescent point, at which riches, sometimes explosively, as lately in America,
"make to themselves wings";—and correspondently the number of degrees below
zero at which poverty, ceasing to brace with any wholesome cold, burns to the bone.
 157

For the performance of these operations, in the strictest sense scientific, we will first
look to the existing so-called "science" of Political Economy; we will ask it to define
for us the comparatively and superlatively rich, and the comparatively and
superlatively poor; and on its own terms—if any terms it can pronounce—examine, in
our prosperous England, how many rich and how many poor people there are; and
whether the quantity and intensity of the poverty is indeed so overbalanced by the
quantity and intensity of wealth, that we may permit ourselves a luxurious blindness
to it, and call ourselves, complacently, a rich country. And if we find no clear
definition in the existing science, we will endeavour for ourselves to fix the true
degrees of the Plutonic scale, and to apply them.

Question Third. What is the quantity of the store in relation to the Currency? We
have seen that the real worth of the currency, so far as dependent on its relation to
the magnitude of the store, may vary within certain limits, without affecting its worth
in exchange. The diminution or increase of the represented wealth may be
unperceived, and the currency may be taken either for more or less than it is truly
worth. Usually, it is taken for more; and its power in exchange, or credit-power, is
thus increased (or retained) up to a given strain upon its relation to existing wealth.
This credit-power is of chief importance in the thoughts, because most sharply
present to the experience, of a mercantile community; but the conditions of its
stability 71 and all other relations of the currency to the material store are entirely
simple in principle, if not in action. Far other than simple are the relations of the
currency to that "available labour" which by our definition (p. 219) it also represents.
For this relation is involved not only with that of the magnitude of the store to the
number, but with that of the magnitude of the store to the mind, of the population. Its
proportion to their number, and the resulting worth of currency, are calculable; but its
proportion to their will for labour is not. The worth of the piece of money which claims
a given quantity of the store, is, in exchange, less or greater according to the facility
of obtaining the same quantity of the same thing without having recourse to the
store. In other words, it depends on the immediate Cost and Price of the thing. We
must now, therefore, complete the definition of these terms.

All cost and price are counted in Labour. We must know first, therefore, what is to be
counted as Labour.

71
These are nearly all briefly represented by the image used for the force of money by Dante, of mast
and sail,—
"Quali dal vento be gonfiate vele
Caggiono avvolte, poi chè l'alber fiacca
Tal cadde a terra la fiera crudele."
The image may be followed out, like all of Dante's, into as close detail as the reader chooses. Thus
the stress of the sail must be proportioned to the strength of mast, and it is only in unforeseen danger
that a skilful seaman ever carries all the canvas his spars will bear: states of mercantile languor are
like the flap of the sail in a calm,—of mercantile precaution, like taking in reefs; and the mercantile
ruin is instant on the breaking of the mast.
 158

I have already defined labour to be the Contest of the life of man with an
opposite. 72 Literally, it is the quantity of "Lapse," loss, or failure of human life caused
by any effort. It is usually confused with effort itself, or the application of power
(opera); but there is much effort which is merely a mode of recreation, or of pleasure.
The most beautiful actions of the human body and the highest results of the human
intelligence, are conditions, or achievements, of quite unlaborious, nay, of recreative,
effort. But labour is the suffering in effort. It is the negative quantity, or quantity of de-
feat which has to be counted against every Feat, and of de-fect which has to be
counted against every Fact, or Deed of men. In brief, it is "that quantity of our toils
which we die in."

We might, therefore, à priori, conjecture (as we shall ultimately find) that it cannot be
bought, nor sold. Everything else is bought and sold for Labour, but labour itself
cannot be bought nor sold for anything, being priceless. 73 The idea that it is a
commodity to be bought or sold, is the alpha and omega of Politico-Economic
fallacy.

This being the nature of labour, the "Cost" of anything is the quantity of labour
necessary to obtain it;—the quantity for which, or at which, it "stands" (constat). It is
literally the "Constancy" of the thing;—you shall win it—move it—come at it—for no
less than this.

Cost is measured and measurable only in "labor," not in "opera." 74 It does not matter
how much power a thing needs to produce it; it matters only how much
distress. Generally the more power it requires, the less the distress; so that the
noblest works of man cost less than the meanest.

True labour, or spending of life, is either of the body, in fatigue or pain, of the temper
or heart (as in perseverance of search for things,—patience in waiting for them,—
fortitude or degradation in suffering for them, and the like), or of the intellect. All
these kinds of labour are supposed to be included in the general term, and the

72
That is to say, its only price is its return. Compare "Unto This Last," p. 162 and what follows.
73
The object of Political Economy is not to buy, nor to sell labour,—but to spare it. Every attempt to
buy or sell it is, in the outcome, ineffectual;—so far as successful, it is not sale, but Betrayal; and the
purchase money is a part of that typical thirty pieces which bought, first the greatest of labours, and
afterwards the burial field of the Stranger; for this purchase-money, being in its very smallness or
vileness the exactly measured opposite of "vilis annona amicorum," makes all men strangers to each
other.
74
Cicero's distinction, "sordidi quæstus, quorum operæ, non quorum artes emuntur," admirable in
principle, is inaccurate in expression, because Cicero did not practically know how much operative
dexterity is necessary in all the higher arts; but the cost of this dexterity is incalculable. Be it great or
small, the "cost" of the mere authority and perfectness of touch in a hammerstroke of Donatello's, or a
pencil touch of Correggio's, is inestimable by any ordinary arithmetic. (The best masters themselves
usually estimate it at sums varying from two to three or four shillings a day, with wine or soup extra.)
 159

quantity of labour is then expressed by the time it lasts. So that a unit of labour is "an
hour's work" or a day's work, as we may determine. 75

Cost, like value, is both intrinsic and effectual. Intrinsic cost is that of getting the thing
in the right way; effectual cost is that of getting the thing in the way we set about it.
But intrinsic cannot be made a subject of analytical investigation, being only partially
discoverable, and that by long experience. Effectual cost is all that the political
economist can deal with; that is to say, the cost of the thing under existing
circumstances and by known processes.

Cost (irrespectively of any question of demand or supply) varies with the quantity of
the thing wanted, and with the number of persons who work for it. It is easy to get a
little of some things, but difficult to get much; it is impossible to get some things with
few hands, but easy to get them with many.

The cost and value of things, however difficult to determine accurately, are thus both
dependent on ascertainable physical circumstances. 76

75
Only observe, as some labour is more destructive of life than other labour, the hour or day of the
more destructive toil is supposed to include proportionate rest. Though men do not, or cannot, usually
take such rest, except in death.
76
There is, therefore, observe, no such thing as cheapness (in the common use of that term), without
some error or injustice. A thing is said to be cheap, not because it is common, but because it is
supposed to be sold under its worth. Everything has its proper and true worth at any given time, in
relation to everything else; and at that worth should be bought and sold. If sold under it, it is cheap to
the buyer by exactly so much as the seller loses, and no more. Putrid meat, at twopence a pound, is
not "cheaper" than wholesome meat at sevenpence a pound; it is probably much dearer; but if, by
watching your opportunity, you can get the wholesome meat for sixpence a pound, it is cheaper to
you by a penny, which you have gained, and the seller has lost. The present rage for cheapness is
either, therefore, simply and literally, a rage for badness of all commodities, or it is an attempt to find
persons whose necessities will force them to let you have more than you should for your money. It is
quite easy to produce such persons, and in large numbers; for the more distress there is in a nation,
the more cheapness of this sort you can obtain, and your boasted cheapness is thus merely a
measure of the extent of your national distress.
There is, indeed, a condition of apparent cheapness, which we confuse, in practice and in reasoning,
with the other; namely, the real reduction in cost of articles by right application of labour. But in this
case the article is only cheap with reference to its former price, the so-called cheapness is only our
expression for the sensation of contrast between its former and existing prices. So soon as the new
methods of producing the article are established, it ceases to be esteemed either cheap or dear, at
the new price, as at the old one, and is felt to be cheap only when accident enables it to be purchased
beneath this new value. And it is to no advantage to produce the article more easily, except as it
enables you to multiply your population. Cheapness of this kind is merely the discovery that more
men can be maintained on the same ground; and the question, how many you will maintain in
proportion to your means, remains exactly in the same terms that it did before.
A form of immediate cheapness results, however, in many cases, without distress, from the labour of
a population where food is redundant, or where the labour by which the food is produced leaves much
idle time on their hands, which may be applied to the production of "cheap" articles.
All such phenomena indicate to the political economist places where the labour is unbalanced. In the
first case, the just balance is to be effected by taking labourers from the spot where the pressure
exists, and sending them to that where food is redundant. In the second, the cheapness is a local
accident, advantageous to the local purchaser, disadvantageous to the local producer. It is one of the
first duties of commerce to extend the market and thus give the local producer his full advantage.
Cheapness caused by natural accidents of harvest, weather, etc., is always counterbalanced, in due
time, by natural scarcity similarly caused. It is the part of wise Government, and healthy commerce, so
 160

But their price is dependent on the human will.

Such and such a thing is demonstrably good for so much. And it may demonstrably
be bad for so much.

But it remains questionable, and in all manner of ways questionable, whether I

choose to give so much. 77

This choice is always a relative one. It is a choice to give a price for this, rather than
for that;—a resolution to have the thing, if getting it does not involve the loss of a
better thing. Price depends, therefore, not only on the cost of the commodity itself,
but on its relation to the cost of every other attainable thing.

Farther. The power of choice is also a relative one. It depends not merely on our own
estimate of the thing, but on everybody else's estimate; therefore on the number and
force of the will of the concurrent buyers, and on the existing quantity of the thing in
proportion to that number and force.

Hence the price of anything depends on four variables. 78

1. Its cost.

2. Its attainable quantity at that cost.

3. The number and power of the persons who want it.

4. The estimate they have formed of its desirableness.

(Its value only affects its price so far as it is contemplated in this estimate; perhaps,
therefore, not at all.)

Now, in order to show the manner in which price is expressed in terms of a currency,
we must assume these four quantities to be known, and the "estimate of
desirableness," commonly called the Demand, to be certain. We will take the number
of persons at the lowest. Let A and B be two labourers who "demand," that is to say,
have resolved to labour for, two articles, a and b. Their demand for these articles (if
the reader likes better, he may say their need) is to be absolute, existence
depending on the getting these two things. Suppose, for instance, that they are
bread and fuel in a cold country, and let a represent the least quantity of bread,

to provide in times and places of plenty for times and places of dearth, as that there shall never be
waste, nor famine.
Cheapness caused by gluts of the market is merely a disease of clumsy and wanton commerce.
77
Price has already been defined (pp. 214, 215) to be the quantity of labour which the possessor of a
thing is willing to take for it. It is best to consider the price to be that fixed by the possessor, because
the possessor has absolute power of refusing sale, while the purchaser has no absolute power of
compelling it; but the effectual or market price is that at which their estimates coincide.
78
The two first of these variables are included in the x, and the two last in they, of the formula given at
p. 162 of "Unto This Last," and the four are the radical conditions which regulate the price of things on
first production; in their price in exchange, the third and fourth of these divide each into two others,
forming the Four which are stated at p. 186 of "Unto This Last."
 161

and b the least quantity of fuel, which will support a man's life for a day. Let a be
producible by an hour's labour but b only by two hours' labour; then the cost of a is
one hour, and of b two (cost, by our definition, being expressible in terms of time). If,
therefore, each man worked both for his corn and fuel, each would have to work
three hours a day. But they divide the labour for its greater ease. 79 Then if A works
three hours, he produces 3a, which is one a more than both the men want. And if B
works three hours, he produces only 1½b, or half of b less than both want. But if A
works three hours and B six, A has 3a, and B has 3b, a maintenance in the right
proportion for both for a day and a half; so that each might take a half a day's rest.
But as B has worked double time, the whole of this day's rest belongs in equity to
him. Therefore, the just exchange should be, A, giving two a for one b, has
one a and one b;—maintenance for a day. B, giving one b for two a, has two a and
two b;—maintenance for two days.

But B cannot rest on the second day, or A would be left without the article which B
produces. Nor is there any means of making the exchange just, unless a third
labourer is called in. Then one workman, A, produces a, and two, B and C,
produce b;—A, working three hours, has three a;—B, three hours, 1½b;—C, three
hours, 1½b. B and C each give half of b for a, and all have their equal daily
maintenance for equal daily work.

To carry the example a single step farther, let three articles, a, b, and c, be needed.

Let a need one hour's work, b two, and c four; then the day's work must be seven
hours, and one man in a day's work can make 7a, or 3½b, or 1¾c. Therefore one A
works for a, producing 7a; two B's work for b, producing 7b; four C's work for c,
producing 7c.

A has six a to spare, and gives two a for one b, and four a for one c. Each B has
2½b to spare, and gives ½b for one a, and two b for one c. Each C has ¾ of c to
spare, and gives ½c for one b, and ¼ of c for one a. And all have their day's
maintenance.

Generally, therefore, it follows that, if the demand is constant, 80 the relative prices of
things are as their costs, or as the quantities of labour involved in production.

Then, in order to express their prices in terms of a currency, we have only to put the
currency into the form of orders for a certain quantity of any given article (with us it is
in the form of orders for gold), and all quantities of other articles are priced by the
relation they bear to the article which the currency claims.

79
This "greater ease" ought to be allowed for by a diminution in the times of the divided work; but as
the proportion of times would remain the same, I do not introduce this unnecessary complexity into
the calculation.
80
Compare "Unto This Last," p. 177, et seq.
 162

But the worth of the currency itself is not in the slightest degree founded more on the
worth of the article for which the gold is exchangeable. It is just as accurate to say,
"So many pounds are worth an acre of land," as "An acre of land is worth so many
pounds." The worth of gold, of land, of houses, and of food, and of all other things,
depends at any moment on the existing quantities and relative demands for all and
each; and a change in the worth of, or demand for, any one, involves an
instantaneously correspondent change in the worth, and demand for, all the rest—a
change as inevitable and as accurately balanced (though often in its process as
untraceable) as the change in volume of the outflowing river from some vast lake,
caused by change in the volume of the inflowing streams, though no eye can trace,
no instrument detect motion either on its surface, or in the depth.

Thus, then, the real working power or worth of the currency is founded on the entire
sum of the relative estimates formed by the population of its possessions; a change
in this estimate in any direction (and therefore every change in the national
character), instantly alters the value of money, in its second great function of
commanding labour. But we must always carefully and sternly distinguish between
this worth of currency, dependent on the conceived or appreciated value of what it
represents, and the worth of it, dependent on the existence of what it represents. A
currency is true or false, in proportion to the security with which it gives claim to the
possession of land, house, horse, or picture; but a currency is strong or weak, worth
much or worth little, in proportion to the degree of estimate in which the nation holds
the house, horse, or picture which is claimed. Thus the power of the English
currency has been, till of late, largely based on the national estimate of horses and of
wine: so that a man might always give any price to furnish choicely his stable, or his
cellar, and receive public approval therefor: but if he gave the same sum to furnish
his library, he was called mad, or a Bibliomaniac. And although he might lose his
fortune by his horses, and his health or life by his cellar, and rarely lost either by his
books, he was yet never called a Hippomaniac nor an Oinomaniac; but only
Bibliomaniac, because the current worth of money was understood to be legitimately
founded on cattle and wine, but not on literature. The prices lately given at sales for
pictures and MSS. indicate some tendency to change in the national character in this
respect, so that the worth of the currency may even come in time to rest, in an
acknowledged manner, somewhat on the state and keeping of the Bedford missal,
as well as on the health of Caractacus or Blink Bonny; and old pictures be
considered property, no less than old port. They might have been so before now, but
it is more difficult to choose the one than the other.

Now, observe, all these sources of variation in the power of the currency exist wholly
irrespective of the influences of vice, indolence, and improvidence. We have hitherto
supposed, throughout the analysis, every professing labourer to labour honestly,
heartily, and in harmony with his fellows. We have now to bring farther into the
calculation the effects of relative industry, honour, and forethought, and thus to follow
 163

out the bearings of our second inquiry: Who are the holders of the Store and
Currency, and in what proportions?

This, however, we must reserve for our next paper,—noticing here only that,
however distinct the several branches of the subject are, radically, they are so
interwoven in their issues that we cannot rightly treat any one, till we have taken
cognisance of all. Thus the quantity of the currency in proportion to number of
population is materially influenced by the number of the holders in proportion to the
non-holders; and this again by the number of holders of goods. For as, by definition,
the currency is a claim to goods which are not possessed, its quantity indicates the
number of claimants in proportion to the number of holders; and the force and
complexity of claim. For if the claims be not complex, currency as a means of
exchange may be very small in quantity. A sells some corn to B, receiving a promise
from B to pay in cattle, which A then hands over to C, to get some wine. C in due
time claims the cattle from B; and B takes back his promise. These exchanges have,
or might have been, all effected with a single coin or promise; and the proportion of
the currency to the store would in such circumstances indicate only the circulating
vitality of it—that is to say, the quantity and convenient divisibility of that part of the
store which the habits of the nation keep in circulation. If a cattle-breeder is content
to live with his household chiefly on meat and milk, and does not want rich furniture,
or jewels, or books,—if a wine- and corn-grower maintains himself and his men
chiefly on grapes and bread;—if the wives and daughters of families weave and spin
the clothing of the household, and the nation, as a whole, remains content with the
produce of its own soil and the work of its own hands, it has little occasion for
circulating media. It pledges and promises little and seldom; exchanges only so far
as exchange is necessary for life. The store belongs to the people in whose hands it
is found, and money is little needed either as an expression of right, or practical
means of division and exchange.

But in proportion as the habits of the nation become complex and fantastic (and they
may be both, without therefore being civilized), its circulating medium must increase
in proportion to its store. If everyone wants a little of everything,—if food must be of
many kinds, and dress of many fashions,—if multitudes live by work which,
ministering to fancy, has its pay measured by fancy, so that large prices will be given
by one person for what is valueless to another,—if there are great inequalities of
knowledge, causing great inequalities of estimate,—and finally, and worst of all, if the
currency itself, from its largeness, and the power which the possession of it implies,
becomes the sole object of desire with large numbers of the nation, so that the
holding of it is disputed among them as the main object of life:—in each and all these
cases, the currency enlarges in proportion to the store, and, as a means of exchange
and division, as a bond of right, and as an expression of passion, plays a more and
more important part in the nation's dealings, character, and life.

Against which part, when, as a bond of Right, it becomes too conspicuous and too
burdensome, the popular voice is apt to be raised in a violent and irrational manner,
 164

leading to revolution instead of remedy. Whereas all possibility of Economy depends

on the clear assertion and maintenance of this bond of right, however burdensome.
The first necessity of all economical government is to secure the unquestioned and
unquestionable working of the great law of Property—that a man who works for a
thing shall be allowed to get it, keep it, and consume it, in peace; and that he who
does not eat his cake to-day, shall be seen, without grudging, to have his cake to-
morrow. This, I say, is the first point to be secured by social law; without this, no
political advance, nay, no political existence, is in any sort possible. Whatever evil,
luxury, iniquity, may seem to result from it, this is nevertheless the first of all Equities;
and to the enforcement of this, by law and by police-truncheon, the nation must
always primarily set its mind—that the cupboard door may have a firm lock to it, and
no man's dinner be carried off by the mob, on its way home from the baker's. Which,
thus fearlessly asserting, we shall endeavour in the next paper to consider how far it
may be practicable for the mob itself, also, in due breadth of dish, to have dinners to
carry home.
 165

3. THE CURRENCY-HOLDERS AND STORE-HOLDERS. THE

DISEASE OF DESIRE

It will be seen by reference to the last paper that our present task is to examine the
relation of holders of store to holders of currency; and of both to those who hold
neither. In order to do this, we must determine on which side we are to place
substances such as gold, commonly known as bases of currency. By aid of previous
definitions the reader will now be able to understand closer statements than have yet
been possible.

The currency of any country consists of every document acknowledging debt which
is transferable in the country.

This transferableness depends upon its intelligibility and credit. Its intelligibility
depends chiefly on the difficulty of forging anything like it;—its credit much on
national character, but ultimately always on the existence of substantial means of
meeting its demand.

As the degrees of transferableness are variable (some documents passing only in

certain places, and others passing, if at all, for less than their inscribed value), both
the mass and, so to speak, fluidity, of the currency, are variable. True or perfect
currency flows freely, like a pure stream; it becomes sluggish or stagnant in
proportion to the quantity of less transferable matter which mixes with it, adding to its
bulk, but diminishing its purity. Substances of intrinsic value, such as gold, mingle
also with the currency, and increase, while they modify, its power; these are carried
by it as stones are carried by a torrent, sometimes momentarily impeding,
sometimes concentrating its force, but not affecting its purity. These substances of
intrinsic value may be also stamped or signed so as to become acknowledgments of
debt, and then become, so far as they operate independently of their intrinsic value,
part of the real currency.

Deferring consideration of minor forms of currency, consisting of documents bearing

private signature, we will examine the principle of legally authorized or national
currency.

This, in its perfect condition, is a form of public acknowledgment of debt, so

regulated and divided that any person presenting a commodity of tried worth in the
public market, shall, if he please, receive in exchange for it a document giving him
claim for the return of its equivalent, (1) in any place, (2) at any time, and (3) in any
kind.

When currency is quite healthy and vital, the persons entrusted with its management
are always able to give on demand either—

A. The assigning document for the assigned quantity of goods. Or,

 166

B. The assigned quantity of goods for the assigning document.

If they cannot give document for goods, the national exchange is at fault.

If they cannot give goods for document, the national credit is at fault.

The nature and power of the document are therefore to be examined under the three
relations which it bears to Place, Time, and Kind.

1. It gives claim to the return of equivalent wealth in any Place. Its use in this function
is to save carriage, so that parting with a bushel of corn in London, we may receive
an order for a bushel of corn for the Antipodes, or elsewhere. To be perfect in this
use, the substance of currency must be to the maximum portable, credible, and
intelligible. Its non-acceptance or discredit results always from some form of
ignorance or dishonour: so far as such interruptions rise out of differences in
denomination, there is no ground for their continuance among civilized nations. It
may be convenient in one country to use chiefly copper for coinage, in another silver,
and in another gold,—reckoning accordingly in centimes, francs, or sequins; but that
a French franc should be different in weight from an English shilling, and an Austrian
zwanziger vary in weight and alloy from both, is wanton loss of commercial power.

2. It gives claim to the return of equivalent wealth at any Time. In this second use,
currency is the exponent of accumulation: it renders the laying up of store at the
command of individuals unlimitedly possible;—whereas, but for its intervention, all
gathering would be confined within certain limits by the bulk of poverty, or by its
decay, or the difficulty of its guardianship. "I will pull down my barns and build
greater" cannot be a daily saying; and all material investment is enlargement of care.
The national currency transfers the guardianship of the store to many; and preserves
to the original producer the right of re-entering on its possession at any future period.

3. It gives claim (practical, though not legal) to the return of equivalent wealth in any
Kind. It is a transferable right, not merely to this or that, but to anything; and its
power in this function is proportioned to the range of choice. If you give a child an
apple or a toy, you give him a determinate pleasure, but if you give him a penny, an
indeterminate one, proportioned to the range of selection offered by the shops in the
village. The power of the world's currency is similarly in proportion to the openness of
the world's fair, and commonly enhanced by the brilliancy of external aspect, rather
than solidity of its wares.

We have said that the currency consists of orders for equivalent goods. If equivalent,
their quality must be guaranteed. The kinds of goods chosen for specific claim must,
therefore, be capable of test, while, also, that a store may be kept in hand to meet
the call of the currency, smallness of bulk, with great relative value, is desirable; and
indestructibility, over at least a certain period, essential.

Such indestructibility and facility of being tested are united in gold; its intrinsic value
is great, and its imaginary value is greater; so that, partly through indolence, partly
 167

through necessity and want of organization, most nations have agreed to take gold
for the only basis of their currencies;—with this grave disadvantage, that its
portability enabling the metal to become an active part of the medium of exchange,
the stream of the currency itself becomes opaque with gold—half currency and half
commodity, in unison of functions which partly neutralize, partly enhance each
other's force.

They partly neutralize, since in so far as the gold is commodity, it is bad currency,
because liable to sale; and in so far as it is currency, it is bad commodity, because
its exchange value interferes with its practical use. Especially its employment in the
higher branches of the arts becomes unsafe on account of its liability to be melted
down for exchange.

Again. They partly enhance, since in so far as the gold has acknowledged intrinsic
value, it is good currency, because everywhere acceptable; and in so far as it has
legal exchangeable value, its worth as a commodity is increased. We want no gold in
the form of dust or crystal; but we seek for it coined because in that form it will pay
baker and butcher. And this worth in exchange not only absorbs a large quantity in
that use, 81 but greatly increases the effect on the imagination of the quantity used in
the arts. Thus, in brief, the force of the functions is increased, but their precision
blunted, by their unison.

These inconveniences, however, attach to gold as a basis of currency on account of

its portability and preciousness. But a far greater inconvenience attaches to it as the
only legal basis of currency. Imagine gold to be only attainable in masses weighing
several pounds each, and its value, like that of a malachite or marble, proportioned
to its largeness of bulk;—it could not then get itself confused with the currency in
daily use, but it might still remain as its basis; and this second inconvenience would
still affect it, namely, that its significance as an expression of debt, varies, as that of
every other article would, with the popular estimate of its desirableness, and with the
quantity offered in the market. My power of obtaining other goods for gold depends
always on the strength of public passion for gold, and on the limitation of its quantity,
so that when either of two things happen—that the world esteems gold less, or finds
it more easily,—my right of claim is in that degree effaced; and it has been even
gravely maintained that a discovery of a mountain of gold would cancel the National
Debt; in other words, that men may be paid for what costs much in what costs
nothing. Now, if it is true that there is little chance of sudden convulsion in this
81
The waste of labour in obtaining the gold, though it cannot be estimated by help of any existing
data, may be understood in its bearing on entire economy by supposing it limited to transactions
between two persons. If two farmers in Australia have been exchanging corn and cattle with each
other for years, keeping their accounts of reciprocal debt in any simple way, the sum of the
possessions of either would not be diminished, though the part of it which was lent or borrowed were
only reckoned by marks on a stone, or notches on a tree; and the one counted himself accordingly, so
many scratches, or so many notches, better than the other. But it would soon be seriously diminished
if, discovering gold in their fields, each resolved only to accept golden counters for a reckoning; and
accordingly, whenever he wanted a sack of corn or a cow, was obliged to go and wash sand for a
week before he could get the means of giving a receipt for them.
 168

respect, the world will not rapidly increase in wisdom so as to despise gold, and
perhaps may even desire it more eagerly the more easily it is obtained; nevertheless
the right of debt ought not to rest on a basis of imagination; nor should the frame of a
national currency vibrate with every miser's panic and every merchant's imprudence.

There are two methods of avoiding this insecurity, which would have been fallen
upon long ago if, instead of calculating the conditions of the supply of gold, men had
only considered how the world might live and manage its affairs without gold at
all. 82 One is to base the currency on substances of truer intrinsic value; the other, to
base it on several substances instead of one. If I can only claim gold, the discovery
of a continent of cornfields need not trouble me. If, however, I wish to exchange my
bread for other things, a good harvest will for the time limit my power in this respect;
but if I can claim either bread, iron, or silk at pleasure, the standard of value has
three feet instead of one, and will be proportionally firm. Thus, ultimately the
steadiness of currency depends upon the breadth of its base; but the difficulty of
organization increasing with this breadth, the discovery of the condition at once
safest and most convenient 83 can only be by long analysis which must for the
present be deferred. Gold or silver 84 may always be retained in limited use, as a
luxury of coinage and questionless standard, of one weight and alloy among nations,
varying only in the die. The purity of coinage when metallic, is closely indicative of
the honesty of the system of revenue, and even of the general dignity of the State. 85

Whatever the article or articles may be which the national currency promises to pay,
a premium on that article indicates bankruptcy of the Government in that proportion,
the division of the assets being restrained only by the remaining confidence of the
holders of notes in the return of prosperity to the firm. Incontrovertible currencies,
those of forced acceptance, or of unlimited issue, are merely various modes of
disguising taxation, and delaying its pressure, until it is too late to interfere with its
causes. To do away with the possibility of such disguise would have been among
the first results of a true economical science, had any such existed; but there have
been too many motives for the concealment, so long as it could by any artifices be
maintained, to permit hitherto even the founding of such a science.

82
It is difficult to estimate the curious futility of discussions such as that which lately occupied a
section of the British Association, on the absorption of gold, while no one can produce even the
simplest of the data necessary for the inquiry. To take the first occurring one,—What means have we
of ascertaining the weight of gold employed this year in the toilettes of the women of Europe (not to
speak of Asia); and, supposing it known, what means of conjecturing the weight by which, next year,
their fancies, and the changes of style among their jewellers, will diminish or increase it?
83
See, in Pope's epistle to Lord Bathurst, his sketch of the difficulties and uses of a currency literally
"pecuniary "—
"His Grace will game—to White's a bull he led," etc.
84
Perhaps both; perhaps silver only. It may be found expedient ultimately to leave gold free for use in
the arts. As a means of reckoning, the standard might be, and in some cases has already been,
entirely ideal.—See Mill's "Political Economy," book iii., chap. 7, at beginning.
85
The purity of the drachma and sequin were not without significance of the state of intellect, art, and
policy, both in Athens and Venice;—a fact first impressed upon me ten years ago, when, in
daguerreotypes of Venetian architecture, I found no purchasable gold pure enough to gild them with,
but that of the old Venetian sequin.
 169

And, indeed, it is only through evil conduct, wilfully persisted in, that there is any
embarrassment either in the theory or the working of currency. No exchequer is ever
embarrassed, nor is any financial question difficult of solution, when people keep
their practice honest, and their heads cool. But when Governments lose all office of
pilotage, protection, scrutiny, and witness; and live only in magnificence of
proclaimed larceny, effulgent mendacity, and polished mendicity; or when the people
choosing Speculation (the S usual redundant in the spelling) instead of Toil, pursue
no dishonesty with chastisement, that each may with impunity take his dishonest
turn; and enlarge their lust of wealth through ignorance of its use, making their harlot
of the dust, and setting Earth, the Mother, at the mercy of Earth, the Destroyer, so
that she has to seek in hell the children she left playing in the meadows,—there are
no tricks of financial terminology that will save them; all signature and mintage do but
magnify the ruin they retard; and even the riches that remain, stagnant or current,
change only from the slime of Avernus to the sand of Phlegethon;—quicksand at the
embouchure;—land fluently recommended by recent auctioneers as "eligible for
building leases."

Finally, then, the power of true currency is fourfold.

1. Credit power. Its worth in exchange, dependent on public opinion of the stability
and honesty of the issuer.

2. Real worth. Supposing the gold, or whatever else the currency expressly
promises, to be required from the issuer, for all his notes; and that the call cannot be
met in full. Then the actual worth of the document (whatever its credit power) would
be, and its actual worth at any moment is to be defined as being, what the division of
the assets of the issuer, and his subsequent will work, would produce for it.

3. The exchange power of its base. Granting that we can get five pounds in gold for
our note, it remains a question how much of other things we can get for five pounds
in gold. The more of other things exist, and the less gold, the greater this power.

4. The power over labour, exercised by the given quantity of the base, or of the
things to be got for it. The question in this case is, how much work, and (question of
questions) whose work, is to be had for the food which five pounds will buy. This
depends on the number of the population; on their gifts, and on their dispositions,
with which, down to their slightest humours and up to their strongest impulses, the
power of the currency varies; and in this last of its ranges,—the range of passion,
price, or praise (converso in pretium Deo), is at once least, and greatest.

Such being the main conditions of national currency, we proceed to examine those
of the total currency, under the broad definition, "transferable acknowledgment of
debt"; 86 among the many forms of which there are in effect only two, distinctly

86
Under which term, observe, we include all documents of debt which, being honest, might be
transferable, though they practically are not transferred; while we exclude all documents which are in
reality worthless, though in fact transferred temporarily as bad money is. The document of honest
 170

opposed; namely, the acknowledgments of debts which will be paid, and of debts
which will not. Documents, whether in whole or part, of bad debt, being to those of
good debt as bad money to bullion, we put for the present these forms of imposture
aside (as in analysing a metal we should wash it clear of dross), and then range, in
their exact quantities, the true currency of the country on one side, and the store or
property of the country on the other. We place gold, and all such substances, on the
side of documents, as far as they operate by signature;—on the side of store as far
as they operate by value. Then the currency represents the quantity of debt in the
country, and the store the quantity of its possession. The ownership of all the
property is divided between the holders of currency and holders of store, and
whatever the claiming value of the currency is at any moment, that value is to be
deducted from the riches of the store-holders, the deduction being practically made
in the payment of rent for houses and lands, of interest on stock, and in other ways
to be hereafter examined.

At present I wish only to note the broad relations of the two great classes—the
currency-holders and store-holders. 87 Of course they are partly united, most monied
men having possessions of land or other goods; but they are separate in their nature
and functions. The currency-holders as a class regulate the demand for labour, and
the store-holders the laws of it; the currency-holders determine what shall be
produced, and the store-holders the conditions of its production. Farther, as true
currency represents by definition debts which will be paid, it represents either the

debt, not transferred, is merely to paper currency as gold withdrawn from circulation is to that of
bullion. Much confusion has crept into the reasoning on this subject from the idea that withdrawal from
circulation is a definable state, whereas it is a gradated state, and indefinable. The sovereign in my
pocket is withdrawn from circulation as long as I choose to keep it there. It is no otherwise withdrawn
if I bury it, nor even if I choose to make it, and others, into a golden cup, and drink out of them; since a
rise in the price of the wine, or of other things, may at any time cause me to melt the cup and throw it
back into currency; and the bullion operates on the prices of the things in the market as directly,
though not as forcibly, while it is in the form of a cup, as it does in the form of a sovereign. No
calculation can be founded on my humour in any ease. If I like to handle rouleaus, and therefore keep
a quantity of gold, to play with, in the form of jointed basaltic columns, it is all one in its effect on the
market as if I kept it in the form of twisted filigree, or steadily amicus lamnæ, beat the narrow gold
pieces into broad ones, and dined off them. The probability is greater that I break the rouleau than
that I melt the plate; but the increased probability is not calculable. Thus, documents are only
withdrawn from the currency when cancelled, and bullion when it is so effectually lost as that the
probability of finding it is no greater than that of finding new gold in the mine.
87
They are (up to the amount of the currency) simply creditors and debtors—the commercial types of
the two great sects of humanity which those words describe; for debt and credit are of course merely
the mercantile forms of the words "duty" and "creed," which give the central ideas: only it is more
accurate to say "faith" than "creed," because creed has been applied carelessly to mere forms of
words. Duty properly signifies whatever in substance or act one person owes to another, and faith the
other's trust in his rendering it. The French "devoir" and "foi" are fuller and clearer words than ours;
for, faith being the passive of fact, foi comes straight through fides from fio; and the French keep the
group of words formed from the infinitive—fieri, "se fier," "se défier," "défiance," and the grand
following "défi." Our English "affiance," "defiance," "confidence," "diffidence," retain accurate
meanings; but our "faithful" has become obscure, from being used for "faithworthy," as well as "full of
faith." "His name that sat on him was called Faithful and True."
Trust is the passive of true saying, as faith is the passive of due doing; and the right learning of these
etymologies, which are in the strictest sense only to be learned "by heart," is of considerably more
importance to the youth of a nation than its reading and ciphering.
 171

debtor's wealth, or his ability and willingness; that is to say, either wealth existing in
his hands transferred to him by the creditor, or wealth which, as he is at some time
surely to return it, he is either increasing, or, if diminishing, has the will and strength
to reproduce. A sound currency, therefore, as by its increase it represents enlarging
debt, represents also enlarging means; but in this curious way, that a certain quantity
of it marks the deficiency of the wealth of the country from what it would have been if
that currency had not existed. 88 In this respect it is like the detritus of a mountain;
assume that it lies at a fixed angle, and the more the detritus, the larger must be the
mountain; but it would have been larger still, had there been none.

Finally, though, as above stated, every man possessing money has usually also
some property beyond what is necessary for his immediate wants, and men
possessing property usually also hold currency beyond what is necessary for their
immediate exchanges, it mainly determines the class to which they belong, whether
in their eyes the money is an adjunct of the property, or the property of the money. In
the first case, the holder's pleasure is in his possessions, and in his money
subordinately, as the means of bettering or adding to them. In the second, his
pleasure is in his money, and in his possessions only as representing it. In the first
case, the money is as an atmosphere surrounding the wealth, rising from it and
raining back upon it; but in the second, it is a deluge, with the wealth floating, and for
the most part perishing in it. The shortest distinction between the men is that the one
wishes always to buy and the other to sell.

Such being the great relations of the classes, their several characters are of the
highest importance to the nation; for on the character of the store-holders depends
the preservation, display, and serviceableness of its wealth;—on that of the
currency-holders its nature, and in great part its distribution; and on both its
production.

The store-holders are either constructive, or neutral, or destructive; and in

subsequent papers we shall, with respect to every kind of wealth, examine the
relative power of the store-holder for its improvement or destruction; and we shall
then find it to be of incomparably greater importance to the nation in whose hands
the thing is put, than how much of it is got; and that the character of the holders may
be conjectured by the quality of the store, for such and such a thing; nor only asks
for it, but if to be bettered, betters it: so that possession and possessor reciprocally
act on each other through the entire sum of national possession. The base nation
88
For example, suppose an active peasant, having got his ground into good order and built himself a
comfortable house, finding still time on his hands, sees one of his neighbours little able to work, and ill
lodged, and offers to build him also a house, and to put his land in order, on condition of receiving for
a given period rent for the building and tithe of the fruits. The offer is accepted, and a document given
promissory of rent and tithe. This note is money. It can only be good money if the man who has
incurred the debt so far recovers his strength as to be able to take advantage of the help he has
received, and meet the demand of the note; if he lets his house fall to ruin, and his field to waste, his
promissory note will soon be valueless: but the existence of the note at all is a consequence of his not
having worked so stoutly as the other. Let him gain as much as to be able to pay back the entire debt;
the note is cancelled and we have two rich store-holders and no currency.
 172

asking for base things sinks daily to deeper vileness of nature and of use; while the
noble nation, asking for noble things, rises daily into diviner eminence in both; the
tendency to degradation being surely marked by ἀταξὶα, carelessness as to the
hands in which things are put, competition for the acquisition of them, disorderliness
in accumulation, inaccuracy in reckoning, and bluntness in conception as to the
entire nature of possession.

Now, the currency-holders always increase in number and influence in proportion to

the bluntness of nature and clumsiness of the store-holders; for the less use people
can make of things the more they tire of them, and want to change them for
something else, and all frequency of change increases the quantity and power of
currency; while the large currency-holder himself is essentially a person who never
has been able to make up his mind as to what he will have, and proceeds, therefore,
in vague collection and aggregation, with more and more infuriate passion, urged by
complacency in progress, and pride in conquest.

While, however, there is this obscurity in the nature of possession of currency, there
is a charm in the absoluteness of it, which is to some people very enticing. In the
enjoyment of real property others must partly share. The groom has some enjoyment
of the stud, and the gardener of the garden; but the money is, or seems shut up; it is
wholly enviable. No one else can have part in any complacencies arising from it.

The power of arithmetical comparison is also a great thing to unimaginative people.

They know always they are so much better than they were, in money; so much better
than others, in money; wit cannot be so compared, nor character. My neighbour
cannot be convinced I am wiser than he is, but he can that I am worth so much
more; and the universality of the conviction is no less flattering than its clearness.
Only a few can understand, none measure, superiorities in other things; but
everybody can understand money, and count it.

Now, these various temptations to accumulation would be politically harmless, if

what was vainly accumulated had any fair chance of being wisely spent. For as
accumulation cannot go on for ever, but must some day end in its reverse—if this
reverse were indeed a beneficial distribution and use, as irrigation from reservoir, the
fever of gathering, though perilous to the gatherer, might be serviceable to the
community. But it constantly happens (so constantly, that it may be stated as a
political law having few exceptions), that what is unreasonably gathered is also
unreasonably spent by the persons into whose hands it finally falls. Very frequently it
is spent in war, or else in stupefying luxury, twice hurtful, both in being indulged by
the rich and witnessed by the poor. So that the mal tener and mal dare are as
correlative as complementary colours; and the circulation of wealth, which ought to
be soft, steady, strong, far-sweeping, and full of warmth, like the Gulf Stream, being
narrowed into an eddy, and concentrated on a point, changes into the alternate
 173

suction and surrender of Charybdis. Which is, indeed, I doubt not, the true meaning
of that marvellous fable, "infinite," as Bacon said of it, "in matter of meditation." 89

89
It is a strange habit of wise humanity to speak in enigmas only, so that the highest truths and
usefullest laws must be hunted for through whole picture-galleries of dreams, which to the vulgar
seem dreams only. Thus Homer, the Greek tragedians, Plato, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and
Goethe, have hidden all that is chiefly serviceable in their work, and in all the various literature they
absorbed and re-embodied, under types which have rendered it quite useless to the multitude. What
is worse, the two primal declarers of moral discovery, Homer and Plato, are partly at issue; for Plato's
logical power quenched his imagination, and he became incapable of understanding the purely
imaginative element either in poetry or painting; he therefore somewhat overrates the pure discipline
of passionate art in song and music, and misses that of meditative art. There is, however, a deeper
reason for his distrust of Homer. His love of justice, and reverently religious nature made him dread
as death, every form of fallacy; but chiefly, fallacy respecting the world to come (his own myths being
only symbolic exponents of a rational hope). We shall perhaps now every day discover more clearly
how right Plato was in this, and feel ourselves more and more wonderstruck that men such as Homer
and Dante (and, in an inferior sphere, Milton), not to speak of the great sculptors and painters of every
age, have permitted themselves, though full of all nobleness and wisdom, to coin idle imaginations of
the mysteries of eternity, and mould the faiths of the families of the earth by the courses of their own
vague and visionary arts: while the indisputable truths respecting human life and duty, respecting
which they all have but one voice, lie hidden behind these veils of phantasy, unsought and often
unsuspected. I will gather carefully, out of Dante and Homer, what of this kind bears on our subject, in
its due place; the first broad intention of their symbols may be sketched at once. The rewards of a
worthy use of riches, subordinate to other ends, are shown by Dante in the fifth and sixth orbs of
Paradise; for the punishment of their unworthy use, three places are assigned; one for the avaricious
and prodigal whose souls are lost ("Hell": Canto 7); one for the avaricious and prodigal whose souls
are capable of purification ("Purgatory": Canto 19); and one for the usurers, of whom none can be
redeemed ("Hell": Canto 17). The first group, the largest in all hell (gente piu che altrove troppa), meet
in contrary currents, as the waves of Charybdis, casting weights at each other from opposite sides.
This weariness of contention is the chief element of their torture; so marked by the beautiful lines,
beginning, Or puoi, figliuol, etc. (but the usurers, who made their money inactively, sit on the sand,
equally without rest, however, "Di qua, di la soccorrien," etc.). For it is not avarice but contention for
riches, leading to this double misuse of them, which, in Dante's sight, is the unredeemable sin. The
place of its punishment is guarded by Plutus, "the great enemy," and "la fièra crudele," a spirit quite
different from the Greek Plutus, who, though old and blind, is not cruel, and is curable, so as to
become far-sighted (οὑ τυφλὸς ἀλλ’ ὀξὺ βλέπων—Plato's epithets in first book of the Laws). Still more
does this Dantesque type differ from the resplendent Plutus of Goethe in the second part of "Faust,"
who is the personified power of wealth for good or evil; not the passion for wealth; and again from the
Plutus of Spenser, who is the passion of mere aggregation. Dante's Plutus is specially and definitely
the spirit of Contention and Competition, or Evil Commerce; and because, as I showed in my last
paper, this kind of commerce "makes all men strangers," his speech is unintelligible, and no single
soul of all those ruined by him has recognizable features.
(La sconescente vita—
Ad ogni conoscenza or li fa bruni).
On the other hand, the redeemable sins of avarice and prodigality are, in Dante's sight, those which
are without deliberate or calculated operation. The lust, or lavishness, of riches can be purged, so
long as there has been no servile consistency of dispute and competition for them. The sin is spoken
of as that of degradation by the love of earth; it is purified by deeper humiliation—the souls crawl on
their bellies; their chant, "my soul cleaveth unto the dust." But the spirits here condemned are all
recognizable, and even the worst examples of the thirst for gold, which they are compelled to tell the
histories of during the night, are of men swept by the passion of avarice into violent crime, but not sold
to its steady work. The precept given to each of these spirits for its deliverance is—Turn thine eyes to
the lucre (lure) which the Eternal King rolls with the mighty wheels: otherwise, the wheels of the
"Greater Fortune," of which the constellation is ascending when Dante's dream begins. Compare
George Herbert,—
"Lift up thy head;
Take stars for money; stars, not to be told
By any art, yet to be purchased."
 174

And Plato's notable sentence in the third book of "Polity":—"Tell them they have divine gold and silver
in their souls for ever; that they need no money stamped of men—neither may they otherwise than
impiously mingle the gathering of the divine with the mortal treasure, for through that which the law of
the multitude has coined, endless crimes have been done and suffered; but in theirs is neither
pollution nor sorrow." At the entrance of this place of punishment an evil spirit is seen by Dante, quite
other than the "Gran Nemico." The great enemy is obeyed knowingly and willingly; but this spirit—
feminine—and called a Siren—is the "Deceitfulness of riches," ἀπάτη πλοῦτου of the gospels, winning
obedience by guile. This is the Idol of Riches, made doubly phantasmal by Dante's seeing her in a
dream. She is lovely to look upon, and enchants by her sweet singing, but her womb is loathsome.
Now, Dante does not call her one of the Sirens carelessly, any more than he speaks of Charybdis
carelessly, and though he had only got at the meaning of the Homeric fable through Virgil's obscure
tradition of it, the clue he has given us is quite enough. Bacon's interpretation, "the Sirens, or
pleasures," which has become universal since his time, is opposed alike to Plato's meaning and
Homer's. The Sirens are not pleasures, but Desires: in the Odyssey they are the phantoms of vain
desire; but in Plato's vision of Destiny, phantoms of constant Desire; singing each a different note on
the circles of the distaff of Necessity, but forming one harmony, to which the three great Fates put
words. Dante, however, adopted the Homeric conception of them, which was that they were demons
of the Imagination, not carnal (desire of the eyes; not lust of the flesh); therefore said to be daughters
of the Muses. Yet not of the muses, heavenly or historical, but of the muse of pleasure; and they are
at first winged, because even vain hope excites and helps when first formed; but afterwards,
contending for the possession of the imagination with the muses themselves, they are deprived of
their wings, and thus we are to distinguish the Siren power from the Power of Circe, who is no
daughter of the muses, but of the strong elements, Sun and Sea; her power is that of frank and full
vital pleasure, which, if governed and watched, nourishes men; but, unwatched, and having no "moly,"
bitterness or delay mixed with it, turns men into beasts, but does not slay them, leaves them, on the
contrary, power of revival. She is herself indeed an Enchantress;—pure Animal life; transforming—or
degrading—but always wonderful (she puts the stores on board the ship invisibly, and is gone again,
like a ghost); even the wild beasts rejoice and are softened around her cave; to men, she gives no
rich feast, nothing but pure and right nourishment,—Pramnian wine, cheese and flour; that is corn,
milk, and wine, the three great sustainers of life—it is their own fault if these make swine of them; and
swine are chosen merely as the type of consumption; as Plato's ὑῶν πόλις in the second book of the
"Polity," and perhaps chosen by Homer with a deeper knowledge of the likeness of nourishment, and
internal form of body. "Et quel est, s'il vous plaît, cet audacieux animal qui se permet d'être bâti au
dedans comme une jolie petite fille?"
"Hélas! chère enfant, j'ai honte de le nommer, et il ne foudra pas m'en vouloir. C'est ... c'est le
cochon. Ce n'est pas précisément flatteur pour vous; mais nous en sommes tous là, et si cela vous
contrarie par trop, il faut aller vous plaindre au bon Dieu qui a voulu que les choses fussent arrangées
ainsï: seulement le cochon, qui ne pense qu' à manger, a l'estomac bien plus vaste que nous, et c'est
toujours une consolation." ("Histoire d'une Bouchée de Pain," Lettre ix.) But the deadly Sirens are all
things opposed to the Circean power. They promise pleasure, but never give it. They nourish in no
wise; but slay by slow death. And whereas they corrupt the heart and the head, instead of merely
betraying the senses, there is no recovery from their power; they do not tear nor snatch, like Scylla,
but the men who have listened to them are poisoned, and waste away. Note that the Sirens' field is
covered, not merely with the bones, but with the skins of those who have been consumed there. They
address themselves, in the part of the song which Homer gives, not to the passions of Ulysses, but to
his vanity, and the only man who ever came within hearing of them, and escaped untempted, was
Orpheus, who silenced the vain imaginations by singing the praises of the gods.
It is, then, one of these Sirens whom Dante takes as the phantasm or deceitfulness of riches; but note
further, that she says it was her song that deceived Ulysses. Look back to Dante's account of Ulysses'
death, and we find it was not the love of money, but pride of knowledge, that betrayed him; whence
we get the clue to Dante's complete meaning: that the souls whose love of wealth is pardonable have
been first deceived into pursuit of it by a dream of its higher uses, or by ambition. His Siren is
therefore the Philotimé of Spenser, daughter of Mammon—
"Whom all that folk with such contention
Do flock about, my deare, my daughter is—
Honour and dignitie from her alone
Derived are."
By comparing Spenser's entire account of this Philotimé with Dante's of the Wealth-Siren, we shall get
at the full meaning of both poets; but that of Homer lies hidden much more deeply. For his Sirens are
 175

This disease of desire having especial relation to the great art of Exchange, or
Commerce, we must, in order to complete our code of first principles, shortly state
the nature and limits of that art.

As the currency conveys right of choice out of many things in exchange for one, so
Commerce is the agency by which the power of choice is obtained; and countries
producing only timber can obtain for their timber silk and gold; or, naturally producing
only jewels and frankincense, can obtain for them cattle and corn. In this function
commerce is of more importance to a country in proportion to the limitations of its
products and the restlessness of its fancy;—generally of greater importance towards
Northern latitudes.

Commerce is necessary, however, not only to exchange local products, but local
skill. Labour requiring the agency of fire can only be given abundantly in cold
countries; labour requiring suppleness of body and sensitiveness of touch only in
warm ones; labour involving accurate vivacity of thought only in temperate ones;
while peculiar imaginative actions are produced by extremes of heat and cold, and of
light and darkness. The production of great art is limited to climates warm enough to
admit of repose in the open air, and cool enough to render such repose delightful.
Minor variations in modes of skill distinguish every locality. The labour which at any
place is easiest, is in that place cheapest; and it becomes often desirable that
products raised in one country should be wrought in another. Hence have arisen

indefinite, and they are desires of any evil thing; power of wealth is not specially indicated by him,
until, escaping the harmonious danger of imagination, Ulysses has to choose between two practical
ways of life, indicated by the two rocks of Scylla and Charybdis. The monsters that haunt them are
quite distinct from the rocks themselves, which, having many other subordinate significations, are in
the main Labour and Idleness, or getting and spending; each with its attendant monster, or betraying
demon. The rock of gaining has its summit in the clouds, invisible and not to be climbed; that of
spending is low, but marked by the cursed fig-tree, which has leaves but no fruit. We know the type
elsewhere; and there is a curious lateral allusion to it by Dante when Jacopo di Sant' Andrea, who had
ruined himself by profusion and committed suicide, scatters the leaves of the bush of Lotto degli Agli,
endeavouring to hide himself among them. We shall hereafter examine the type completely; here I will
only give an approximate rendering of Homer's words, which have been obscured more by translation
than even by tradition—
"They are overhanging rocks. The great waves of blue water break round them; and the blessed Gods
call them the Wanderers.
"By one of them no winged thing can pass—not even the wild doves that bring ambrosia to their father
Jove—but the smooth rock seizes its sacrifice of them." (Not even ambrosia to be had without Labour.
The word is peculiar—as a part of anything offered for sacrifice; especially used of heave-offering.) "It
reaches the wide heaven with its top, and a dark-blue cloud rests on it, and never passes; neither
does the clear sky hold it in summer nor in harvest. Nor can any man climb it—not if he had twenty
feet and hands, for it is smooth as though it were hewn.
"And in the midst of it is a cave which is turned the way of hell. And therein dwells Scylla, whining for
prey: her cry, indeed, is no louder than that of a newly-born whelp: but she herself is an awful thing—
nor can any creature see her face and be glad; no, though it were a god that rose against her. For she
has twelve feet, all fore-feet, and six necks, and terrible heads on them; and each has three rows of
teeth, full of black death.
"But the opposite rock is lower than this, though but a bow-shot distant; and upon it there is a great
fig-tree, full of leaves; and under it the terrible Charybdis sucks it down, and thrice casts it up again;
be not thou there when she sucks down, for Neptune himself could not save thee."
The reader will find the meaning of these types gradually elicited as we proceed.
 176

discussions on "International values," which will be one day remembered as highly

curious exercises of the human mind. For it will be discovered, in due course of tide
and time, that international value is regulated just as inter-provincial or inter-
parishional value is. Coals and hops are exchanged between Northumberland and
Kent on absolutely the same principles as iron and wine between Lancashire and
Spain. The greater breadth of an arm of the sea increases the cost, but does not
modify the principle of exchange; and a bargain written in two languages will have no
other economical results than a bargain written in one. The distances of nations are
measured not by seas, but by ignorances; and their divisions determined, not by
dialects, but by enmities.

Of course, a system of international values may always be constructed if we assume

a relation of moral law to physical geography; as, for instance, that it is right to cheat
across a river, though not across a road; or across a lake, though not across a river;
or over a mountain, though not across a lake, etc.:—again, a system of such values
may be constructed by assuming similar relations of taxation to physical geography;
as, for instance, that an article should be taxed in crossing a river, but not in crossing
a road; or in being carried over a mountain, but not over a ferry, etc.: such positions
are indeed not easily maintained when once put in logical form; but one law of
international value is maintainable in any form; namely, that the farther your
neighbour lives from you, and the less he understands you, the more you are bound
to be true in your dealings with him; because your power over him is greater in
proportion to his ignorance, and his remedy more difficult in proportion to his
distance.

I have just said the breadth of sea increases the cost of exchange. Exchange or
commerce, as such, is always costly; the sum of the value of the goods being
diminished by the cost of their conveyance, and by the maintenance of the persons
employed in it. So that it is only when there is advantage to both producers (in
getting the one thing for the other), greater than the loss in conveyance, that the
exchange is expedient. And it is only justly conducted when the porters kept by the
producers (commonly called merchants) look only for pay, and not for profit. For in
just commerce there are but three parties—the two persons or societies exchanging
and the agent or agents of exchange: the value of the things to be exchanged is
known by both the exchangers, and each receives equivalent value, neither gaining
nor losing (for whatever one gains the other loses). The intermediate agent is paid
an equal and known percentage by both, partly for labour in conveyance, partly for
care, knowledge, and risk; every attempt at concealment of the amount of the pay
indicates either effort on the part of the agent to obtain exorbitant percentage, or
effort on the part of the exchangers to refuse him a just one. But for the most part it
is the first, namely, the effort on the part of the merchant to obtain larger profit (so
called) by buying cheap and selling dear. Some part, indeed, of this larger gain is
deserved, and might be openly demanded, because it is the reward of the
merchant's knowledge, and foresight of probable necessity; but the greater part of
 177

such gain is unjust; and unjust in this most fatal way, that it depends first on keeping
the exchangers ignorant of the exchange value of the articles, and secondly, on
taking advantage of the buyer's need and the seller's poverty. It is, therefore, one of
the essential, and quite the most fatal, forms of usury; for usury means merely taking
an exorbitant sum for the use of anything, and it is no matter whether the exorbitance
is on loan or exchange, in rent or in price—the essence of the usury being that it is
obtained by advantage of opportunity or necessity, and not as due reward for labour.
All the great thinkers, therefore, have held it to be unnatural and impious, in so far as
it feeds on the distress of others, or their folly. 90 Nevertheless attempts to repress it
by law (in other words, to regulate prices by law so far as their variations depend on
iniquity, and not on nature) must for ever be ineffective; though Plato, Bacon, and the
First Napoleon—all three of them men who knew somewhat more of humanity than
the "British merchant" usually does—tried their hands at it, and have left some
(probably) good moderative forms of law, which we will examine in their place. But
the only final check upon it must be radical purifying of the national character, for
being, as Bacon calls it, "concessum propter duritiem cordis," it is to be done away
with by touching the heart only; not, however, without medicinal law—as in the case
of the other permission, "propter duritiem." But in this, more than in anything (though
much in all, and though in this he would not himself allow of their application, for his
own laws against usury are sharp enough), Plato's words are true in the fourth book
of the "Polity," that neither drugs, nor charms, nor burnings, will touch a deep-lying
political sore, any more than a deep bodily one; but only right and utter change of
constitution; and that "they do but lose their labour who think that by any tricks of law
they can get the better of these mischiefs of intercourse, and see not that they hew
at a Hydra."

And indeed this Hydra seems so unslayable, and sin sticks so fast between the
joinings of the stones of buying and selling, that "to trade" in things, or literally "cross-
give" them, has warped itself, by the instinct of nations, into their worst word for
fraud; for, because in trade there cannot but be trust, and it seems also that there
cannot but also be injury in answer to it, what is merely fraud between enemies
becomes treachery among friends: and "trader," "traditor," and "traitor" are but the
same word. For which simplicity of language there is more reason than at first
appears; for as in true commerce there is no "profit," so in true commerce there is no
"sale." The idea of sale is that of an interchange between enemies respectively
endeavouring to get the better of one another; but commerce is an exchange
between friends; and there is no desire but that it should be just, any more than there
would be between members of the same family. The moment there is a bargain over
the pottage, the family relation is dissolved;—typically "the days of mourning for my
father are at hand." Whereupon follows the resolve "then will I slay my brother."

90
Hence Dante's companionship of Cahors, Inf., canto xi., supported by the view taken of the matter
throughout the middle ages, in common with the Greeks.
 178

This inhumanity of mercenary commerce is the more notable because it is a

fulfilment of the law that the corruption of the best is the worst. For as, taking the
body natural for symbol of the body politic, the governing and forming powers may
be likened to the brain and the labouring to the limbs, the mercantile, presiding over
circulation and communication of things in changed utilities is symbolized by the
heart; which, if it harden, all is lost. And this is the ultimate lesson which the leader of
English intellect meant for us (a lesson, indeed, not all his own, but part of the old
wisdom of humanity), in the tale of the "Merchant of Venice"; in which the true and
incorrupt merchant,—kind and free, beyond every other Shakespearian conception
of men,—is opposed to the corrupted merchant, or usurer; the lesson being
deepened by the expression of the strange hatred which the corrupted merchant
bears to the pure one, mixed with intense scorn—

"This is the fool that lent out money gratis; look to him, jailor," (as to lunatic no less
than criminal); the enmity, observe, having its symbolism literally carried out by being
aimed straight at the heart, and finally foiled by a literal appeal to the great moral law
that flesh and blood cannot be weighed, enforced by "Portia" ("Portion"), the type of
divine Fortune, 91 found, not in gold, nor in silver, but in lead, that is to say, in
endurance and patience, not in splendour; and finally taught by her lips also,
declaring, instead of the law and quality of "merces," the greater law and quality of
mercy, which is not strained, but drops as the rain, blessing him that gives and him
that takes. And observe that this "mercy" is not the mean "Misericordia," but the
mighty "Gratia," answered by Gratitude (observe Shylock's leaning on the, to him
detestable, word gratis, and compare the relation of Grace to Equity given in the
second chapter of the second book of the "Memorabilia"); that is to say, it is the
gracious or loving, instead of the strained, or competing manner, of doing things,
answered, not only with "merces" or pay, but with "merci," or thanks. And this is
indeed the meaning of the great benediction, "Grace, mercy, and peace," for there
can be no peace without grace (not even by help of rifled cannon), 92 nor even
without triplicity of graciousness, for the Greeks, who began with but one Grace, had
to open their scheme into three before they had done.

With the usual tendency of long-repeated thought to take the surface for the deep,
we have conceived their goddesses as if they only gave loveliness to gesture;

91
Shakespeare would certainly never have chosen this name had he been forced to retain the Roman
spelling. Like Perdita, "lost lady," or "Cordelia," "heart-lady," Portia is "fortune-lady." The two great
relative groups of words, Fortune, fero, and fors—Portio, porto, and pars (with the lateral branch, op-
portune, im-portune, opportunity, etc.), are of deep and intrinsic significance; their various senses of
bringing, abstracting, and sustaining, being all centralized by the wheel (which bears and moves at
once), or still better, the ball (spera) of Fortune,—"Volve sua spera, e beata si gode:" the motive
power of this wheel distinguishing its goddess from the fixed majesty of Necessitas with her iron nails;
or ἀνάγκη, with her pillar of fire and iridescent orbits, fixed at the centre. Portus and porta, and gate in
its connexion with gain, form another interesting branch group; and Mors, the concentration of
delaying, is always to be remembered with Fors, the concentration of bringing and bearing, passing
on into Fortis and Fortitude.
92
Out of whose mouths, indeed, no peace was ever promulgated, but only equipoise of panic, highly
tremulous on the edge in changes in the wind.
 179

whereas their true function is to give graciousness to deed, the other loveliness
arising naturally out of that. In which function Charis becomes Charitas 93 and has a
name and praise even greater than that of Faith or truth, for these may be
maintained sullenly and proudly; but Charis 94 is in her countenance always
gladdening (Aglaia), and in her service instant and humble; and the true wife of
Vulcan, or Labour. And it is not until her sincerity of function is lost, and her mere
beauty contemplated, instead of her patience, that she is born again of the foam
flake, and becomes Aphrodité; then only capable of joining herself to War and to the
enmities of men, instead of to Labour and their services. Therefore the fable of Mars
and Venus is, chosen by Homer, picturing himself as Demodocus, to sing at the
games in the Court of Alcinous. Phæacia is the Homeric island of Atlantis; an image
of noble and wise government, concealed, how slightly! merely by the change of a
short vowel for a long one in the name of its queen; yet misunderstood by all later
writers, even by Horace in his "pinguis, Phæaxque," etc. That fable expresses the
perpetual error of men, thinking that grace and dignity can only be reached by the
soldier, and never by the artizan; so that commerce and the useful arts have had the
honour and beauty taken away, and only the Fraud 95 and Pain left to them, with the

93
The reader must not think that any care can be misspent in tracing the connexion and power of the
words which we have to use in the sequel. Not only does all soundness of reasoning depend on the
work thus done in the outset, but we may sometimes gain more by insistence on the expression of a
truth, than by much wordless thinking about it; for to strive to express it clearly is often to detect it
thoroughly; and education, even as regards thought, nearly sums itself in making men economise
their words, and understand them. Nor is it possible to estimate the harm that has been done, in
matters of higher speculation and conduct, by loose verbiage, though we may guess at it by observing
the dislike which people show to having anything about their religion said to them in simple words,
because then they understand it. Thus congregations meet weekly to invoke the influence of a Spirit
of Life and Truth; yet if any part of that character were intelligibly expressed to them by the formulas
of the service, they would be offended. Suppose, for instance, in the closing benediction, the
clergyman were to give its vital significance to the word "Holy," and were to say, "the Fellowship of the
Helpful and Honest Ghost be with you, and remain with you always," what would be the horror of
many, first, at the irreverence of so intelligible an expression, and, secondly, at the discomfortable
entry of the suspicion that (while throughout the commercial dealings of the week they had denied the
propriety of Help, and possibility of Honesty) the Person whose company they had been asking to be
blessed with could have no fellowship with knaves.
94
As Charis becomes Charitas [see next page], the word "Cher," or "Dear," passes from Shylock's
sense of it (to buy cheap and sell dear) into Antonio's sense of it: emphasized with the final i in tender
"Cheri," and hushed to English calmness in our noble "Cherish."
95
While I have traced the finer and higher laws of this matter for those whom they concern, I have
also to note the material law—vulgarly expressed in the proverb, "Honesty is the best policy." That
proverb is indeed wholly inapplicable to matters of private interest. It is not true that honesty, as far as
material gain is concerned, profits individuals. A clever and cruel knave will, in a mixed society,
always be richer than an honest person can be. But Honesty is the best "policy," if policy means
practice of State. For fraud gains nothing in a State. It only enables the knaves in it to live at the
expense of honest people; while there is for every act of fraud, however small, a loss of wealth to the
community. Whatever the fraudulent person gains, some other person loses, as fraud produces
nothing; and there is, besides, the loss of the time and thought spent in accomplishing the fraud; and
of the strength otherwise obtainable by mutual help (not to speak of the fevers of anxiety and jealousy
in the blood, which are a heavy physical loss, as I will show in due time). Practically, when the nation
is deeply corrupt, cheat answers to cheat, every one is in turn imposed upon, and there is to the body
politic the dead loss of ingenuity, together with the incalculable mischief of the injury to each
defrauded person, producing collateral effect unexpectedly. My neighbour sells me bad meat: I sell
him in return flawed iron. We neither of us get one atom of pecuniary advantage on the whole
 180

lucre. Which is, indeed, one great reason of the continual blundering about the
offices of government with respect to commerce. The higher classes are ashamed to
deal with it; and though ready enough to fight for (or occasionally against) the
people,—to preach to them,—or judge them, will not break bread for them; the
refined upper servant who has willingly looked after the burnishing of the armoury
and ordering of the library, not liking to set foot into the larder.

Farther still. As Charis becomes Charitas on the one side, she becomes—better
still—Chara, Joy, on the other; or rather this is her very mother's milk and the beauty
of her childhood; for God brings no enduring Love, nor any other good, out of pain,
nor out of contention; but out of joy and harmony. 96 And in this sense, human and
divine, music and gladness, and the measures of both, come into her name; and
Cher becomes full-vowelled Cheer, and Cheerful; and Chara, companioned, opens
into Choir and Choral.

And lastly. As Grace passes into Freedom of action, Charis becomes Eleutheria, or
liberality; a form of liberty quite curiously and intensely different from the thing
usually understood by "Liberty" in modern language; indeed, much more like what
some people would call slavery; for a Greek always understood, primarily, by liberty,
deliverance from the law of his own passions (or from what the Christian writers call
bondage of corruption), and this a complete liberty: not having to resist the passion,
but making it fawn upon, and follow him—(this may be again partly the meaning of
the fawning beasts about the Circean cave; so, again, George Herbert—

Correct thy passion's spite;Then may the beasts draw thee to happy light)—

not being merely safe from the Siren, but also unbound from the mast. And it is only
in such generosity that any man becomes capable of so governing others as to take
true part in any system of national economy. Nor is there any other eternal distinction
between the upper and lower classes than this form of liberty, Eleutheria, or
benignity, in the one, and its opposite of slavery, Douleia, or malignity, in the other;
the separation of these two orders of men, and the firm government of the lower by
the higher, being the first conditions of possible wealth and economy in any state,—
the Gods giving it no greater gift than the power to discern its freemen, and
"malignum spernere vulgus."

The examination of this form of Charis must, therefore, lead us into the discussion of
the principles of government in general, and especially of that of the poor by the rich,
discovering how the Graciousness joined with the Greatness, or Love with Majestas,

transaction, but we both suffer unexpected inconvenience;—my men get scurvy, and his cattle-truck
runs off the rails.
96
"τὰ μὲν οὗν ἄλλα ζῶα οὐκ ἔχειν αἴσθησιν τῶν εν ταῖς κινήσεσι ταξεων οὐδὲ ἀταξιῶν, οἷ δὴ ῥυθμὸς
ὄνομα καὶ ἁρμονία ἡμῖν δὲ οὔς εἴπομεν τοὺς θεοὺς [Apollo, the Muses, and Bacchus—the grave
Bacchus, that is—ruling the choir of age; or Bacchus restraining; 'sæva tene, cum Berecyntio cornu,
tympana,' etc.] συγχορὲυτας δέδοσθαι, τούτους εἴναι καὶ τοὺς δεδώκοτας τὴν ἔνρυθμόν τε καὶ
ἑναρμόνιον αἴσθησιν μεθ’ ἠδονῆς ... χόρους τε ὠνομακέναι παρὰ τῆς χαρὰς ἔμφυτον ὔνομα."—
"Laws," book ii.
 181

is the true Dei Gratia, or Divine Right, of every form and manner of King; i.e.,
specifically, of the thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, and powers of the
earth;—of the thrones, stable, or "ruling," literally right-doing powers ("rex eris, recte
si facies:") of the dominations, lordly, edifying, dominant, and harmonious powers;
chiefly domestic, over the "built thing," domus, or house; and inherently twofold,
Dominus and Domina; Lord and Lady: of the Princedoms, pre-eminent, incipient,
creative, and demonstrative powers; thus poetic and mercantile, in the "princeps
carmen deduxisse" and the merchant-prince: of the Virtues or Courages; militant,
guiding, or Ducal powers; and finally of the Strengths and Forces pure; magistral
powers, of the more over the less, and the forceful and free over the weak and
servile elements of life.

Subject enough for the next paper involving "economical" principles of some
importance, of which, for theme, here is a sentence, which I do not care to translate,
for it would sound harsh in English, though, truly, it is one of the tenderest ever
uttered by man; which may be meditated over, or rather through, in the meanwhile,
by any one who will take the pains:—

Ἆῥ οὖν, ὥσπερ ἵππος τῷ ἀνεπιστήμονι μὲν ἐγχειροῦντι δὲ χρῆσθαι ζημία ἐστὶν, οὕτω
καὶ ἀδελφὸς ὅταν τις αὐτῷ μὴ ἐπιστάμενος ἐγχειρῆ χρῆσθαι, ζημία ἐστί;
 182

4. LAWS AND GOVERNMENTS: LABOUR AND RICHES

It remains, in order to complete the series of our definitions, that we examine the
general conditions of government, and fix the sense in which we are to use, in future,
the terms applied to them.

The government of a state consists in its customs, laws, and councils, and their
enforcements.

I.—Customs.

As one person primarily differs from another by fineness of nature, and secondarily,
by fineness of training, so also, a polite nation differs from a savage one, first by the
refinement of its nature, and secondly by the delicacy of its customs.

In the completeness, or accomplishment of custom, which is the nation's self-

government, there are three stages—first, fineness in method of doing or of being;—
called the manner or moral of acts: secondly, firmness in holding such method after
adoption, so that it shall become a habit in the character: i.e., a constant "having" or
"behaving"; and, lastly, practice, or ethical power in performance and endurance,
which is the skill following on habit, and the ease reached by frequency of right
doing.

The sensibility of the nation is indicated by the fineness of its customs; its courage,
patience, and temperance by its persistence in them.

By sensibility I mean its natural perception of beauty, fitness, and rightness; or of

what is lovely, decent, and just: faculties dependent much on race, and the primal
signs of fine breeding in man; but cultivable also by education, and necessary
perishing without it. True education has, indeed, no other function than the
development of these faculties, and of the relative will. It has been the great error of
modern intelligence to mistake science for education. You do not educate a man by
telling him what he knew not, but by making him what he was not.

And making him what he will remain for ever: for no wash of weeds will bring back
the faded purple. And in that dyeing there are two processes—first, the cleansing
and wringing out, which is the baptism with water; and then the infusing of the blue
and scarlet colours, gentleness and justice, which is the baptism with fire.

The customs and manners of a sensitive and highly-trained race are always vital:
that is to say, they are orderly manifestations of intense life (like the habitual action
of the fingers of a musician). The customs and manners of a vile and rude race, on
the contrary, are conditions of decay: they are not, properly speaking, habits, but
incrustations; not restraints, or forms, of life; but gangrenes;—noisome, and the
beginnings of death. And generally, so far as custom attaches itself to indolence
 183

instead of action, and to prejudice instead of perception, it takes this deadly

character, so that thus

"Custom hangs upon us with a weightHeavy as frost, and deep almost as life."

This power and depth are, however, just what give value to custom, when it works
with life, instead of against it.

The high ethical training, of a nation being threefold, of body, heart, and practice
(compare the statement in the preface to "Unto This Last"), involves exquisiteness in
all its perceptions of circumstance,—all its occupations of thought. It implies perfect
Grace, Pitifulness, and Peace; it is irreconcilably inconsistent with filthy or
mechanical employments,—with the desire of money,—and with mental states of
anxiety, jealousy, and indifference to pain. The present insensibility of the upper
classes of Europe to the aspects of suffering, uncleanness, and crime, binds them
not only into one responsibility with the sin, but into one dishonour with the foulness,
which rot at their thresholds. The crimes daily recorded in the police courts of
London and Paris (and much more those which are unrecorded) are a disgrace to
the whole body politic; 97 they are, as in the body natural, stains of disease on a face
of delicate skin, making the delicacy itself frightful. Similarly, the filth and poverty
permitted or ignored in the midst of us are as dishonourable to the whole social
body, as in the body natural it is to wash the face, but leave the hands and feet foul.
Christ's way is the only true one: begin at the feet; the face will take care of itself.
Yet, since necessarily, in the frame of a nation, nothing but the head can be of gold,
and the feet, for the work they have to do, must be part of iron, part of clay;—foul or
mechanical work is always reduced by a noble race to the minimum in quantity; and,
even then, performed and endured, not without sense of degradation, as a fine
temper is wounded by the sight of the lower offices of the body. The highest
conditions of human society reached hitherto, have cast such work to slaves;—
supposing slavery of a politically defined kind to be done away with, mechanical and
foul employment must in all highly-organized states take the aspect either of
punishment or probation. All criminals should at once be set to the most dangerous
and painful forms of it, especially to work in mines and at furnaces, 98 so as to relieve

97
"The ordinary brute, who flourishes in the very centre of ornate life, tells us of unknown depths on
the verge of which we totter, being bound to thank our stars every day we live that there is not a
general outbreak and a revolt from the yoke of civilization."—Times leader, Dec. 25th, 1862. Admitting
that our stars are to be thanked for our safety, whom are we to thank for the danger?
98
Our politicians, even the best of them, regard only the distress caused by the failure of mechanical
labour. The degradation caused by its excess is a far more serious subject of thought, and of future
fear. I shall examine this part of our subject at length hereafter. There can hardly be any doubt, at
present, cast on the truth of the above passages, as all the great thinkers are unanimous on the
matter. Plato's words are terrific in their scorn and pity whenever he touches on the mechanical arts.
He calls the men employed in them not even human,—but partially and diminutively human,
"ανθρωπίσκοι," and opposes such work to noble occupations, not merely as prison is opposed to
freedom, but as a convict's[Pg 281] dishonoured prison is to the temple (escape from them being like
that of a criminal to the sanctuary), and the destruction caused by them being of soul no less than
body.—Rep., vi. 9. Compare "Laws," v. 11. Xenophon dwells on the evil of occupations at the furnace
(root of βάναυσος), and especially their "ἀσχολία, want of leisure"—Econ. i. 4. (Modern England, with
 184

the innocent population as far as possible: of merely rough (not mechanical) manual
labour, especially agricultural, a large portion should be done by the upper
classes;—bodily health, and sufficient contrast and repose for the mental functions,
being unattainable without it; what necessarily inferior labour remains to be done, as
especially in manufactures, should, and always will, when the relations of society are
reverent and harmonious, fall to the lot of those who, for the time, are fit for nothing
better. For as, whatever the perfectness of the educational system, there must
remain infinite differences between the natures and capacities of men; and these
differing natures are generally rangeable under the two qualities of lordly (or tending
towards rule, construction, and harmony) and servile (or tending towards misrule,
destruction, and discord); and, since the lordly part is only in a state of profitableness
while ruling, and the servile only in a state of redeemableness while serving, the
whole health of the state depends on the manifest separation of these two elements
of its mind: for, if the servile part be not separated and rendered visible in service, it
mixes with and corrupts the entire body of the state; and if the lordly part be not
distinguished, and set to rule, it is crushed and lost, being turned to no account, so
that the rarest qualities of the nation are all given to it in vain. 99 The effecting of
which distinction is the first object, as we shall see presently, of national councils.

II.—Laws.

These are the definitions and bonds of custom, or, of what the nation desires should
become custom.

Law is either archic 100 (of direction), meristic (of division), or critic (of judgment).
Archic law is that of appointment and precept: it defines what is and is not to be

all its pride of education, has lost that first sense of the word "school," and till it recover that it will find
no other rightly.) His word for the harm to the soul is to "break" it, as we say of the heart.—Econ. i. 6.
And herein also is the root of the scorn, otherwise apparently most strange and cruel, with which
Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare always speak of the populace; for it is entirely true that in great
states the lower orders are low by nature as well as by task, being precisely that part of the
commonwealth which has been thrust down for its coarseness or unworthiness (by coarseness I
mean especially insensibility and irreverence; the "profane" of Horace); and when this ceases to be
so, and the corruption and the profanity are in the higher instead of the lower orders, there arises,
first, helpless confusion; then, if the lower classes deserve power, ensues swift revolution, and they
get it: but if neither the populace nor their rulers deserve it, there follows mere darkness and
dissolution, till, out of the putrid elements, some new capacity of order rises, like grass on a grave; if
not, there is no more hope, nor shadow of turning, for that nation. Atropos has her way with it.
So that the law of national health is like that of a great lake or sea, in perfect but slow circulation,
letting the dregs fall continually to the lowest place, and the clear water rise; yet so as that there shall
be no neglect of the lower orders, but perfect supervision and sympathy, so that if one member suffer,
all members shall suffer with it.
99
"ὀλίγης, καὶ ἄλλως γιγνομένης." The bitter sentence never was so true as at this day.
100
Thetic, or Thesmic, would perhaps be a better term than Archic; but liable to be confused with
some which we shall want relating to Theoria. The administrators of the three great divisions of law
are severally Archons, Merists, and Dicasts. The Archons are the true princes, or beginners of things;
or leaders (as of an orchestra); the Merists are properly the Domini, or Lords (law-words) of houses
and nations; the Dicasts properly the judges, and that with Olympian justice, which reaches to heaven
 185

done. Meristic law is that of balance and distribution: it defines what is and is not to
be possessed. Critic law is that of discernment and award: it defines what is and is
not to be suffered.

If we choose to class the laws of precept and distribution under the general head of
"statutes," all law is simply either of statute or judgment; that is, first, the
establishment of ordinance, and, secondly, the assignment of the reward or penalty
due to its observance or violation.

To some extent these two forms of law must be associated, and, with every
ordinance, the penalty of disobedience to it be also determined. But since the
degrees and guilt of disobedience vary, the determination of due reward and
punishment must be modified by discernment of special fact, which is peculiarly the
office of the judge, as distinguished from that of the lawgiver and lawsustainer, or
king; not but that the two offices are always theoretically and, in early stages, or
limited numbers, of society, are often practically, united in the same person or
persons.

Also, it is necessary to keep clearly in view the distinction between these two kinds
of law, because the possible range of law is wider in proportion to their separation.
There are many points of conduct respecting which the nation may wisely express its
will by a written precept or resolve; yet not enforce it by penalty; and the expedient
degree of penalty is always quite a separate consideration from the expedience of
the statute, for the statute may often be better enforced by mercy than severity, and
is also easier in bearing, and less likely to be abrogated. Farther, laws of precept
have reference especially to youth, and concern themselves with training; but laws of
judgment to manhood, and concern themselves with remedy and reward. There is a
highly curious feeling in the English mind against educational law; we think no man's
liberty should be interfered with till he has done irrevocable wrong; whereas it is then
just too late for the only gracious and kingly interference, which is to hinder him from
doing it. Make your educational laws strict, and your criminal ones may be gentle;
but, leave youth its liberty, and you will have to dig dungeons for age. And it is good
for a man that he wear the yoke in his youth; for the yoke of youth, if you know how
to hold it, may be of silken thread; and there is sweet chime of silver bells at that
bridle rein; but, for the captivity of age, you must forge the iron fetter, and cast the
passing bell.

Since no law can be in a final or true sense established, but by right (all unjust laws
involving the ultimate necessity of their own abrogation), the law-sustaining power in
so far as it is Royal, or "right doing";—in so far, that is, as it rules, not mis-rules, and
orders, not dis-orders, the things submitted to it. Throned on this rock of justice, the

and hell. The violation of archic law is ἁμαρτία (error) πονηρία (failure), πλημμέλεια (discord). The
violation of meristic law is ἀνομία (iniquity). The violation of critic law is ἀδικία (injury). Iniquity is
central generic term; for all law is fatal; it is the division to men of their fate; as the fold of their
pasture, it is νόμος; as the assigning of their portion, μοῖρα.
 186

kingly power becomes established and establishing, "θεῖος," or divine, and,

therefore, it is literally true that no ruler can err, so long as he is a ruler, or ἄρχων
οὐδεὶς ἁμαρτάνει τότε ὅταν ἄρχων ᾖ (perverted by careless thought, which has cost
the world somewhat, into "the king can do no wrong"). Which is a divine right of kings
indeed, and quite unassailable, so long as the terms of it are "God and my Right,"
and not "Satan and my Wrong," which is apt, in some coinages, to appear on the
reverse of the die, under a good lens.

Meristic law, or that of tenure of property, first determines what every individual
possesses by right, and secures it to him; and what he possesses by wrong, and
deprives him of it. But it has a far higher provisory function: it determines what every
man should possess, and puts it within his reach on due conditions; and what he
should not possess, and puts this out of his reach conclusively.

Every article of human wealth has certain conditions attached to its merited
possession, which, when they are unobserved, possession becomes rapine. The
object of meristic law is not only to secure every man his rightful share (the share,
that is, which he has worked for, produced, or received by gift from a rightful owner),
but to enforce the due conditions of possession, as far as law may conveniently
reach; for instance, that land shall not be wantonly allowed to run to waste, that
streams shall not be poisoned by the persons through whose properties they pass,
nor air be rendered unwholesome beyond given limits. Laws of this kind exist already
in rudimentary degree, but needing large development; the just laws respecting the
possession of works of art have not hitherto been so much as conceived, and the
daily loss of national wealth, and of its use, in this respect, is quite
incalculable. 101 While, finally, in certain conditions of a nation's progress, laws
limiting accumulation of property may be found expedient.

Critic law determines questions of injury, and assigns due rewards and punishments
to conduct. 102

101
These laws need revision quite as much respecting property in national as in private hands. For
instance: the public are under a vague impression, that because they have paid for the contents of the
British Museum, every one has an equal right to see and to handle them. But the public have similarly
paid for the contents of Woolwich Arsenal; yet do not expect free access to it, or handling of its
contents. The British Museum is neither a free circulating library, nor a free school; it is a place for the
safe preservation, and exhibition on due occasion, of unique books, unique objects of natural history,
and unique works of art; its books can no more be used by everybody than its coins can be handled,
or its statues cast. Free libraries there ought to be in every quarter of London, with large and complete
reading-rooms attached; so also free educational institutions should be open in every quarter of
London, all day long and till late at night, well lighted, well catalogued, and rich in contents both of art
and natural history. But neither the British Museum nor National Gallery are schools; they are
treasuries; and both should be severely restricted in access and in use. Unless some order is taken,
and that soon, in the MSS. department of the Museum (Sir Frederic Madden was complaining of this
to me only the other day), the best MSS. in the collection will be destroyed, irretrievably, by the
careless and continual handling to which they are now subjected.
102
Two curious economical questions arise laterally with respect to this branch of law, namely, the
cost of crime and the cost of judgment. The cost of crime is endured by nations ignorantly, not being
clearly stated in their budgets; the cost of judgment patiently (provided only it can be had pure for the
 187

Therefore, in order to true analysis of it, we must understand the real meaning of this
word "injury."

We commonly understand by it any kind of harm done by one man to another; but
we do not define the idea of harm; sometimes we limit it to the harm which the
sufferer is conscious of, whereas much the worst injuries are those he is
unconscious of; and, at other times, we limit the idea to violence, or restraint,
whereas much the worse forms of injury are to be accomplished by carelessness,
and the withdrawal of restraint.

"Injury" is, then, simply the refusal, or violation of any man's right or claim upon his
fellows: which claim, much talked of in modern times, under the term "right," is
mainly resolvable into two branches: a man's claim not to be hindered from doing
what he should; and his claim to be hindered from doing what he should not; these
two forms of hindrance being intensified by reward, or help and fortune, or Fors on
one side, and punishment, impediment, and even final arrest, or Mors, on the other.

Now, in order to a man's obtaining these two rights, it is clearly needful that the worth
of him should be approximately known; as well as the want of worth, which has,
unhappily, been usually the principal subject of study for critic law, careful hitherto
only to mark degrees of de-merit, instead of merit;—assigning, indeed, to the
deficiencies (not always, alas! even to these) just fine, diminution, or (with the broad
vowels) damnation; but to the efficiencies, on the other side, which are by much the
more interesting, as well as the only profitable part of its subject, assigning in any
clear way neither measurement nor aid.

Now, it is in this higher and perfect function of critic law, enabling as well as
disabling, that it becomes truly kingly or basilican, instead of Draconic (what
Providence gave the great, old, wrathful legislator his name?); that is, it becomes the
law of man and of life, instead of the law of the worm and of death—both of these
laws being set in everlasting poise one against another, and the enforcement of both
being the eternal function of the lawgiver, and true claim of every living soul: such
claim being indeed as straight and earnest to be mercifully hindered, and even, if
need be, abolished, when longer existence means only deeper destruction, as to be
mercifully helped and recreated when longer existence and new creation mean
nobler life. So that what we vulgarly term reward and punishment will be found to
resolve themselves mainly into help and hindrance, and these again will issue

money), because the science, or perhaps we ought rather to say the art, of law, is felt to found a
noble profession, and discipline; so that civilized nations are usually glad that a number of persons
should be supported by funds devoted to disputation and analysis. But it has not yet been calculated
what the practical value might have been, in other directions, of the intelligence now occupied in
deciding, through courses of years, what might have been decided as justly, had the date of judgment
been fixed, in as many hours. Imagine one half of the funds which any great nation devotes to dispute
by law, applied to the determination of physical questions in medicine, agriculture, and theoretic
science; and calculate the probable results within the next ten years.
I say nothing yet, of the more deadly, more lamentable loss, involved in the use of purchased instead
of personal justice,—ἐπακτῷ παρ’ ἄλλων—ἀπορίᾳ’ οἰκείων.
 188

naturally from true recognition of deserving, and the just reverence and just wrath
which follow instinctively on such recognition.

I say "follow," but in reality they are the recognition. Reverence is but the perceiving
of the thing in its entire truth: truth reverted is truth revered (vereor and veritas
having clearly the same root), so that Goethe is for once, and for a wonder, wrong in
that part of the noble scheme of education in "Wilhelm Meister," in which he says
that reverence is not innate, and must be taught. Reverence is as instinctive as
anger;—both of them instant on true vision: it is sight and understanding that we
have to teach, and these are reverence. Make a man perceive worth, and in its
reflection he sees his own relative unworth, and worships thereupon inevitably, not
with stiff courtesy, but rejoicingly, passionately, and, best of all, restfully: for the inner
capacity of awe and love is infinite in man; and when his eyes are once opened to
the sight of beauty and honour, it is with him as with a lover, who, falling at his
mistress's feet, would cast himself through the earth, if it might be, to fall lower, and
find a deeper and humbler place. And the common insolences and petulances of the
people, and their talk of equality, are not irreverence in them in the least, but mere
blindness, stupefaction, and fog in the brains, 103 which pass away in the degree that
they are raised and purified: the first sign of which raising is, that they gain some
power of discerning, and some patience in submitting to their true counsellors and
governors; the modes of such discernment forming the real "constitution" of the
state, and not the titles or offices of the discerned person; for it is no matter, save in
degree of mischief, to what office a man is appointed, if he cannot fulfil it. And this
brings us to the third division of our subject.

III.—Government by Council.

This is the determination, by living authority, of the national conduct to be observed

under existing circumstances; and the modification or enlargement, abrogation or
enforcement, of the code of national law according to present needs or purposes.
This government is necessarily always by Council, for though the authority of it may
be vested in one person, that person cannot form any opinion on a matter of public
interest but by (voluntarily or involuntarily) submitting himself to the influence of
others.

This government is always twofold—visible and invisible.

The visible government is that which nominally carries on the national business;
determines its foreign relations, raises taxes, levies soldiers, fights battles, or directs

103
Compare Chaucer's "villany" (clownishness).
"Full foul and chorlishe seemed she,
And eke villanous for to be,
And little coulde of norture
To worship any creature.
 189

that they be fought, and otherwise becomes the exponent of the national fortune.
The invisible government is that exercised by all energetic and intelligent men, each
in his sphere, regulating the inner will and secret ways of the people, essentially
forming its character, and preparing its fate. Visible governments are the toys of
some nations, the diseases of others, the harness of some, the burdens of the more,
the necessity of all. Sometimes their career is quite distinct from that of the people,
and to write it, as the national history, is as if one should number the accidents which
befall a man's weapons and wardrobe, and call the list his biography. Nevertheless a
truly noble and wise nation necessarily has a noble and wise visible government, for
its wisdom issues in that conclusively. "Not out of the oak, nor out of the rock, but out
of the temper of man, is his polity:" where the temper inclines, it inclines as Samson
by his pillar, and draws all down with it.

Visible governments are, in their agencies, capable of three pure forms, and of no
more than three.

They are either monarchies, where the authority is vested in one person; oligarchies,
when it is vested in a minority; or democracies, when vested in a majority.

But these three forms are not only, in practice, variously limited and combined, but
capable of infinite difference in character and use, receiving specific names
according to their variations; which names, being nowise agreed upon, nor
consistently used, either in thought or writing, no man can at present tell, in speaking
of any kind of government, whether he is understood, nor in hearing whether he
understands. Thus we usually call a just government by one person a monarchy, and
an unjust or cruel one, a tyranny; this might be reasonable if it had reference to the
divinity of true government; but to limit the term "oligarchy" to government by a few
rich people, and to call government by a few wise or noble people "aristocracies," is
evidently absurd, unless it were proved that rich people never could be wise, or
noble people rich; and farther absurd because there are other distinctions in
character, as well as riches or wisdom (greater purity of race, or strength of purpose,
for instance), which may give the power of government to the few. So that if we had
to give names to every group or kind of minority, we should have verbiage enough.
But there is one right name—"oligarchy."

So also the terms "republic" and "democracy" are confused, especially in modern
use; and both of them are liable to every sort of misconception. A republic means,
properly, a polity in which the state, with its all, is at every man's service, and every
man, with his all, at the state's service (people are apt to lose sight of the last
condition); but its government may nevertheless be oligarchic (consular, or
decemviral, for instance), or monarchic (dictatorial). But a democracy means a state
in which the government rests directly with the majority of the citizens. And both
these conditions have been judged only by such accidents and aspects of them as
each of us has had experience of; and sometimes both have been confused with
anarchy, as it is the fashion at present to talk of the "failure of republican institutions
 190

in America," when there has never yet been in America any such thing as an
institution; neither any such thing as a res-publica, but only a multitudinous res-
privata; every man for himself. It is not republicanism which fails now in America; it is
your model science of political economy, brought to its perfect practice. There you
may see competition, and the "law of demand and supply" (especially in paper), in
beautiful and unhindered operation. 104 Lust of wealth, and trust in it; vulgar faith in
magnitude and multitude, instead of nobleness; besides that faith natural to
backwoodsmen,—"lucum ligna,"—perpetual self-contemplation, issuing in
passionate vanity: total ignorance of the finer and higher arts, and of all that they
teach and bestow; 105 and the discontent of energetic minds unoccupied, frantic with
hope of uncomprehended change, and progress they know not whither; 106 these are
the things that they have "failed" with in America; and yet not altogether failed—it is
not collapse, but collision; the greatest railroad accident on record, with fire caught
from the furnace, and Catiline's quenching "non aquá, sed ruinâ." But I see not, in
any of our talk of them, justice enough done to their erratic strength of purpose, nor
any estimate taken of the strength of endurance of domestic sorrow in what their
women and children suppose a righteous cause. And out of that endurance and
suffering, its own fruit will be born with time; and Carlyle's prophecy of them (June,
1850), as it has now come true in the first clause, will in the last.

America too will find that caucuses, division-lists, stump-oratory and speeches to
Buncombe will not carry men to the immortal gods; that the Washington Congress,
and constitutional battle of Kilkenny cats is, there as here, naught for such
objects; quite incompetent for such; and, in fine, that said sublime constitutional
arrangement will require to be (with terrible throes, and travail such as few expect
yet) remodelled, abridged, extended, suppressed; torn asunder, put together
again;—not without heroic labour, and effort quite other than that of the Stump-
Orator and the Revival Preacher, one day!

Understand, then, once for all, that no form of government, provided it be a

government at all, is, as such, either to be condemned or praised, or contested for in
anywise but by fools. But all forms of government are good just so far as they attain
this one vital necessity of policy—that the wise and kind, few or many, shall govern
the unwise and unkind; and they are evil so far as they miss of this or reverse it. Nor
does the form in any case signify one whit, but its firmness and adaptation to the

104
"Supply-and-demand,—alas! For what noble work was there ever any audible 'demand' in that
poor sense?" ("Past and Present"). Nay, the demand is not loud even for ignoble work. See "Average
earnings of Betty Taylor," in Times, of 4th February, of this year [1863]: "Worked from Monday
morning at 8 a.m., to Friday night at 5.30 p.m., for 1s. 5½d."—Laissez faire.
105
See Bacon's note in the "Advancement of Learning," on "didicisse fideliter artes" (but indeed the
accent had need be upon "fideliter"). "It taketh away vain admiration of anything, which is the root of
all weakness: for all things are admired either because they are new, or because they are great," etc.
106
Ames, by report of Waldo Emerson, expressed the popular security wisely, saying, "that a
monarchy is a merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the
bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink, but then your feet are always in the water."
Yes, and when the four winds (your only pilots) steer competitively from the four corners, ὡς δ’ ὅτ’
ὀπωρινὸς Βορέης φορέησιν ἀκάνθας, perhaps the wiser mariner may wish for keel and wheel again.
 191

need; for if there be many foolish persons in a state, and few wise, then it is good
that the few govern; and if there be many wise and few foolish, then it is good that
many govern; and if many be wise, yet one wiser, then it is good that one should
govern; and so on. Thus, we may have "the ants' republic, and the realm of bees,"
both good in their kind; one for groping, and the other for building; and nobler still, for
flying, the Ducal monarchy of those

"Intelligent of seasons, that set forthThe aery caravan, high over seas."

Nor need we want examples, among the inferior creatures, of dissoluteness, as well
as resoluteness in, government. I once saw democracy finely illustrated by the
beetles of North Switzerland, who, by universal suffrage, and elytric acclamation,
one May twilight, carried it that they would fly over the Lake of Zug; and flew short, to
the great disfigurement of the Lake of Zug—"Κανθάρου λιμήν—over some leagues
square, and to the close of the Cockchafer democracy for that year. The old fable of
the frogs and the stork finely touches one form of tyranny; but truth will touch it more
nearly than fable, for tyranny is not complete when it is only over the idle, but when it
is over the laborious and the blind. This description of pelicans and climbing perch
which I find quoted in one of our popular natural histories, out of Sir
Emerson Tennent's "Ceylon," comes as near as may be to the true image of the
thing:—

Heavy rains came on, and as we stood on the high ground, we observed a pelican
on the margin of the shallow pool gorging himself; our people went towards him, and
raised a cry of "Fish! fish!" We hurried down, and found numbers of fish struggling
upward through the grass, in the rills formed by the trickling of the rain. There was
scarcely water to cover them, but nevertheless they made rapid progress up the
bank, on which our followers collected about two baskets of them. They were forcing
their way up the knoll, and had they not been interrupted, first by the pelican, and
afterwards by ourselves, they would in a few minutes have gained the highest point,
and descended on the other side into a pool which formed another portion of the
tank. In going this distance, however, they must have used muscular exertion
enough to have taken them half a mile on level ground; for at these places all the
cattle and wild animals of the neighbourhood had latterly come to drink, so that the
surface was everywhere indented with footmarks, in addition to the cracks in the
surrounding baked mud, into which the fish tumbled in their progress. In those holes
which were deep, and the sides perpendicular, they remained to die, and were
carried off by kites and crows.

But whether governments be bad or good, one general disadvantage seems to

attach to them in modern times—that they are all costly. This, however, is not
essentially the fault of the governments. If nations choose to play at war, they will
always find their governments willing to lead the game, and soon coming under that
term of Aristophanes, "κάπηλοι ἀσπίδων," shield-sellers. And when (πῆμ’ ἐπὶπήματι)
the shields take the form of iron ships, with apparatus "for defence against liquid
 192

fire"—as I see by latest accounts they are now arranging the decks in English
dockyards,—they become costly biers enough for the grey convoy of chief-mourner
waves, wreathed with funereal foam, to bear back the dead upon; the massy
shoulders of those corpse-bearers being intended for quite other work, and to bear
the living, if we would let them.

Nor have we the least right to complain of our governments being expensive so long
as we set the government to do precisely the work which brings no return. If our
present doctrines of political economy be just, let us trust them to the utmost; take
that war business out of the government's hands, and test therein the principles of
supply and demand. Let our future sieges of Sebastopol be done by contract—no
capture, no pay—(I am prepared to admit that things might go better so); and let us
sell the commands of our prospective battles, with our vicarages, to the lowest
bidder; so may we have cheap victories and divinity. On the other hand, if we have
so much suspicion of our science that we dare not trust it on military or spiritual
business, it would be but reasonable to try whether some authoritative handling may
not prosper in matters utilitarian. If we were to set our governments to do useful
things instead of mischievous, possibly even the apparatus might in time come to be
less costly! The machine, applied to the building of the house, might perhaps pay,
when it seems not to pay, applied to pulling it down. If we made in our dockyards
ships to carry timber and coals, instead of cannon, and with provision for brightening
of domestic solid culinary fire, instead of for the averting of hostile liquid fire, it might
have some effect on the taxes? Or if the iron bottoms were to bring us home nothing
better than ivory and peacocks, instead of martial glory, we might at least have gayer
suppers, and doors of the right material for dreams after them. Or suppose that we
tried the experiment on land instead of water carriage; already the government, not
unapproved, carries letters and parcels for us; larger packages may in time follow:—
parcels;—even general merchandise? Why not, at last, ourselves? Had the money
spent in local mistakes and vain private litigation, on the railroads of England, been
laid out, instead, under proper government restraint, on really useful railroad work,
and had no absurd expense been incurred in ornamenting stations, we might already
have had,—what ultimately will be found we must have,—quadruple rails, two for
passengers, and two for traffic, on every great line; and we might have been carried
in swift safety, and watched and warded by well-paid pointsmen, for half the present
fares. "ὧ Δημίδιον, ὁρᾁς τὰ λαγῳ’ ἅ σοι φέρω?" Suppose it should turn out, finally,
that a true government set to true work, instead of being a costly engine, was a
paying one? that your government, rightly organized, instead of itself subsisting by
an income tax, would produce its subjects some subsistence in the shape of an
income dividend!—police and judges duly paid besides, only with less work than the
state at present provides for them.

A true government set to true work!—Not easily imagined, still less obtained, but not
beyond human hope or ingenuity. Only you will have to alter your election systems
somewhat, first. Not by universal suffrage, nor by votes purchasable with beer, is
 193

such government to be had. That is to say, not by universal equal suffrage. Every
man upwards of twenty, who had been convicted of no legal crime, should have his
say in this matter; but afterwards a louder voice, as he grows older, and approves
himself wiser. If he has one vote at twenty, he should have two at thirty, four at forty,
and ten at fifty. For every one vote which he has with an income of a hundred a year,
he should have ten with an income of a thousand (provided you first see to it that
wealth is, as nature intended it to be, the reward of sagacity and industry,—not of
good luck in a scramble or a lottery.) For every one vote which he had as
subordinate in any business, he should have two when he became a master; and
every office and authority nationally bestowed, inferring trustworthiness and intellect,
should have its known proportional number of votes attached to it. But into the detail
and working of a true system in these matters we cannot now enter; we are
concerned as yet with definitions only, and statements of first principles, which will
be established now sufficiently for our purposes when we have examined the nature
of that form of government last on the list in the previous paper,—the purely
"Magistral," exciting at present its full share of public notice, under its ambiguous title
of "slavery."

I have not, however, been able to ascertain in definite terms, from the declaimers
against slavery, what they understand by it. If they mean only the imprisonment or
compulsion being in many cases highly expedient, slavery, so defined, would be no
evil in itself, but only in its abuse; that is, when men are slaves, who should not be,
or masters, who should not be, or under conditions which should not be. It is not, for
instance, a necessary condition of slavery, nor a desirable one, that parents should
be separated from children, or husbands from wives; but the institution of war,
against which people declaim with less violence, effects such separations—not
unfrequently in a higher permanent manner. To press a sailor, seize a white youth by
conscription for a soldier, or carry off a black one for a labourer, may all be right, or
all wrong, according to needs and circumstances. It is wrong to scourge a man
unnecessarily. So it is to shoot him. Both must be done on occasion; and it is better
and kinder to flog a man to his work, than to leave him idle till he robs, and flog him
afterwards. The essential thing for all creatures is to be made to do right; how they
are made to do it—by pleasant promises, or hard necessities, pathetic oratory, or the
whip, is comparatively immaterial. To be deceived is perhaps as incompatible with
human dignity as to be whipped, and I suspect the last instrument to be not the
worst, for the help of many individuals. The Jewish nation throve under it, in the hand
of a monarch reputed not unwise; it is only the change of whip for scorpion which is
expedient, and yet that change is as likely to come to pass on the side of licence as
of law; for the true scorpion whips are those of the nation's pleasant vices, which are
to it as St. John's locusts—crown on the head, ravin in the mouth, and sting in the
tail. If it will not bear the rule of Athena and her brother, who shepherd without
smiting (οὐ πληγῇ νέμοντες), Athena at last calls no more in the corners of the
streets; and then follows the rule of Tisiphone, who smites without shepherding.
 194

If, however, slavery, instead of absolute compulsion, is meant the purchase, by

money, of the right of compulsion, such purchase is necessarily made whenever a
portion of any territory is transferred, for money, from one monarch to another: which
has happened frequently enough in history, without its being supposed that the
inhabitants of the districts so transferred became their slaves. In this, as in the
former case, the dispute seems about the fashion of the thing rather than the fact of
it. There are two rocks in mid-sea, on each of which, neglected equally by instructive
and commercial powers, a handful of inhabitants live as they may. Two merchants
bid for the two properties, but not in the same terms. One bids for the people, buys
them, and sets them to work, under pain of scourge; the other bids for the rock, buys
it, and throws the inhabitants into the sea. The former is the American, the latter the
English method, of slavery; much is to be said for, and something against, both,
which I hope to say in due time and place.

If, however, slavery mean not merely the purchase of the right of compulsion, but the
purchase of the body and soul of the creature itself for money, it is not, I think,
among the black races that purchases of this kind are most extensively made, or that
separate souls of a fine make fetch the highest price. This branch of the inquiry we
shall have occasion also to follow out at some length; for in the worst instance of the
"Βίων πρᾶσις" we are apt to get only Pyrrhon's answer—τί φῆς;—ἐπριάμην σε;
Ἄδηλον.

The fact is that slavery is not a political institution at all, but an inherent, natural, and
eternal inheritance of a large portion of the human race—to whom the more you give
of their own will, the more slaves they will make themselves. In common parlance,
we idly confuse captivity with slavery, and are always thinking of the difference
between pine-trunks and cowslip bells, or between carrying wood and clothes-
stealing, instead of noting the far more serious differences between Ariel and
Caliban, and the means by which practically that difference may be brought about. 107

107
The passage of Plato, referred to in note p. 280, in its context, respecting the slave who, well
dressed and washed, aspires to the hand of his master's daughter, corresponds curiously to the
attack of Caliban on Prospero's cell, and there is an undercurrent of meaning throughout, in the
"Tempest" as well as in the "Merchant of Venice"; referring in this case to government, as in that to
commerce. Miranda ("the wonderful," so addressed first by Ferdinand, "Oh, you wonder!")
corresponds to Homer's Arete: Ariel and Caliban are respectively the spirits of freedom and
mechanical labour. Prospero ("for hope"), a true governor, opposed to Sycorax, the mother of slavery,
her name, "Swine-raven," indicating at once brutality and deathfulness; hence the line—"As wicked
dew as e'er my mother brushed, with raven's feather,"—etc. For all dreams of Shakespeare, as those
of true and strong men must be, are "φαντάσματα θεῖα, καὶ σκιαὶ τῶν ὄντων," phantasms of God, and
shadows of things that are. We hardly tell our children, willingly, a fable with no purport in it; yet we
think God sends His best messengers only to say fairy tales to us, all fondness and emptiness. The
"Tempest" is just like a grotesque in a rich missal, "clasped where paynims pray." Ariel is the spirit of
true liberty, in early stages of human society oppressed by ignorance and wild tyranny; venting groans
as fast as mill-wheels strike; in shipwreck of states, fearful; so that "all but mariners plunge in the
brine, and quit the vessel, then all afire with me," yet having in itself the will and sweetness of truest
peace, whence that is especially called "Ariel's" song, "Come unto these yellow sands"—(fenceless,
and countless—changing with the sweep of the sea—"vaga arena." Compare Horace's opposition of
the sea-sand to the dust of the grave: "numero carentis"—"exigui;" and again compare "animo
 195

I should dwell, even in these prefatory papers, at somewhat more length on this
matter, had not all I would say, been said (already in vain) by Carlyle, in the first of
the "Latter-Day Pamphlets," which I commend to the reader's gravest
reading: together with that as much neglected, and still more immediately needed,
on model prisons, and with the great chapter on "Permanence" (fifth of the last
section of "Past and Present"), which sums, what is known, and foreshadows,—or
rather fore-lights, all that is to be learned, of National Discipline. I have only here
farther to examine the nature of one world-wide and everlasting form of slavery,
wholesome in use, deadly in abuse—the service of the rich by the poor.

As in all previous discussions of our subject, we must study this relation in its
simplest elements in order to reach its first principles. The simplest state of it is, then,
this: 108 a wise and provident person works much, consumes little, and lays by store;

rotundum percurrisse" with "put a girdle round the earth")—"and then take hands: court'sied when you
have, and kiss'd,—the wild waves whist:" (mind it is "courtesia," not "curtsey") and read "quiet" for
"whist" if you want the full sense. Then may you indeed foot it featly, and sweet spirits bear the burden
for you—with watch in the night, and call in early morning. The power of liberty in elemental
transformation follows—"Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made." Then, giving
rest after labour, it "fetches dew from the still-vex'd Bermoothes, and, with a charm joined to their
suffered labour, leaves men asleep." Snatching away the feast of the cruel, it seems to them as a
harpy, followed by the utterly vile, who cannot see it in any shape, but to whom it is the picture of
nobody, it still gives shrill harmony to their false and mocking catch, "Thought is free," but leads them
into briars and foul places, and at last hollas the hounds upon them. Minister of fate against the great
criminal, it joins itself with the "incensed seas and shores"—the sword that layeth at it cannot hold,
and may, "with bemocked-at stabs as soon kill the still-closing waters, as diminish one dowle that's in
my plume." As the guide and aid of true love, it is always called by Prospero "fine" (the French "fine"—
not the English), or "delicate"—another long note would be needed to explain all the meaning in this
word. Lastly, its work done, and war, it resolves itself to the elements. The intense significance of the
last song, "Where the bee sucks," I will examine in its due place. The types of slavery in Caliban are
more palpable, and need not be dwelt on now: though I will notice them also, severally, in their proper
places;—the heart of his slavery is in his worship: "That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor." But,
in illustration of the sense in which the Latin "benignus" and "malignus," are to be coupled with
Eleutheria and Douleia, not that Caliban's torment is always the physical reflection of his own
nature—"cramps" and "side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up"—"thou shalt be pinched as thick as
honeycomb:" the whole nature of slavery being one cramp and cretinous contraction. Fancy this of
Ariel! You may fetter him, but yet set no mark on him; you may put him to hard work and far journey,
but you cannot give him a cramp.
Of Shakespeare's names I will afterwards speak at more length: they are curiously—often
barbarously—mixed out of various traditions and languages. Three of the clearest in meaning have
been already noticed. Desdemona, "δυσδαιμονία," "miserable fortune," is also plain enough. Othello
is, I believe, "the careful"; all the calamity of the tragedy arising from the single flaw and error in his
magnificently collected strength. Ophelia, "serviceableness," the true lost wife of Hamlet, is marked as
having a Greek name by that last word of her, where her gentle preciousness is opposed to the
uselessness of the churlish clergy—"A ministering angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling."
Hamlet is, I believe, connected in some way with "homely," the entire event of the tragedy turning on
betrayal of home duty. Hermione (ἕρμα), "pillar-like" (ἥ εἴδος ἔχε χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης). Titania (τιτήνη),
"the queen;" Benedict and Beatrice, "blessed and blessing;" Valentine and Proteus, enduring (or
strong) (valens) and changeful. Iago and Iachimo have evidently the same root—probably the
Spanish Iago, Jacob, "the supplanter." Leonatus, and other such names are interpreted, or played
with, in the plays themselves. For the interpretation of Sycorax, and reference to her raven's feather, I
am indebted to Mr. John R. Wise.
108
In the present general examination I concede so much to ordinary economists as to ignore all
innocent poverty. I assume poverty to be always criminal; the conceivable exceptions we will examine
afterwards.
 196

an improvident person works little, consumes all the produce, and lays by no store.
Accident interrupts the daily work, or renders it less productive; the idle person must
then starve, or be supported by the provident one,—who, having him thus at his
mercy, may either refuse to maintain him altogether, or, which will evidently be more
to his own interest, say to him, "I will maintain you, indeed, but you shall now work
hard, instead of indolently, and instead of being allowed to lay by what you save, as
you might have done, had you remained independent, I will take all the surplus. You
would not lay it up yourself; it is wholly your own fault that has thrown you into my
power, and I will force you to work, or starve; yet you shall have no profit, only your
daily bread." This mode of treatment has now become so universal that it is
supposed the only natural—nay, the only possible one; and the market wages are
calmly defined by economists as "the sum which will maintain the labourer."

The power of the provident person to do this is only checked by the correlative power
of some neighbour of similarly frugal habits, who says to the labourer—"I will give
you a little more than my provident friend:—come and work for me." The power of
the provident over the improvident depends thus primarily on their relative numbers;
secondarily, on the modes of agreement of the adverse parties with each other. The
level of wages is a variable function of the number of provident and idle persons in
the world, of the enmity between them as classes, and of the agreement between
those of the same class. It depends, from beginning to end, on moral conditions.

Supposing the rich to be entirely selfish, it is always for their interest that the poor
should be as numerous as they can employ and restrain. For, granting the entire
population no larger than the ground can easily maintain,—that the classes are
stringently divided,—and that there is sense or strength of hand enough with the rich
to secure obedience; then, if nine-tenths of a nation are poor, the remaining tenth
have the service of nine persons each; 109 but, if eight-tenths are poor, only of four
each; if seven-tenths are poor, of two and a third each; but, practically if the rich
strive always to obtain more power over the poor, instead of to raise them,—and if,
on the other hand, the poor become continually more vicious and numerous, through
neglect and oppression—though the range of the power of the rich increases, its
tenure becomes less secure; until, at last, the measure of iniquity being full,
revolution, civil war, or the subjection of the state to a healthier or stronger one,
closes the moral corruption and industrial disease.

It is rare, however, that things come to this extremity. Kind persons among the rich,
and wise among the poor, modify the connexion of the classes: the efforts made to
raise and relieve on the one side, and the success and honest toil on the other, bind
and blend the orders of society into the confused tissue of half-felt obligation,
sullenly-rendered obedience, and variously-directed, or mis-directed, toil, which form

109
I say nothing yet of the quality of the servants, which, nevertheless, is the gist of the business. Will
you have Paul Veronese to paint your ceiling, or the plumber from over the way? Both will work for the
same money; Paul, if anything, a little cheaper of the two, if you keep him in good humour; only you
have to discern him first, which will need eyes.
 197

the warp of daily life. But this great law rules all the wild design of the weaving; that
success (while society is guided by laws of competition) signifies always so much
victory over your neighbour as to obtain the direction of his work, and to take the
profits of it. This is the real source of all great riches. No man can become largely
rich by his personal toil. 110 The work of his own hands, wisely directed, will indeed
always maintain himself and his family, and make fitting provision for his age. But it
is only by the discovery of some method of taxing the labour of others that he can
become opulent. Every increase of his capital enables him to extend this taxation
more widely; that is, to invest larger funds in the maintenance of his labourers—to
direct, accordingly, vaster and yet vaster masses of labour; and to appropriate its
profits. There is much confusion of idea on the subject of this appropriation. It is, of
course, the interest of the employer to disguise it from the persons employed; and for
his own comfort and complacency he often desires no less to disguise it from
himself. And it is matter of much doubt with me, how far the foolish arguments used
habitually on this subject are indeed the honest expressions of foolish convictions,—
or rather (as I am sometimes forced to conclude from the irritation with which they
are advanced) are resolutely dishonest, wilful sophisms, arranged so as to mask to
the last moment the real state of economy, and future duties of men. By taking a
simple example, and working it thoroughly out, the subject may be rescued from all
but determined misconception.

Let us imagine a society of peasants, living on a river-shore, exposed to destructive

inundation at somewhat extended intervals; and that each peasant possesses of this
good, but imperilled ground, more than he needs to cultivate for immediate
subsistence. We will assume farther (and with too great probability of justice) that the
greater part of them indolently keep in tillage just as much land as supplies them with
daily food;—that they leave their children idle and untaught; and take no precautions
against the rise of the stream. But one of them (we will say only one, for the sake of
greater clearness) cultivates carefully all the ground of his estate; makes his children
work hard and healthily; uses his spare time and theirs in building a rampart against
the river; and at the end of some years has in his storehouses large reserves of food
and clothing, and in his stables a well-tended breed of cattle.

The torrent rises at last—sweeps away the harvests and many of the cottages of the
careless peasantry, and leaves them destitute. They naturally come for help to the
provident one, whose fields are unwasted and whose granaries are full. He has the
right to refuse it them; no one disputes his right. But he will probably not refuse it; it is
not his interest to do so, even were he entirely selfish and cruel. The only question
with him will be on what terms his aid is to be granted.

Clearly not on terms of mere charity. To maintain his neighbours in idleness would
be his ruin and theirs. He will require work from them in exchange for their

110
By his heart he may; but only when its produce, or the sight or hearing of it, becomes a subject of
dispute, so as to enable the artist to tax the labour of multitudes highly, in exchange for his own.
 198

maintenance; and whether in kindness or cruelty, all the work they can give. Not now
the three or four hours they were wont to spend on their own land, but the eight or
ten hours they ought to have spent. But how will he apply this labour? The men are
now his slaves—nothing less. On pain of starvation, he can force them to work in the
manner and to the end he chooses. And it is by his wisdom in this choice that the
worthiness of his mastership is proved, or its unworthiness. Evidently he must first
set them to bank out the water in some temporary way, and to get their ground
cleansed and resown; else, in any case, their continued maintenance will be
impossible. That done, and while he has still to feed them, suppose he makes them
raise a secure rampart for their own ground against all future flood, and rebuild their
houses in safer places, with the best material they can find; being allowed time out of
their working hours to fetch such material from a distance. And for the food and
clothing advanced, he takes security in land that as much shall be returned at a
convenient period.

At the end of a few years, we may conceive this security redeemed, and the debt
paid. The prudent peasant has sustained no loss; but is no richer than he was, and
has had all his trouble for nothing. But he has enriched his neighbours materially;
bettered their houses, secured their land, and rendered them, in worldly matters,
equal to himself. In all true and final sense, he has been throughout their lord and
king.

We will next trace his probable line of conduct, presuming his object to be
exclusively the increase of his own fortune. After roughly recovering and cleansing
the ground, he allows the ruined peasantry only to build huts upon it, such as he
thinks protective enough from the weather to keep them in working health. The rest
of their time he occupies first in pulling down and rebuilding on a magnificent scale
his own house, and in adding large dependencies to it. This done, he follows the
example of the first great Hebrew financier, and in exchange for his continued supply
of corn, buys as much of his neighbours! land, as he thinks he can superintend the
management of; and makes the former owners securely embank and protect the
ceded portion. By this arrangement he leaves to a certain number of the peasantry
only as much ground as will just maintain them in their existing numbers: as the
population increases, he takes the extra hands, who cannot be maintained on the
narrow estates, for his own servants; employs some to cultivate the ground he has
bought, giving them of its produce merely enough for subsistence; with the surplus,
which, under his energetic and careful superintendence, will be large, he supports a
train of servants for state, and a body of workmen, whom he educates in ornamental
arts. He now can splendidly decorate his house, lay out its grounds magnificently,
and richly supply his table, and that of his household and retinue. And thus, without
any abuse of right, we should find established all the phenomena of poverty and
riches, which (it is supposed necessarily) accompany modern civilization. In one part
of the district, we should have unhealthy land, miserable dwellings and half-starved
 199

poor; in another, a well-ordered estate, well-fed servants, and refined conditions of

highly-educated and luxurious life.

I have put the two cases in simplicity, and to some extremity. But though in more
complex and qualified operation, all the relations of society are but the expansion of
these two typical sequences of conduct and result. I do not say, observe, that the
first procedure is entirely right; still less, that the second is wholly wrong. Servants
and artists, and splendour of habitation and retinue, have all their use, propriety and
office. I only wish the reader to understand clearly what they cost; that the condition
of having them is the subjection to you of a certain number of imprudent or
unfortunate persons (or, it may be, more fortunate than their master), over whose
destinies you exercise a boundless control. "Riches" mean eternally and essentially
this; and may heaven send at last a time when those words of our best-reputed
economist shall be true, and we shall indeed "all know what it is to be rich;" that is to
be slave-master over farthest earth, and over all ways and thoughts of men. Every
operative you employ is your true servant: distant or near, subject to your
immediate orders, or ministering to your widely-communicated caprice—for the pay
he stipulates, or the price he tempts,—all are alike under this great dominion of the
gold. The milliner who makes the dress is as much a servant (more so, in that she
uses more intelligence in the service) as the maid who puts it on; the carpenter who
smoothes the door, as the footman who opens it; the tradesmen who supply the
table, as the labourers and sailors who supply the tradesmen. Why speak of these
lower services? Painters and singers (whether of note or rhyme), jesters and story-
tellers, moralists, historians, priests—so far as these, in any degree, paint, or sing, or
tell their tale, or charm their charm, or "perform" their rite, for pay, in so far they are
all slaves; abject utterly, if the service be for pay only; abject less and less in
proportion to the degrees of love and wisdom which enter into their duty, or can enter
into it, according as their function is to do the bidding and the work of a man;—or to
amuse, tempt, and deceive a child.

There may be thus, and, to a certain extent, there always is, a government of the rich
by the poor, as of the poor by the rich; but the latter is the prevailing and necessary
one, and it consists, observe, of two distinct functions,—the collection of the profits of
labour from those who would have misused them, and the administration of those
profits for the service either of the same person in future, or of others; or, as is more
frequently the case in modern times, for the service of the collector himself.

The examination of these various modes of collection and use of riches will form the
third branch of our future inquiries; but the key to the whole subject lies in the clear
understanding of the difference between selfish and unselfish expenditure. It is not
easy, by any course of reasoning, to enforce this on the generally unwilling hearer;
yet the definition of unselfish expenditure is brief and simple. It is expenditure which
if you are a capitalist, does not pay you, but pays somebody else; and if you are a
consumer, does not please you, but pleases somebody else. Take one special
instance, in further illustration of the general type given above. I did not invent that
 200

type, but spoke of a real river, and of real peasantry, the languid and sickly race
which inhabits, or haunts—for they are often more like spectres than living men—the
thorny desolation on the banks of the Arve. Some years ago, a society formed at
Geneva offered to embank the river, for the ground which would have been
recovered by the operation; but the offer was refused by the (then Sardinian)
government. The capitalists saw that this expenditure would have "paid," if the
ground saved from the river was to be theirs. But if when the offer that had this
aspect of profit was refused, they had nevertheless persisted in the plan and, merely
taking security for the return of their outlay, lent the funds for the work, and thus
saved a whole race of human souls from perishing in a pestiferous fen (as, I
presume, some among them would, at personal risk, have dragged any one
drowning creature out of the current of the stream, and not expected payment
therefor), such expenditure would have precisely corresponded to the use of his
power made, in the first instance, by our supposed richest peasant—it would have
been the king's, of grace, instead of the usurer's, for gain.

"Impossible, absurd, Utopian!" exclaim nine-tenths of the few readers whom these
words may find. No, good reader, this is not Utopian: but I will tell you what would
have seemed, if we had not seen it, Utopian on the side of evil instead of good: that
ever men should have come to value their money so much more than their lives, that
if you call upon them to become soldiers, and take chance of bullet, for their pride's
sake, they will do it gaily, without thinking twice; but if you ask them for their country's
sake to spend a hundred pounds without security of getting back a hundred-and-
five 111 they will laugh in your face.

Not but that also this game of life-giving-and-taking is, in the end, somewhat more
costly than other forms of play might be. Rifle practice is, indeed, a not unhealthy
pastime, and a feather on the top of the head is a pleasing appendage; but while
learning the stops and fingering of the sweet instrument, does no one ever calculate
the cost of an overture? What melody does Tityrus meditate on his tenderly spiral
pipe? The leaden seed of it, broad cast, true conical "Dents de Lion" seed—needing
leas allowance for the wind than is usual with that kind of herb—what crop are you
likely to have of it? Suppose, instead of this volunteer marching and
countermarching, you were to do a little volunteer ploughing and counterploughing?

111
I have not hitherto touched on the subject of interest of money; it is too complex; and must be
reserved for its proper place in the body of the work. (I should be glad if a writer, who sent me some
valuable notes on this subject, and asked me to return a letter which I still keep at his service, would
send me his address.) The definition of interest (apart from compensation for risk) is, "the exponent of
the comfort of accomplished labour, separated from its power;" the power being what is lent: and the
French economists who have maintained the entire illegality of interest are wrong; yet by no means so
curiously or wildly wrong as the English and French ones opposed to them, whose opinions have
been collected by Dr. Whewell at page 41 of his Lectures; it never seeming to occur to the mind of the
compiler any more than to the writers whom he quotes, that it is quite possible, and even (according
to Jewish proverb) prudent, for men to hoard, as ants and mice do, for use, not usury; and lay by
something for winter nights, in the expectation of rather sharing than lending the scrapings. My
Savoyard squirrels would pass a pleasant time of it under the snow-laden pine-branches, if they
always declined to economize because no one would pay them interest on nuts.
 201

It is more difficult to do it straight: the dust of the earth, so disturbed, is more grateful
than for merely rhythmic footsteps. Golden cups, also, given for good ploughing
would be more suitable in colour (ruby glass, for the wine which "giveth his colour"
on the ground, as well as in the cup, might be fitter for the rifle prize in the ladies'
hands); or, conceive a little volunteer exercise with the spade, other than such as is
needed for moat and breastwork, or even for the burial of the fruit of the leaden
avena-seed, subject to the shrill Lemures' criticism—

"Wer hat das Haus so schlecht gebaut?"

If you were to embank Lincolnshire now,—more stoutly against the sea? or strip the
peat of Solway, or plant Plinlimmon moors with larch—then, in due hour of year,
some amateur reaping and threshing?

"Nay, we reap and thresh by steam in these advanced days."

I know it, my wise and economical friends. The stout arms God gave you to win your
bread by, you would fain shoot your neighbours—and God's sweet singers—
with; 112 then you invoke the friends to your farm-service, and—

"When young and old come forth to playOn a sulphurous holiday,Tell how the darling
goblin sweat(His feast of cinders duly set),And belching night, where breathed the
morn.His shadowy flail hath threshed the cornThat ten day-labourers could not end."

But we will press the example closer. On a green knoll above that plain of the Arve,
between Cluses and Bonneville, there was, in the year 1860, a cottage, inhabited by
a well-doing family—man and wife, three children, and the grandmother. I call it a
cottage but, in truth, it was a large chimney on the ground, wide at the bottom (so
that the family might live round the fire), with one broken window in it, and an
unclosing door. The family, I say, was "well-doing," at least, it was hopeful and
cheerful; the wife healthy, the children, for Savoyards, pretty and active, but the
husband threatened with decline, from exposure under the cliffs of the Mont Vergi by

112
Compare Chaucer's feeling respecting birds (from Canace's falcon, to the nightingale, singing
"Domine labia "—to the Lord of Love) with the usual modern British sentiments on this subject. Or
even Cowley's:—
"What prince's choir of music can excel
That which within this shade does dwell.
To which we nothing pay, or give,
They, like all other poets, live
Without reward, or thanks for their obliging pains!
'Tis well if they became not prey."
Yes; it is better than well; particularly since the seed sown by the wayside has been protected by the
peculiar appropriation of part of the church rates in our country parishes. See the remonstrance from
a "Country Parson," in the Times of June 4th (or 5th; the letter is dated June 3rd, 1862):—"I have
heard at a vestry meeting a good deal of higgling over a few shillings' outlay in cleaning the church;
but I have never heard any dissatisfaction expressed on account of the part of the rate which is
invested in fifty or 100 dozens of birds' heads."
 202

day, and to draughts between every plank of his chimney in the frosty nights. "Why
could he not plaster the chinks?" asks the practical reader. For the same reason that
your child cannot wash its face and hands till you have washed them many a day for
it, and will not wash them when it can, till you force it.

I passed this cottage often in my walks, had its window and door mended,
sometimes mended also a little the meal of sour bread and broth, and generally got
kind greeting and smile from the face of young or old; which greeting, this year,
narrowed itself into the half-recognizing stare of the elder child and the old woman's
tears; for the father and mother were both dead,—one of sickness, the other of
sorrow. It happened that I passed not alone, but with a companion, a practised
English joiner, who, while these people were dying of cold, had been employed from
six in the morning to six of the evening for two months, in fitting the panels without
nails, of a single door in a large house in London. Three days of his work taken, at
the right time, from the oak panels, and applied to the larch timbers, would have
saved these Savoyards' lives. He would have been maintained equally (I suppose
him equally paid for his work by the owner of the greater house, only the work not
consumed selfishly on his own walls;) and the two peasants, and eventually,
probably their children, saved.

There are, therefore, let me finally enforce and leave with the reader this broad
conclusion,—three things to be considered in employing any poor person. It is not
enough to give him employment. You must employ him first to produce useful things;
secondly, of the several (suppose equally useful) things he can equally well produce,
you must set him to make that which will cause him to lead the healthiest life; lastly,
of the things produced, it remains a question of wisdom and conscience how much
you are to take yourself, and how much to leave to others. A large quantity,
remember, unless you destroy it, must always be so left at one time or another; the
only questions you have to decide are, not what you will give, and what you will
keep, but when, and how, and to whom, you will give. The natural law of human life
is, of course, that in youth a man shall labour and lay by store for his old age, and
when age comes, should use what he has laid by, gradually slackening his toil, and
allowing himself more frank use of his store, taking care always to leave himself as
much as will surely suffice for him beyond any possible length of life. What he has
gained, or by tranquil and unanxious toil, continues to gain, more than is enough for
his own need, he ought so to administer, while he yet lives, as to see the good of it
again beginning in other hands; for thus he has himself the greatest sum of pleasure
from it, and faithfully uses his sagacity in its control. Whereas most men, it appears,
dislike the sight of their fortunes going out into service again, and say to
themselves,—"I can indeed nowise prevent this money from falling at last into the
hands of others, nor hinder the good of it, such as it is, from becoming theirs, not
mine; but at least let a merciful death save me from being a witness of their
satisfaction; and may God so far be gracious to me as to let no good come of any of
this money of mine before my eyes." Supposing this feeling unconquerable, the
 203

safest way of rationally indulging it would be for the capitalist at once to spend all his
fortune on himself, which might actually, in many cases, be quite the rightest as well
as the pleasantest thing to do, if he had just tastes and worthy passions. But,
whether for himself only, or through the hands and for the sake of others also, the
law of wise life is, that the maker of the money should also be the spender of it, and
spend it, approximately, all, before he dies; so that his true ambition as an economist
should be, to die, not as rich, but as poor, as possible, calculating the ebb tide of
possession in true and calm proportion to the ebb tide of life. Which law, checking
the wing of accumulative desire in the mid-volley, 113 and leading to peace of
possession and fulness of fruition in old age, is also wholesome in that by the
freedom of gift, together with present help and counsel, it at once endears and
dignifies age in the sight of youth, which then no longer strips the bodies of the dead,
but receives the grace of the living. Its chief use would (or will be, for men are indeed
capable of attaining to this much use for their reason), that some temperance and
measure will be put to the acquisitiveness of commerce. 114 For as things stand, a
man holds it his duty to be temperate in his food, and of his body, but for no duty to
be temperate in his riches, and of his mind. He sees that he ought not to waste his
youth and his flesh for luxury; but he will waste his age, and his soul, for money, and
think it no wrong, nor the delirium tremens of the intellect any evil. But the law of life
is, that a man should fix the sum he desires to make annually, as the food he desires
to eat daily; and stay when he has reached the limit, refusing increase of business,
and leaving it to others, so obtaining due freedom of time for better thoughts. How
the gluttony of business is punished, a bill of health for the principals of the richest
city houses, issued annually, would show in a sufficiently impressive manner.

I know, of course, that these statements will be received by the modern merchant, as
an active Border rider of the sixteenth century would have heard of its being proper
for men of the Marches to get their living by the spade instead of the spur. But my
business is only to state veracities and necessities; I neither look for the acceptance
of the one, nor promise anything for the nearness of the other. Near or distant, the
day will assuredly come when the merchants of a state shall be its true "ministers of
exchange," its porters, in the double sense of carriers and gate-keepers, bringing all
lands into frank and faithful communication, and knowing for their master of guild,
Hermes the herald, instead of Mercury the gain-guarder.

And now, finally, for immediate rule to whom it concerns.

113
καὶ πενίαν ἡγουμένους εἷναι μὴ τὸ τὴν οὐσίαν ἐλάττω ποιεῖν, ἀλλὰ τὸ τήν ἀπληστίαν πλείω.—
"Laws," v. 8.
Read the context and compare. "He who spends for all that is noble, and gains by nothing but what is
just, will hardly be notably wealthy, or distressfully poor."—"Laws," v. 42
114
The fury of modern trade arises chiefly out of the possibility of making sudden fortune by largeness
of transaction, and accident of discovery or contrivance. I have no doubt that the final interest of every
nation is to check the action of these commercial lotteries. But speculation absolute, unconnected
with commercial effort, is an unmitigated evil in a state, and the root of countless evils beside.
 204

The distress of any population means that they need food, houseroom, clothes, and
fuel. You can never, therefore, be wrong in employing any labourer to produce
food, houseroom, clothes, or fuel: but you are always wrong if you employ him to
produce nothing (for then some other labourer must be worked double time to feed
him); and you are generally wrong, at present, if you employ him (unless he can do
nothing else) to produce works of art, or luxuries; because modern art is mostly on a
false basis, and modern luxury is criminally great. 115

The way to produce more food is mainly to bring in fresh ground, and increase
facilities of carriage;—to break rock, exchange earth, drain the moist, and water the
dry, to mend roads, and build harbours of refuge. Taxation thus spent will annihilate
taxation, but spent in war, it annihilates revenue.

The way to produce houseroom is to apply your force first to the humbler dwellings.
When your bricklayers are out of employ, do not build splendid new streets, but
better the old ones: send your paviours and slaters to the poorest villages, and see
that your poor are healthily lodged before you try your hand on stately architecture.
You will find its stateliness rise better under the trowel afterwards; and we do not yet
build so well as that we need hasten to display our skill to future ages. Had the
labour which has decorated the Houses of Parliament filled, instead, rents in walls
and roofs throughout the county of Middlesex; and our deputies met to talk within
massive walls that would have needed no stucco for five hundred years,—the
decoration might have been better afterwards, and the talk now. And touching even
our highly conscientious church building, it may be well to remember that in the best
days of church plans, their masons called themselves "logeurs du bon Dieu;" and
that since, according to the most trusted reports, God spends a good deal of His time
in cottages as well as in churches, He might perhaps like to be a little better lodged
there also.

The way to get more clothes is,—not necessarily, to get more cotton. There were
words written twenty years ago which would have saved many of us some shivering
had they been minded in time. Shall we read them?
115
It is especially necessary that the reader should keep his mind fixed on the methods of
consumption and destruction, as the true sources of national poverty. Men are apt to watch rather the
exchanges in a state than its damages; but the exchanges are only of importance so far as they bring
about these last. A large number of the purchases made by the richer classes are mere forms of
interchange of unused property, wholly without effect on national prosperity. It matters nothing to the
state, whether if a china pipkin be rated as worth a hundred pounds, A has the pipkin, and B the
pounds, or A the pounds and B the pipkin. But if the pipkin is pretty, and A or B breaks it, there is
national loss; not otherwise. So again, when the loss has really taken place, no shifting of the
shoulders that bear it will do away with the fact of it. There is an intensely ludicrous notion in the
public mind respecting the abolishment of debt by denying it. When a debt is denied, the lender loses
instead of the borrower, that is all; the loss is precisely, accurately, everlastingly the same. The
Americans borrow money to spend in blowing up their own houses. They deny their debt; by one third
already, gold being at fifty premium; and will probably deny it wholly. That merely means that the
holders of the notes are to be the losers instead of the issuers. The quantity of loss is precisely equal,
and irrevocable; it is the quantity of human industry spent in explosion, plus the quantity of goods
exploded. Honour only decides who shall pay the sum lost, not whether it is to be paid or not. Paid it
must be and to the uttermost farthing.
 205

"The Continental people, it would seem, are 'importing our machinery, beginning to
spin cotton and manufacture for themselves, to cut us out of this market and then out
of that!' Sad news indeed; but irremediable;—by no means. The saddest news is,
that we should find our National Existence, as I sometimes hear it said, depend on
selling manufactured cotton at a farthing an ell cheaper than any other People. A
most narrow stand for a great Nation to base itself on! A stand which, with all the
Corn-Law Abrogations conceivable, I do not think will be capable of enduring.

"My friends, suppose we quitted that stand; suppose we came honestly down from it
and said: 'This is our minimum cotton-prices. We care not, for the present, to make
cotton any cheaper. Do you, if it seem so blessed to you, make cotton cheaper. Fill
your lungs with cotton-fuzz, your hearts with copperas-fumes, with rage and mutiny;
become ye the general gnomes of Europe, slaves of the lamp!' I admire a Nation
which fancies it will die if it do not undersell all other Nations, to the end of the world.
Brothers, we will cease to undersell them; we will be content to equal-sell them; to be
happy selling equally with them! I do not see the use of underselling them. Cotton-
cloth is already two-pence a yard or lower; and yet bare backs were never more
numerous among us. Let inventive men cease to spend their existence incessantly
contriving how cotton can be made cheaper; and try to invent, a little, how cotton at
its present cheapness could be somewhat justlier divided among us. Let inventive
men consider, Whether the Secret of this Universe, and of Man's Life there, does,
after all, as we rashly fancy it, consist in making money?... With a Hell which
means—'Failing to make money,' I do not think there is any Heaven possible that
would suit one well; nor so much as an Earth that can be habitable long! In brief, all
this Mammon-Gospel of Supply-and-demand, Competition, Laissez-faire, and Devil
take the hindmost" (foremost, is it not, rather, Mr. Carlyle?) "begins to be one of the
shabbiest Gospels ever preached." (In the matter of clothes, decidedly.) The way to
produce more fuel is first to make your coal mines safer, by sinking more shafts; then
set all your convicts to work in them, and if, as is to be hoped, you succeed in
diminishing the supply of that sort of labourer, consider what means there may be,
first of growing forest where its growth will improve climate; then of splintering the
forests which now make continents of fruitful land pathless and poisonous, into
faggots for fire;—so gaining at once dominion sunwards and icewards. Your steam
power has been given you (you will find eventually) for work such as that; and not for
excursion trains, to give the labourer a moment's breath, at the peril of his breath for
ever, from amidst the cities which you have crushed into masses of corruption. When
you know how to build cities, and how to rule them, you will be able to breathe in
their streets, and the "excursion" will be the afternoon's walk or game in the fields
round them. Long ago, Claudian's peasant of Verona knew, and we must yet learn,
in his fashion, the difference between via and vita. But nothing of this work will pay.

No; no more than it pays to dust your rooms or wash your doorsteps. It will pay; not
at first in currency, but in that which is the end and the source of currency,—in life
(and in currency richly afterwards). It will pay in that which is more than life,—in
 206

"God's first creature, which was light," whose true price has not yet been reckoned in
any currency, and yet into the image of which all wealth, one way or other, must be
cast. For your riches must either as the lightning, which,

"begot but in a cloud,Though shining bright, and speaking loud,Whilst it begins,

concludes its violent race,And, where it gilds, it wounds the place;"

or else as the lightning of the sacred sign, which shines from one part of the heaven
to the other. There is no other choice; you must either take dust for deity, spectre for
possession, fettered dream for life, and for epitaph, this reversed verse of the great
Hebrew hymn of economy (Psalm cxii.):—"He hath gathered together, he hath
stripped the poor, his iniquity remaineth for ever." Or else, having the sun for justice
to shine on you, and the sincere substance of good in your possession, and the pure
law and liberty of life within you, leave men to write this better legend over your
grave: "He hath dispersed abroad. He hath given to the poor. His righteousness
remaineth for ever."

********************************************

The present paper completes the definitions necessary for future service. The next in
order will be the first chapter of the body of the work.

These introductory essays are as yet in imperfect form; I suffer them to appear,
though they were not intended for immediate publication, for the sake of such
chance service as may be found in them.

[Here the author indicated certain corrections, which have been carried out in this
edition. He then went on to say that the note on Charis (p. 274) required a word or
two in further illustration, as follows:—]

The derivation of words is like that of rivers: there is one real source, usually small,
unlikely, and difficult to find, far up among the hills; then, as the word flows on and
comes into service, it takes in the force of other words from other sources, and
becomes itself quite another word—even more than one word, after the junction—a
word as it were of many waters, sometimes both sweet and bitter. Thus the whole
force of our English "charity" depends on the guttural in "Charis" getting confused
with the "c" of the Latin "carus;" thenceforward throughout the middle ages, the two
ideas ran on together, and both got confused with St. Paul's ὰγάπη, which expresses
a different idea in all sorts of ways; our "charity," having not only brought in the
entirely foreign sense of almsgiving, but lost the essential sense of contentment, and
lost much more in getting too far away from the "charis," of the final Gospel
benedictions. For truly it is fine Christianity we have come to, which professing to
expect the perpetual grace of its Founder, has not itself grace enough to save it from
overreaching its friends in sixpenny bargains; and which, supplicating evening and
morning the forgiveness of its own debts, goes forth in the daytime to take its fellow-
 207

servants by the throat, saying—not "Pay me that thou owest," but "Pay me that thou
owest me not."

Not but that we sometimes wear Ophelia's rue with a difference, and call it, "Herb o'
grace o' Sundays," taking consolation out of the offertory with—"Look, what he layeth
out, it shall be paid him again." Comfortable words, indeed, and good to set against
the old royalty of Largesse—

"Whose moste joie was, I wis,When that she gave, and said, 'Have this.'"

Again: the first root of the word faith being far away in——(compare my note on this
force of it in "Modern Painters," vol. v., p. 255), the Latins, as proved by Cicero's
derivation of the word, got their "facio," also involved in the idea; and so the word,
and the world with it, gradually lose themselves in an arachnoid web of disputation
concerning faith and works, no one ever taking the pains to limit the meaning of the
term: which in earliest Scriptural use is as nearly as possible our English
"obedience." Then the Latin "fides," a quite different word, alternately active and
passive in different uses, runs into "foi;" "facere," through "ficare," into "fier," at the
end of words; and "fidere," into "fier" absolute; and out of this endless reticulation of
thought and word rise still more finely reticulated theories concerning salvation by
faith—the things which the populace expected to be saved from, being indeed
carved for them in a very graphic manner in their cathedral porches, but the things
they were expected to believe being carved for them not so clearly.

Lastly I debated with myself whether to make the note on Homer longer by
examining the typical meaning of the shipwreck of Ulysses, and his escape from
Charybdis by help of her fig-tree; but as I should have had to go on to the lovely
myth of Leucothea's veil, and did not care to spoil this by a hurried account of it, I left
it for future examination; and three days after the paper was published, observed
that the reviewers, with their usual useful ingenuity, were endeavouring to throw the
whole subject back into confusion by dwelling on the single (as they imagined)
oversight. I omitted also a note on the sense of the word λυγρὸν, with respect to the
pharmacy of Circe, and herb-fields of Helen (compare its use in Odyssey, xvii. 473,
etc.), which would further have illustrated the nature of the Circean power. But, not to
be led too far into the subtleness of these myths, respecting them all I have but this
to say: Even in very simple parables, it is not always easy to attach indisputable
meaning to every part of them. I recollect some years ago, throwing an assembly of
learned persons who had met to delight themselves with interpretations of the
parable of the prodigal son (interpretations which had up to that moment gone very
smoothly) into high indignation, by inadvertently asking who the prodigal son was,
and what was to be learned by his example. The leading divine of the company (still
one of our great popular preachers) at last explained to me that the unprodigal son
was a lay figure, put in for dramatic effect, to make the story prettier, and that no
note was to be taken of him. Without, however, admitting that Homer put in the last
escape of Ulysses merely to make his story prettier, this is nevertheless true of all
 208

Greek myths, that they have many opposite lights and shades: they are as changeful
as opal and, like opal, usually have one colour by reflected, and another by
transmitted, light. But they are true jewels for all that, and full of noble enchantment
for those who can use them; for those who cannot, I am content to repeat the words I
wrote four years ago, in the appendix to the "Two Paths"—

"The entire purpose of a great thinker may be difficult to fathom, and we may be over
and over again more or less mistaken in guessing at his meaning; but the real,
profound, nay, quite bottomless and unredeemable mistake, is the fool's thought,
that he had no meaning."

A quick note: Hi! I'm Julie, the woman who runs Global Grey - the website
where this ebook was published for free. These are my own editions, and I
hope you enjoyed reading this particular one. To support the site, and to allow
me to continue offering these quality (and completely free) ebooks, please
think about donating a small amount (if you already have - thank you!). It helps
with the site costs, and any amount is appreciated.

Thanks for reading this and I really hope you visit Global Grey again - new
books are added regularly so you'll always find something of interest :)