equal value, so it must be permitted us to attach different values to them. Nay more, we are justified in going beyond the decisions of the ancient church. Since we know that it was unable to proceed according to fixed principles and with profound insight, we who are in possession of these are permitted to put to proof as well their recognition of some books as their doubts concerning others. (g.) The necessity of text-criticism must appear to us still more urgent when we consider that since by reason of the corruptions and variations of the text, the basis upon which the exegetical exposition must proceed has been rendered unsafe, text-criticism must lay the foundation for interpretation. But here in a thousand cases, only a probability, not a certainty is reached. (h.) Through all the views and modes of thought peculiar to humanity in different nations and times, through the undeniably great difference in value and content among the different parts of the holy Scripture, through the unclassic language and through all the uncertainties and corruptions of the text, there yet shines forth clearly and unmistakably the unique and divine substance of the New Testament. The less we blind ourselves, therefore, to these defects, the more we give our full attention to them, as to the body in which this divine soul dwells, the less repugnance shall we feel towards the soul of this body, i. e., the divine element in Scripture, on account of its being delivered to us thus, as it were, in the form of a servant.

ARTICLE V.-UNRECOGNIZED FORCES IN POLITICAL

ECONOMY.

POLITICAL ECONOMY has much to gain in the way of popular favor. Practical men distrust it as theoretical and benevolent men call it unsympathetic. A majority of cultured persons know and care but little about the science which has to do with their daily bread. In so far as this results from ignorance and prejudice, time and increasing intelligence are the remedies; but the science itself may be responsible for a portion of it. There may be economic forces at work which have, as yet, received no adequate recognition; and, if these forces are not exceptional but regular, not mean but noble, if their effects are already great and promise to increase with time, the demand for their investigation is imperative. To show the existence of such forces and to point out some of them is the object of this paper.

Economic laws depend on the voluntary action of men, and the science therefore professes, in effect, to teach how men will act under given circumstances. The motives of human action are the ultimate determining forces, and a misconception as to the nature of these motives is liable to vitiate any conclusion thus attained. The accuracy of the conclusions of Political Economy depends on the correctness of its assumptions with regard to the nature of man. If man is not the being he is assumed to be, there is no certainty that the conclusions will be even approximately correct.

It is more than can be here undertaken, to prove, by the analysis of leading works, that the motives attributed to men have been, in fact, erroneous. That must be done by the reader for himself, by the study of the works themselves. It is, however, believed and asserted that a candid reading of the leading works on this subject will produce the conviction that the writers have troubled themselves very little with anthropological investigation. Their attention has been employed, and well employed, elsewhere. They have assumed, as the

basis of their science, a certain conception of man, and have employed their acuteness in determining what results will follow from the social labors of this assumed being. The premises have not been adequately verified; the system is, in so far, an ideal one, and it is, therefore, a matter of some chance whether its results are correct or not. Economic science has never been based on adequate anthropological study.

Inaccuracies in the science which result from inadequate conceptions of man are not to be rectified, as has been asserted, by a proper allowance for "disturbing forces." The actual course of a cannon ball may be determined by a mathematical computation followed by the proper allowance for atmospheric resistance; but the social activities of men can not be accurately determined by assuming that man is a being of a certain kind, elaborating the conclusions with nicety, and then endeavoring to introduce subsequent allowance for the fact that man is, after all, a being of quite a different kind. As Mr. Ruskin has well said, such disturbing forces are rather chemical than mechanical. "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 with our apparatus through the ceiling."

The only right course under such circumstances is to begin at the beginning and determine by investigation the nature of man, the subject under consideration; and this course should be adopted whether existing conclusions be true or false. The object is not so much to attain different results from those already reached, as to attain the same ones by a more legiti mate method. The process which changes some false results will verify many true ones. The image which the scientist has constructed as the subject of his discussion may or may not resemble the man whom God has created; the latter only is the true subject of Political Economy. The science, which has rested on a temporary blocking of assumption, needs to be built on a permanent foundation of anthropological fact.

Having determined the fact that the man of whom the Economy of the past has treated is largely the creature of assumption, consideration will farther develope the fact that the

assumed man does not, in fact, resemble the real one in several important respects, and that there is not only a possibility, but a moral certainty that some erroneous conclusions have resulted from this discrepancy. The assumed man is too mechanical and too selfish to correspond with the reality; he is actuated altogether too little by higher psychological forces. What is true of a laboring machine requiring only to be housed, fed, and supplied with fuel as a motive power, a creature actuated only by selfish motives, and scarcely conscious of spiritual forces, will certainly not be altogether true of a laboring man in modern society.

The recognition of the inadequate basis on which the traditional economic system rests and of the too theoretical character of its methods has led, in Germany, to the originating of a new method of treatment, in which the laws of Wealth are founded rather on recorded facts than upon assumption and deductive reasoning. The new method is termed the "Historical," and the old, in distinction, the "Ideal." So complete a change of method may not be necessary. It is on its anthropological side that the traditional science is chiefly defective, and, by adequate studies in this direction, results may be attained which History will verify. A broad field is thus opened for occupation. The first steps may be slow; it is easier to view a promised land from a mountain top than to capture it from the Canaanites. The richness of the soil is not to be estimated by the first results of its culture; what is thus gained is not the decreasing harvest of an exhausted field but the first sod-crop of a new one.

What is here attempted is rather to point out this field than to occupy it to any appreciable extent. The little that is done in the latter direction is scarcely more than an illustration of the foregoing statements. It is proposed to consider certain facts relative to the nature of man, selecting those which do not require careful investigation, and which need only to be stated to be admitted, and then to apply these facts to some familiar questions of Political Economy. If any light is thus thrown on questions now in doubt, if any new starting-point seems to be attained for future investigation, or if any modification results in economic principles as now understood, much

greater and more valuable results may be expected from more extended inquiry. The simpler and more obvious the anthropological facts here cited, and the more familiar the economic. questions to which they are applied, the stronger is the inference as to the ultimate value of completer anthropological studies. Such studies would give a new character to Political Economy; they would verify its truths, correct its errors, impart to it a kindly and sympathetic quality, and elevate it to a recognition of those higher soul-forces which it has heretofore practically ignored.

Political Economy treats of man, not as he was created, but as he has become by ages of social development. An organism is a structure in which each part exists and acts not for itself, but for the whole. Social development means the uniting of mankind in an organism of which the individual man, the highest of simple organisms, is the molecule. Division of labor is the differentiation of parts in the social organism, and, by its greater or less degree, marks, as in the animal kingdom, the grade which the organism has attained. The higher the organism, the greater is the differentiation. The individual man, the molecule of the system, becomes transformed in his entire nature by this unifying process. The simple organism is made in every way higher and better by becoming a part of the social organism. The changes which take place in the individual differ, in the case of different ones, according to the position which each assumes in the organic whole, and social distinctions arise, which are not the result of ignorance or pride, but are founded on fundamental distinctions of social function. The individual man who, in the development of society, becomes a molecule of the brain of the social organism undergoes widely different modifications in his own nature from those experienced by the man who, in society, is simply a molecule of the nutritive organ. The scientist differs in mental and physical development from the tiller of the soil. So-called differences of social position have their true foundation in differences of function in the social organism, and are accompanied by real differences in the individual.

Low organisms of every sort have few and simple wants. Low social organisms, the mollusks and radiates of the social