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CHAPTER X

Political Economy and the Science of Government

This is that noble Science of Politics, which is equally removed from the barren theories of the utilitarian sophists, and from the petty craft, so often mistaken for statesmanship by minds grown narrow in habits of intrigue, jobbing, and official etiquette, – which of all sciences is the most important to the welfare of nations, – which of all sciences most tends to expand and invigorate the mind, – which draws nutriment and ornament from every part of philosophy and literature, and dispenses in return nutriment and ornament to all. – Macaulay.

TO the student of Political Economy and the Science of Government I offer the following lists of books, embracing the best works on the various subjects connected with this study. The classification has been made solely with reference to the subject-matter, without any attempt to indicate the order in which the books are to be studied, – as this would be impossible.

Constitutional History, etc

Freeman: Growth of the English Constitution.

Creasy: Rise and Progress of the English Constitution.

Stubbs: Constitutional History of England.

Hallam: Constitutional History of England (1485-1759).

Curtis: History of the Constitution of the United States.

Von Holst: Constitutional History of the United States.

De Tocqueville: Democracy in the United States.

Townsend: Analysis of Civil Government.

Nordhoff: Politics for Young Americans.

Andrews: Manual of the United States Constitution.

Mulford: The Nation.

Story: Familiar Exposition of the United States Constitution.

Bancroft: History of the United States (vol. xi.).

Amos: The Science of Politics.

General Works on Political Economy

Perry: An Introduction To Political Economy.

Jevons: A Primer of Political Economy.

Fawcett: A Manual of Political Economy.

John Stuart Mill: Principles of Political Economy (People’s edition).

Cairnes: Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded.

Walker: The Elements of Political Economy.

Perry: Elements of Political Economy.

Bastiat: Essays on Political Economy.

Bowen: American Political Economy.

Mason and Lalor: Primer of Political Economy.

On Population

Malthus: The Principles of Population.

Mr. Malthus’s doctrines are opposed in the following works —

Godwin: On Population (1820).

Sadler: The Law of Population (1830).

Alison: The Principles of Population, and their Connection with Human Happiness (1840).

Doubleday: The True Law of Population shown to be connected with the Food of the People (1854).

Herbert Spencer: The Principles of Biology (vol. ii.).

Rickards: Population and Capital (1854).

Greg: Enigmas of Life (1872).

The Malthusian doctrine is supported wholly or in part by —

Macaulay, in his Essay on Sadler’s Law of Population;

Rev. Thomas Chalmers, in Political Economy in connection with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society;

David Ricardo, in Principles of Political Economy; and some other writers. See, also, Roscher’s Political Economy.

On Wealth and Currency

Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Wealth.

Probably the most important book that has ever been written, and certainly the most valuable contribution ever made by a single man towards establishing the principles on which government should be based. – H. T. Buckle.

Jevons: Money and the Mechanism of Exchange.

A. Walker: The Science of Wealth.

F. A. Walker: Money.

Bagehot: Lombard Street; a Description of the Money Market.

Bonamy Price: Principles of Currency.

– Currency and Banking.

Chevalier: Essay on the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold (translated by Cobden).

Ricardo: Proposals for an Economical Currency.

Poor: Money; its Laws and History.

McCulloch: On Metallic and Paper Money, and Banks.

Newcomb: The A B C of Finance.

Wells: Robinson Crusoe’s Money.

Harvey: Paper Money, the Money of Civilization.

Sumner: History of American Currency.

Maclaren: History of the Currency.

Linderman: Money and Legal Tender of the United States.

Bolles: Financial History of the United States, from 1789 to 1860.

On Banking

Macleod: The Elements of Banking.

– Theory and Practice of Banking.

Bonamy Price: Currency and Banking.

Gibbons: The Banks of New York.

Atkinson: What is a Bank?

Gilbart: Principles and Practice of Banking.

Bagehot: Lombard Street.

Morse: Treatise on the Laws relating to Banks and Banking.

On Labor and Wages

Henry George: Progress and Poverty.

Mallock: Property and Progress.

Walker: Wages and the Wages Class.

Brassey: Work and Wages.

Jevons: The State in relation to Labor.

Jervis: Labor and Capital.

Thornton: On Labor; its Wrongful Claims and Rightful Dues.

Wright: A Practical Treatise on Labor.

Young: Labor in Europe and America.

Bolles: Conflict of Labor and Capital.

About: Hand-Book of Social Economy.

On Socialism and Co-operation

Nordhoff: Communistic Societies of the United States.

Noyes: History of American Socialism.

Ely: French and German Socialism in Modern Times.

Holyoake: History of Co-operation.

Woolsey: Socialism.

Barnard: Co-operation as a Business.

The student of socialism will doubtless be interested in reading some of the philosophical fictions and other works, written in various ages, describing fanciful or ideal communities and governments. The following are the best —

Plato’s Republic.

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia.

Bacon’s New Atlantis.

Hall’s Mundus Alter et Idem.

Harrington’s Oceana.

Defoe’s Essay on Projects.

Disraeli’s Coningsby, or the New Generation.

Bulwer’s The Coming Race.

On Taxation and Pauperism

Peto: Taxation; its Levy and Expenditure.

Cobden Club Essay, – On Local Government and Taxation.

Encyclopædia Britannica: The Article on Taxation.

Fawcett: Pauperism; its Causes and Remedies.

Sir George Nicholl: Histories of the English, Scotch, and Irish Poor Laws.

Lecky: History of European Morals (vol. ii.).

On the Tariff Question

The following works favor, more or less strongly, the doctrine of Free Trade —

Adam Smith: On the Wealth of Nations.

Walter: What is Free Trade?

Sumner: Lectures on the History of Protection in the United States.

Mongredien: History of the Free-Trade Movement.

Grosvenor: Does Protection Protect?

Bastiat: Sophisms of Protection.

Fawcett: Free Trade and Protection.

Butts: Protection and Free Trade.

The following are the most important works favoring Protection —

Horace Greeley: The Science of Political Economy.

E. Peshine Smith: A Manual of Political Economy.

R. E. Thompson: Social Science and National Economy.

H. C. Carey: Principles of Social Science.

Byles: Sophisms of Free Trade.

Works of Reference

McCulloch: Literature of Political Economy.

Macleod: A Dictionary of Political Economy, Biographical, Historical, and Practical.

Lalor: Cyclopædia of Political Science and Political Economy.

McCulloch: Dictionary of Commerce.

Tooke: History of Prices, 1793 to 1856.

Rogers: History of Agriculture and Prices in England.

CHAPTER XI

On the Practical Study of English Literature

The ocean of literature is without limit. How then shall we be able to perform a voyage, even to a moderate distance, if we waste our time in dalliance on the shore? Our only hope is in exertion. Let our only reward be that of industry. – Ringelbergius.

THE student of English literature has indeed embarked upon a limitless ocean. A lifetime of study will serve only to make him acquainted with parts of that great expanse which lies open before him. He should pursue his explorations earnestly, and with the inquiring spirit of a true discoverer. His thirst for knowledge should be unquenchable; he should long always for that mind food which brings the right kind of mind growth. He should not rest satisfied with merely superficial attainments, but should strive for that thoroughness of knowledge without which there can be neither excellence nor enjoyment.

English literature is not to be learned from manuals. They are only helps, – charts, buoys, light-houses, if you will call them so; or they serve to you the purposes of guide-books. What do you think of the would-be tourist who stays at home and studies his Baedeker with the foolish thought that he is actually seeing the countries which the book describes? And yet I have known students, and not a few teachers, do a thing equally as foolish. With a Morley, or a Shaw, or even a Brooke in their hands, and a few names and dates at their tongues’ ends, they imagine themselves viewing the great ocean of literature, ploughing its surface and exploring its depths, when in reality they are only wasting their time “in dalliance on the shore.”

English literature does not consist in a mere array of names and dates and short biographical sketches of men who have written books. Biography is biography; literature “is a record of the best thoughts.” But the former is frequently studied in place of the latter. “For once that we take down our Milton, and read a book of that ‘voice,’ as Wordsworth says, ‘whose sound is like the sea,’ we take up fifty times a magazine with something about Milton, or about Milton’s grandmother, or a book stuffed with curious facts about the houses in which he lived, and the juvenile ailments of his first wife.”²³ Instead of becoming acquainted at first hand with books in which are stored the energies of the past, we content ourselves with knowing only something about the men who wrote them. Instead of admiring with our own eyes the architectural beauties of St. Paul’s Cathedral, we read a biography of Sir Christopher Wren.

Again, it must be borne in mind that literature is one thing, and the history of literature is another. The study of the latter, however important, cannot be substituted for that of the former; yet it is not desirable to separate the two. To acquire any serviceable knowledge of a book, you will be greatly aided by knowing under what peculiar conditions it was conceived and produced, – the history of the country, the manners of the people, the status of morals and politics at the time it was written. Between history and literature there is a mutual relationship which should not be overlooked. “A book is the offspring of the aggregate intellect of humanity,” and it gives back to humanity, in the shape of new ideas and new combinations of old ideas, not only all that which it has derived from it, but more, – increased intellectual vitality, and springs of action hitherto unknown.

In the study of literature, one should begin with an author and with a subject not too difficult to understand. A beginner will be likely to find but little comfort in Chaucer or Spenser, or even in Emerson; but after he has worked up to them he may study them with unbounded delight. For a ready understanding and correct appreciation of the great masterpieces of English literature, a knowledge of Greek and Roman mythology and history is almost indispensable. The student will find the courses of historical reading given in a former chapter of this book of much value in supplementing his literary studies.

The great works of the world’s masterminds should be studied together, with reference to the similarity of their subject-matter. For example, the reading of Shakspeare will give occasion to the study of dramatic literature in all its forms; the reading of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” will introduce us to the great epics, and to heroic poetry in general; Sir Walter Scott’s “Lay of the Last Minstrel” will lead naturally to the romance literature of modern and mediæval times; Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” fitly illustrate the story-telling phase of poetry; the study of lyric poetry may centre around the old ballads, the poems of Robert Burns, and the religious hymns of our language; Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” introduces us to allegory, and Milton’s “Lycidas” to elegiac and pastoral poetry; and to know the best specimens of argumentative prose, we begin with the speeches of Daniel Webster and end with the orations of Demosthenes.

The following schemes for the study of different departments of English literature have been tested both with private students and with classes at school. Of course, many of the books mentioned are to be used chiefly as works of reference; some of them may be conveniently omitted in case it is desirable to abridge the course, and others may be exchanged for similar works upon the same subject.

An After Word

ERE let us face the last question of all: In the shade and valley of Life, on what shall we repose? When we must withdraw from the scenes which our own energies and agonies have somewhat helped to make glorious; when the windows are darkened, and the sound of the grinding is low, – where shall we find the beds of asphodel? Can any couch be more delectable than that amidst the Elysian leaves of Books? The occupations of the morning and the noon determine the affections, which will continue to seek their old nourishment when the grand climacteric has been reached.

The Author of “Hesperides.”