the form or different the intensity of its manifestation. It guides us all from the cradle to the grave. It may be restricted within certain limits, but never entirely extinguished. It is, in the domain of economy, what the instinct of self-preservation is to our physical existence, a powerful principle of creation, preservation and of renewed life (I. Thessal., 4, 11, seq.). Then there is the incentive of the demand of God's voice within us, the voice of conscience, whether we call it, in philosophic outline "the adumbration of the ideas of equity, right, benevolence, of perfection and inner freedom," or, framing our lives in accordance with them, the striving after the Kingdom of God. It matters not, how much the image of God may have been disfigured in most men, there is no one in whom the longing for it has so far disappeared as to leave no trace behind. This puts bounds to our self-interest, and

3 Knies, in his Polit. Ekonomie vom geschichtl. Standpunkte, 1853, p. 160 ff., shows, very happily, how the love of one's self, which must, indeed, be distinguished from self-seeking-is not in conflict with the love of one's neighbor; but that, in healthy natures, it is found allied with a feeling of equity, and of the common good. See, also, F. Fuoco, Saggi economici, Pisa, 1825, Nr. 7. Schütz, Das sittliche Element in der Volswirthschaft: Tübinger Zeitschrift für Staatswissensch. 1844, p. 132, ff.

4 "That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him.” (Acts, 17, 27. Compare Matthew, 6: 33, also I. Timothy, 5:8.) Adam Müller in his Nothwendigkeit einer theolog. Grundlage, 49 seq., is a strong advocate of all this, but a rather narrow one. The farmer, he says, should first work for the love of God, then for the fruit, that is, for the gross product, and lastly for the net product. His work is a trust. Müller considers the business relations of men, as they exist at present, as "the comfortless mutual slavery of all." (Nothwendigkeit einer theolog. Grundlage, 49 ff.) The economist, Ch. Perin, who writes from the Catholic politico-economical standpoint, substitutes for conscience, renoncement, as the force antagonistic to intérêt, an expression inappropriate, because merely negative, although in perfect harmony with the ascetic religiousness of the middle ages. (De la Richesse dans les Sociétiés chrétiennes, 1861, II vol., passim.) Compare Roscher in Gelzer's Protestant. Monatsblättern, Jan. 1863. Puchta, Institutionen, I, f. 8, opposes to individualism—or the impulse to distinguish ourselves from others, and which, when uncontrolled, leads to egotism, pride and hate-love and right, which are controlling powers over the former.

transmutes it into an earthly means to enable us to approximate to an eternal ideal.

As, in the structure of the world, the apparently opposing tendencies of the centrifugal and centripetal forces produce the harmony of the spheres, so, in the social life of man, selfinterest and conscience produce in him the feeling for the common good. This sentiment of the common interest is the foundation on which rise in successive gradation, the life of the family, of the community, of the nation and of humanity, the last of which should be coincident with the life of the Church. It, alone, can realize the kingdom of heaven on earth. Through this sentiment alone can religion be made active and moral. Only through it, can self-interest be made really sure and always to the purpose. Even the most calculating mind must acknowledge, that numberless institutions, relations etc., are useful and even necessary to many individuals, which can be established or maintained only from a sense of the general welfare, for the reason that no one individual could make the sacrifice required to establish or maintain them. And so, since commerce has wrought the interests of all men into one great piece of net-work, the best means of obtaining wherewith to satisfy our own wants is to help others satisfy theirs. Selfinterest causes every one to choose the course in life in which he shall meet with the least competition and the most abundant patronage; in other words, that which answers to the most pressing and least satisfied want of the community. As a rule, the physician who cures the greatest number of patients with the greatest skill, and the manufacturer who produces the best goods cheapest, will grow to be the richest. It is, moreover, easy to see that, according as the circle of common interests grows smaller, it approximates to self-interest; and

Even the ancients conceived Eros as a world-building principle. Accord ing to Schön's expression, loc. cit., which it is not difficult to misconstrue, the feeling of the common interest manifests itself, both as law and force. And, in reality, it is necessary that, in order not to permit the drowsy con

to "the Kingdom of God" as it grows larger. And yet, all these circles respectively condition one another. Cosmopolitanism or church-zeal, without love of country; patriotism, without fidelity to the community in which one lives, or love of one's family, are more than suspicious. The reverse is also true. This is a chief connecting link between the great apparent opposites.7 8

science to fall too far behind self-interest, which is always awake, it should create lasting institutions and regulations above and beyond the caprice of the individual or of the moment; for instance, in the family, marriage, education etc.

The more private interest ceases to be momentary, and becomes lifelong and even hereditary, the better does it harmonize with the feeling of the common interest.

'Perin says (1, 93), that the conflict of interest is reconciled in the seeking for the attainment of the supreme good, that is God, "who gives himself to all in equal measure, and yet always remains the same, and out of whose fulness all may draw, and yet no one's share grows less." But the same is true of all ideal goods, and of every form of the feeling for the common interest, the highest of which is, indeed, religiousness.

8 According to Kant, Anthropologie, p. 239, the desire of comfort and well-being, and the inclination to virtue, when the former is properly restrained by the latter, produce the highest degree of moral, united to the highest degree of physical, good. It is well known, that during the middle ages, in all countries except Italy and, even up to the seventeenth century, the moral sciences were under a one-sided theological influence, whose ascetic condemnation of self-interest may have been well enough during a period of violence. By virtue of a very natural reaction, and as a protest of individualism against the constraint of absolute monarchy, the materialists of the eighteenth century endeavored to discover, even in the most exalted phenomena of human society, only the expression of an enlightened selfinterest. See Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, or private Vices public Virtues (1723), but especially, Helvétius, De l'Esprit (1758). Voltaire says, that, in all the celebrated maxims of De Rochefoucauld (1665) there is but one truth contained, que l'amour propre est le mobile de toutes nos actions. (But see, per contra, Pufendorf, Jus Naturæ et Gentium, 1672, II, 3, 15.) This tendency was opposed, especially by the English, who could not be blind to the influence exerted in public life by the feeling for the common good. David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature (1739), III, 54, is of opinion that the interests of others are, on the whole, in the case of nearly every man stronger than even his own self interest. Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy (1755), speaks of the innate principle of benevolence. Man is not a perfect

SECTION XII.

ECONOMY.-GRADES OF ECONOMY.

Thanks to this feeling for the common weal, the eternal and destructive war- the bellum omnium contra omnes- which an unscrupulous self-interest would not fail to generate among men engaged in the isolated prosecution of their own economic interests, ceases in the higher, well-ordered organization1 of society. On it are based the various forms of economy in common: family-economy, corporation or association-economy,

whole; a part belongs to his own person, part to his family, part to the nation, part even to all humanity. Burke, Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), distinguishes two fundamental principles of action, that of self-preservation and that of society. On the former is based the sense of the sublime; on the latter, of the beautiful. According to Ferguson, History of Civil Society, (1767), I, 3, 4, the "sense of union" is frequently strongest where the advantage drawn from the connection is smallest; for instance, it is weakest in highly cultured commercial countries. Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1768), has been as one-sided in reducing everything to "sympathy," as he has been in his Wealth of Nations in reducing everything to "self-interest;" but not without the consciousness, that to explain the reality, it is necessary to take both into consideration (Buckle). It would, indeed, be just as preposterous to base economy on self-interest alone, as to base marriage merely on the sexual appetite. Recently, Hermann, Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen, Ist ed., part 1st, discovers in self-interest, and in the feeling for the common good, the two springs of all economy. He would even base the so-called theoretic Political Economy, on the study of self-interest, its practice in that of the common good. M. Chevalier, Cours d'Economie politique, 1844, II, 412 ff., understands something very like this by the contrast between liberty and centralization. The antagonisme and association of Bazard, Exposition de la Doctrine de Saint Simon (1829), p. 144 ff. Closer investigation will show, however, that self-interest, which must not be confounded with egotism, and the common interest, are neither coördinate nor exhaustive opposites. Compare the beautiful contrast drawn by Goethe (Pocket edition of 1833, vol. 46, 97), between "Pietät" and "Egoisterei."

1 1 Paul, I. Corinth. 12, gives the most beautiful model description of a social organism. Compare, however, the fable of Menenius Agrippa in Livy, II, 32.

municipal economy, and national economy. And these forms of economy in common are so essentially the condition and complement of individual economy, that the latter, without them, could either not be maintained at all, or, at least, only in the very lowest stage of civilization.

Although the higher science of Political Economy has, nearly always, been conceived3 as treating of the aggregate national activity of a people, there have been many, recently, who consider Political Economy as no real whole, but only as a mere abstraction. This is true, especially of many unconditional free-trade theorizers, partly from a repugnance toward the governmental guardianship of private businesses or economy. It is true, also, of certain philosophers who consider the idea, "the people," as merely nominal. There are, how

"Excellent beginnings of a general theory of economies in common in Schäffle, N. Ekonomie, II, Aufl., 62 ff., 331 ff.

The French and English, with their strong political bias, use the expres sions respectively economie politique and Political Economy. In Germany, where the terms the people (Volk) and the state (Staat) are much less nearly coextensive, the words Volkswirthschaft and Nationalökonomie are preferred. But even Hufeland, who first gave currency to the term Volkswirthschaft (Grundlegung, I, 14), called attention to the peculiarity "that the term economy suggests that there is one who economizes and guides, an economist in chief, and that such a one is, even according to the most correct opinion, wanting in the public economy of a people.

4 According to Th. Cooper, Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy, (1126), 1, 15 ff. 117, the wealth of society is nothing but the aggregate wealth of all the individuals that compose it. Each individual looks out best for his own interests, and, hence, that nation must be the richest, in which each individual is most completely left to himself. (If this were so, savage nations would be the richest!) Cooper goes so far as to disapprove of the protection afforded to commerce on the high seas by a national navy; no naval war is worth what it costs, and merchants should protect themselves. He says, too, that the word "nation" is an invention of the grammarians, made to save the trouble of circumlocution, a nonentity! Adam Smith is, as might be expected, far removed from such absurdities. (Compare Wealth of Nations, IV, ch. 2, and the end of the fourth book.) But, even he is of opinion that men, in the study of their own advantage are led "naturally, or rather necessarily" (IV, ch. 2), to the employment which is most useful to society. But here Adam Smith overlooks the fact, that every individual nation strives after earth