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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."

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. But they neither know who keeps the bank of the gambling-house, nor what other games may be played with the same cards.

Primarily, I observe that men of business rarely know the meaning of the word "rich." 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. Whereas riches are a power like that of electricity, acting only through inequalities or negations of itself.

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.

But mercantile economy, the economy of "merces" or of "pay," signifies the accumulation, in the hands of individuals, of 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.

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 advantage the labour of servant, tradesman, and artist.

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 beneficialness of the inequality depends, first, on the methods by which it was accomplished, and, secondly, on the purposes to which it is applied.

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 whole question respecting 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. Its real value depends on the moral sign attached to it. Some treasures are heavy with human tears, as an ill-stored harvest with untimely rain.

And therefore, the idea that directions can be given for the gaining of wealth, irrespectively of the consideration of its moral sources, 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 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?

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.

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. But power over human beings is attainable by other means than by money. 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.

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 that the persons themselves are the wealth — that these pieces of gold with which we guide them are nothing more than a kind of Byzantine harness 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 consummation of all wealth is in the producing as many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human creatures.