Two lectures on the conditions of health and wealth educationally considered / by W.B. Hodgson.

  • Hodgson, W. B. (William Ballantyne), 1815-1880.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Two lectures on the conditions of health and wealth educationally considered / by W.B. Hodgson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    can avert for the future, or materially alleviate for the present. Closely related to this fallacy, and indeed but- a branch of the same stem, is the notion that it is the business of economic science to expound great and unrelenting laws, by the opera- tion of which—quite irrespective of human will, intelligence, or ignorance—human affairs in the economic sphere are ruled; and that it is virtually as far removed from human interfer- ence, and, consequently, from direct human interest, as is astronomy, the science of the stars, whose course man may study, and even comprehend, but cannot quicken, retard, or change. Economists themselves may have given, against their wish, or at least without intention, some countenance to this delusion, by such phrases as, “ Supply and demand re- semble the ebb and flow of the tide,” and “ Prices find their level as water finds itsjust as if human wishes, feelings, fancies, had as little concern in affecting demand and supply, the rise and fall of prices, as they have in regulating the flux and reflux of the sea. Such an elliptical form of speech as this : “ Scarcity raises, and abundance lowers prices,” is apt to hide the fact, that it is not scarcity, but the mental convic- tion or apprehension, well or ill founded, of scarcity, that raises prices; that it is not abundance, but the wadi or ill founded belief in, or expectation of, abundance, that lowers prices ;* * and so on throughout the whole range of economic phenomena, the operation of human, that is, of individual motive, will, character, and conduct, enlightened or unen- lightened, w'ell or ill directed, has been obscured ; j- and the dependence of general results on these has been too much for- gotten, or, at least, practically neglected. As an example, a recent writer in the London News re- marks :— * “The Times' City Article of 5th March says :—‘ The publication of the despatch of the French Foreign Minister on the affairs of Italy, &c.. caused the English funds to open with much heaviness, at a further decline.’ ”—Scotsman, 7th March 1860. How wide a gap between the effect and its alleged cause ! f “ David Ilume, however, with his usual clearness, says of the * drain of specie,’— * We need not have recourse to a physical attraction, in order to explain the necessity of this operation. There is a moral attraction, arising from the interests and passions of men, which is full as potent and infallible.’ ”—Essays, vol. i. pp. 283, 1788. Balance of Trade.