It is not only on the question of method, but still more on the question of aim, that Sismondi finds himself in opposition to the Classical school. To them political economy was the science of wealth, or chrematistics, as Aristotle called it. But the real object of the science should be man, or at least the physical well-being of man. To consider wealth by itself and to forget man was a sure way of making a false start.[384] This is why he gave such prominence to a theory of distribution alongside of the theory of production, which had received the exclusive attention of the Classical writers. The Classical school, it is true, might have retorted that they gave first place to production because the multiplication of products was a _sine qua non_ of all progress in distribution. But Sismondi regarded it otherwise. Wealth only deserves the name when it is proportionately distributed. He could not conceive of an abstract treatment of distribution, and consequently could not appreciate it. In his own treatment of distribution he devoted a special section to the “poor,” who live by their labour and toil from morn till eve in field or workshop. They form the bulk of our population, and the changes wrought in their way of life by the invention of machinery, the freedom of competition, and the _régime_ of private property was what interested him most. “Political economy at its widest,” he says, “is a theory of charity, and any theory that upon last analysis has not the result of increasing the happiness of mankind does not belong to the science at all.”[385] What really interested Sismondi was not so much what is called political economy, but what has since become known as _économie sociale_ in France and _Sozialpolitik_ in Germany. His originality, so far as the history of doctrines is concerned, consisted in his having originated this study. J. B. Say scorned his definitions, so different were they from his own. “M. de Sismondi refers to political economy as the science charged with guarding the happiness of mankind. What he wishes to say is that it is the science a knowledge of which ought to be possessed by all those who are concerned with human welfare. Rulers who wish to be worthy of their positions ought to be acquainted with the study, but the happiness of mankind would be much jeopardised if, instead of trusting to the intelligence and industry of the ordinary citizen, we trusted to governments.”[386] And he adds: “The greater number of German writers, by following the false notions spread by the Colbertian system, have come to regard political economy as being purely a science of administration.” II: SISMONDI’S CRITICISM OF OVER-PRODUCTION AND COMPETITION