to show what ought to be; he quotes the saying of Dunoyer, _Je n'impose rien, je ne propose même rien, j'expose_; and states that what he has to do is to unfold the anatomy and physiology of social and national economy. He is a scientific man, and not an economic politician, and naturally assumes the position of science, which is cosmopolitan, and not that of politics, which is national and even opportunist. I pass now to a perhaps more important point, from which it will be seen that the Socialists of the Chair are far from thinking that political economy has nothing to do with what ought to be. Next to the _realistic_ school, the name they prefer to describe themselves by is the _ethical_ school. By this they mean two things, and some of them lay the stress on the one and some on the other. They mean, first, to repudiate the idea of self-interest being the sole economic motive or force. They do not deny it to be a leading motive in industrial transactions, and they do not, like some of the earlier socialists, aim at its extinction or replacement by a social or generous principle of action. But they maintain that the course of industry never has been and never will be left to its guidance alone. Many other social forces, national character, ideas, customs--the whole inherited _ethos_ of the people--individual peculiarities, love of power, sense of fair dealing, public opinion, conscience, local ties, family connections, civil legislation--all exercise upon industrial affairs as real an influence as personal interest, and, furthermore, they exercise an influence of precisely the same kind. They all operate ethically, through human will, judgment, motives, and in this respect one of them has no advantage over another. It cannot be said, except in a very limited sense, that self-interest is an essential and abiding economic force and the others only accidental and passing. For while customs perish, custom remains; opinions come and go, but opinion abides; and though any particular act of the State's intervention may be abolished, State intervention itself cannot possibly be dispensed with. It is all a matter of more or less, of here or there. The State is not the intruder in industry it is represented to be. It is planted in the heart of the industrial organism from the beginning, and constitutes in fact part of the nature of things from which it is sought to distinguish it. It is not unnatural for us to wear clothes because we happen to be born naked, for Nature has given us a principle which guides us to adapt our dress to our climate and circumstances. Reason is as natural as passion, and the economists who repel the State's intrusion and think they are thus leaving industry to take its natural course, commit the same absurdity as the moralist who recommends men to live according to Nature, and explains living according to Nature to mean the gratification as much as possible of his