Although the higher science of Political Economy has, nearly always, been conceived(114) 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.(115) There are, however, two things necessary to warrant us to call a thing made up of a number of parts, one real whole: the parts and the whole must have a reciprocal action upon one another, and the whole, as such, must have a demonstrable action of its own. (_Drobisch._) In this sense, “the people” is, unquestionably, a reality, and not alone the individuals who constitute the “people.” Besides, it is truly said that all husbandry or economy supposes a will (“systematized activity” etc., _supra_, § 2). Such a will is ascribed to individuals, to legal persons, to the state, but not, however, to “the people,” as a whole. But this will need not be an entirely conscious one, as is plain from the case of the less gifted and less cultured individuals engaged in household economy. The systemization in the public economy of a people finds its clearest expression in economic laws, and in the institutions of the state. But it finds expression, also, without the intervention of the state, in the laws established by use, and by the opinions of jurists or courts, in community of speech, of customs and tastes etc.: things which have an important economic meaning, which depend on the common nature of the land, of race and history, and which influence the state, at least as much as they are influenced by it.(116)(117) The most that can be said, at present, so far as an economy of mankind, or a world-economy, is concerned, is, that it may be shown that important preparations have been made for it. We are approaching more nearly to it by the ways of the more and more cosmopolitan character of science, the increasing international coöperation of labor, the improvement in the means of transportation, growing emigration, the greater love of peace, and the greater toleration of nations etc. Section XIII. Political Economy.—The Economic Organism. The idea conveyed by the word _organism_, is doubtless, one of the most obscure of all ideas; and I am so far from desiring to explain(118) by that idea, the meaning of public or national economy, that I would only use the word _organism_ as the shortest and most familiar expression of a number of problems, which it is the purpose of the following investigation to solve.