All this is quite true; but not in any sense a rival study to scholastic Economics. The great misfortune is that the atmosphere of controversy and revolt runs through all this glorious gospel, so strong and true in its teachings, so perverse in its criticisms. The sum of the whole doctrine is put in memorable words near the close of _Unto This Last_: “There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.”[68] All railing accusation is out of place. The business of the man whom Ruskin calls the “vulgar economist” is to theorize, his is to edify. The one is the theoretical engineer and surveyor for the house of the state; his part in the ὁικονομἱα is that of a professional consultant. Ruskin is the actual builder; round his guidance sound the clang of hammer and anvil, the actual stonemasons’ and plumbers’ tools; under his eye grow in time the ivy and the flowers; but it is not the business of the architect or surveyor or sanitary engineer to know all about these, still less to keep a supply of them in his office. The vastness of the task Ruskin had undertaken is now plain to us and was pathetic for him. _Munera Pulveris_ contains the definitions of the new science. No more of it has ever appeared in systematic scientific form. It is touching to find the inspired artist reformer stopped again and again in his great attempt to write a complete guide to public action, by some subject needing special research. “I will treat of this when I come to” coinage or education, or whatever it might be; ever promising, ever hoping, if so be by a _tour de force_ of genius he might storm the city of Mansoul; whereas, it needed all the corps of economic researchers, mining here and there into truth, making a breach here and there into the wall of the unknown, working on Parliamentary Returns and tables of statistics, on records of public registrars and clearing house reports, by patient inquiry to achieve a little at a time. Ruskin wrote for thirty years after the epoch-making date of 1860; and it is even now our task to systematize, if we can, his scattered contributions to practical Economy. We may be glad, in John Ruskin’s case, as in that of lesser prophets, that the greatness of men is measured, not like chains, by their weakest link, but rather like tides, by the highest they reach. _CHAPTER V_ _RUSKIN’S RECONSTRUCTION_ The teaching of Ruskin is generally piecemeal and unsystematic, but, happily, there is one exception to this. In collecting his _Cornhill_ papers for publication as _Unto This Last_ he wrote a Preface summarizing his practical proposals at their “worst.” They are as follows: