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POLITE ARTS. See ARTS.

POLITENESS is by lord Chesterfield called the art of pleasing. It has also been called an artificial good nature; and indeed good nature is the foundation of true politeness; without which art will make but a very indifferent figure, and wit generally defeat its own ends. True politeness,' it has been well said, 'is that continual attention which humanity inpires us with, both to please others, and to avoid giving them offence. The surly plain-dealer exclaims loudly against this virtue, and prefers his own bluntness and Gothic freedom. The reason generally is because they are his own. The courtier and fawning flatterer, on the contrary, substitute in its place insipid compliments, cringings, and a jargon of unmeaning sentences. The one blames politeness, because he takes it for a vice; and the other is the occasion of this, because that which he practises is really so. He who thinks himself sure of pleasing,' says lord Chesterfield, and he who despairs of it, are equally sure to fail.' And he is undoubtedly in the right. The one, by his assuming vanity, is inattentive to the means of pleasing; and the other, from fear, is rendered incapable of them. Some of the best rules on this subject (as far indeed as it can be a matter of rule), with strictures on particular kinds of impoliteness, may be found in the Spectator, Rambler, Idler, Lounger, Mirror, and Knox's Essays. Lord Chesterfield's Letters are also worthy of perusal, provided the reader be on his guard against insincerity and other vices which they are calculated to infuse, and provided he always bear in mind that true politeness does not consist in specious manners and dissimulation, but that it must always be founded on real worth and virtue.

POLITI (Alexander), a learned Italian, born at Florence in 1679, and distinguished for sagacity, and an extensive memory. He taught philosophy, theology, and rhetoric, at Genoa; and afterwards Greek at Pisa. He published an edition of Homer, with Eustathius's commentary, and added a Latin translation, with notes. He died of an apoplexy in 1752.

POLITIAN (Angelo), was born at Monte Pulciano in Tuscany, in 1454. He learned Greek under Andronicus; and philosophy under Ficinus and Argyropylus. He was one of the most learned writers of his time. The first work which gained him a reputation was a poem on the tournament of Julian de Medicis. The account he wrote some time after of the conspiracy of the Pazzi's was very much esteemed. He wrote many other pieces which have merited approbation; but his Epistles have been most read. He died at the age of forty years. His morals answered the homeliness of his face rather than the fineness of his genius. POLITIC, n. s. POLITICAL, adj. POLITICALLY, adv. POLITICASTER, n. S. POLITICIAN,

POLITICLY,

POLITICS,

Lat. politia; Gr.
ToMireia. Form of go-

vernment or civil con

[stitution: political and
politic mean, relating

to the administration of public affairs; civil; POL'ITY, Jhence prudent; skilful; wise; cunning; the latter word is generally

used in modern times in the latter senses, while political is restricted to that which pertains to public affairs: politically and politicly follow these senses: a politicaster is a quack in politics, see the extract: politician, one versed in the arts or secrets of government; also a shrewd or cunning man: politics (Fr. politique), is the science of public government; the practice or art of administering the public affairs.

Virtuously and wisely acknowledging that he with his people made all but one politic body, whereof himself was the head; even so cared for them as he would for his own limbs.

Sidney.

Because the subject which this position concerneth
is a form of church government, or church polity, it
behoveth us to consider the nature of the church, as
is requisite for men's more clear and and plain un-
derstanding, in what respect laws of polity or go-
thereunto.
Hooker.
vernment are necessary
The Turks politically mingled certain Janizaries,
Knolles.
harquebusiers, with their horsemen.
And 't be any way, it must be with valour; for
had as lief be a Brownist as a politi-
policy I hate :
Shakspeare.

cian.
This land was famously enriched
With politic grave counsel; then the kit
Had virtuous uncles.

Id. Richard III.

Thus have I politicly begun my reign, And 'tis my hope to end successfully. Shakspeare. Authority followeth old men, and favour youth; but for the moral part, perhaps youth will have the pre-eminence, as age hath for the politick.

Bacon.

Although I may seem less a politician to men, yet
I need no secret distinctions nor evasions before God.
King Charles.
Your ill-meaning politician lords,
Under pretence of bridal friends and guests,
Appointed to await me thirty spies.

Milton.

In the Jewish state, God was their political prince and sovereign, and the judges among them were as much his deputies, and did represent his person, as now the judges do the persons of their several Kettlewell. princes in all other nations.

No civil or politic constitutions have been more
celebrated than his by the best authors. Temple.
While emp'rick politicians use deceit,
Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat,
You boldly show that skill which they pretend,
And work by means as noble as your end.

Dryden.

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Of crooked counsels and dark politics.

Id.

Id.

It was not by any means unfit that a judge should form part of a council, which was to preserve the rights of sovereigns, but where no party politics prevailed. But here, in fact, the judge was under the control of the executive government, and instantly became a party politician. Canning.

POLITICS. Lord Bacon divides politics into three parts, viz. the preservation of the state, its happiness and flourishing, and its enlargement. Of the first two, he informs us, various authors have treated, but the last has never been handled; and he has given a specimen of an essay to supply the want.

POLITICAL ECONOMY. It has been said to be a sign of the times upon which we are justified in resting many hopes of the future improvement of our race, that so considerable a degree of attention has been excited to the subject of political economy. This science has been exhibited as the great high road to public and private happiness; in which no groping, no perplexing research, no hopeless, thankless toil is required; the principal difficulties are overcome; all that remains to be done is, we are told, to remove the obstacles which conceal that road from the view of those who are less fortunate than ourselves.' We have certainly been brought to believe that political economists have furnished many useful hints for the improvement of the condition of mankind; that they have explored various causes by which former plans of improvement have been checked; and achieved the destruction of some ancient systems of political and commercial legislation, to which we have no desire to return. We also give them credit for diligence of research and operation in the face of those numerous and powerful parties, which, under all established systems, are interested in the perpetuation of abuses. But we smile at their hardihood in venturing to claim for their inheritance the pretensions of the French perfectibiliticians; and this chiefly from the 'readiness with which all the late discoveries in commercial science have been received and assented to. The fact is, when the name of the

This is the language of one of their boastful advocates: Not only have they pointed out these causes of evil, but, fearlessly braving the prejudices of the ignorant and vulgar, they have brought to light a remedy by which that evil may be averted. If, therefore, they are of opinion that the perfectibility of the species is a mere vision, although bright and fascinating to dwell upon, they have, at all events, produced a plan by which a large addition may almost immediately be made to human happiness. and which will ultimately raise the species to a state at least approaching to the perfectibility which has been aimed at.'-Westminster Review, No. VII. VOL. XVII.

late Mr. Ricardo is excluded, these writers scarcely attempt to adduce, either at home or abroad, that of a single discoverer in political economy; the greatest praise is due to those able men amongst them who have abjured any such distinction; and the chief advantages, as yet, which have occurred to the public from the discussions connected with it, are rather to be found in what has been exploded than in any thing they have established.

Mr. M'Culloch has well said- There is a peculiarity in the political and economical sciences which deserves to be noticed, inasmuch as it serves to show the superior necessity and importance of general instruction in their principles. The peculiarity in question originates in the circumstance of the politician or economist being extremely apt to be influenced by other considerations than a regard to the interests of truth and the public welfare. The cultivators of the mathematical and physical sciences, can very rarely have any motive to bias their judgments, or to induce them to conceal or pervert the truth. But such is not the case with those who discuss political or economical questions. Every abuse, and every vicious and unjust institution and regulation, operates as a bounty on the production of false theories; for, though injurious to the public, they are almost always productive of advantage to a greater or smaller number of individuals, who, to preserve this advantage, enlis a portion of the press into their service, and labor, by means of perverted and fallacious statements, to make the public believe that the abuse is really beneficial to them, and that they are interested in its support. These attempts to make the worse appear the better cause, or to make the most flagrant abuses be viewed as national benefits, have very often been attended with complete success. And there are plainly no means of obviating this evil, of correcting what is really disadvantageous in the influence of the press, and of preventing the public from being misled by the specious sophistry of those whose interest and object it is to delude them, except by making them generally acquainted with the elementary and fundamental truths of this science Ignorance is the impure and muddy fountain whence nine-tenths of the vice, misery, and crime, to be found in the world are really derived. Make the body of the people once fully aware of the circumstances which really determine their condition, and you may be assured that an immense majority will endeavour to turn that knowledge to good account.'

This we fully believe; but for the very reasons here assigned, i. e. the bounties that so quickly arise for the production of false theories,' &c.; why, we ask, are our modern investigators of this science so prone to theorize? and why can they not content themselves, in common with the real promoters of many other valuable sciences, with recording experiments, for awhile, and collecting well-attested facts?

Looking into their best works we stumble at

the threshold, and can find no two accredited writers agreed in a definition of the chief terms of this so-named science, having its foundation, according to Mr. M'Culloch and the West2 T

minster Review, in the 'Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,' by Dr. Smith. Mr. Malthus tells us, that by wealth is to be understood all those material objects which are necessary, useful, or agreeable to man,' to which Mr. M'Culloch very soundly objects, observing that this definition is too comprehensive, as it would include such material products as atmospheric air, and the heat of the sun, which are highly useful and agreeable, yet, by universal consent, are excluded from the investigations of political economy: he proposes, therefore, to limit the definition of wealth to those objects alone which have exchangeable value, and it will then stand thus, those material products which have exchangeable value, and which are either necessary, useful, or agreeable to man.'

This writer is very tenacious of the propriety of confining the definition of wealth to material objects. Having observed that some economists had considered wealth as synonymous with all that man desires as useful and agreeable to him, he adds,' But if political economy were to embrace a discussion of the production and distribution of all that is useful and agreeable, it would include within itself every other science; and the best Encyclopædia would really be the best treatise on political economy. Good health is useful and delightful; and, therefore, on this hypothesis, the science of wealth ought to comprehend the science of medicine. Civil and religious liberty are highly useful, and, therefore, the science of wealth must comprehend the science of politics. Good acting is agreeable, and therefore, to be complete, the science of wealth must embrace a discussion of the principles of the histrionic art, and so on. Such definitions are worse than useless. They can have no effect but to generate confused and perplexed notions respecting the objects and limits of the science, and to prevent the student ever acquiring a clear and distinct idea of the nature of the enquiries in which he is engaged.'

Political economy we are therefore told, in the latest and best publication of our author, has for its object to point out the means by which the industry of man may be rendered most productive of those necessaries, comforts, and enjoyments which constitute wealth,' a definition to which we see no fair objection. But when this gentleman afterwards proceeds to insist that labor is the only source of wealth, we are once more startled. Independently of labor,' he says truly, 'matter is rarely of any use whatever, and (but this we dispute) is never of any value. Place us on the banks of a river,' he adds, or in an orchard, and we shall infallibly perish either of thirst or hunger, if we do not, by an effort of industry, raise the water to our lips, or pluck the fruit from the parent tree.'

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This last specimen of industry is certainly needful in the situation described, and something rather more properly to be termed 'labor' in most others; but if our good mother earth had not been previously the source of the apples, and the channel of the water, we should like to know to what effect these extraordinary exertions would be made? If labor be, in strict philosophy, the

only source of wealth, then it might be produced, as it has been well observed, 'without the assistance of land;' and

Dipping buckets into empty wells Might by some happy discovery' be no longer connected with

-Growing old in drawing nothing up.

We must be pardoned, indeed, for adding, that these lines would form a happy descriptive definition of the chief employment on this high road to happiness, if this doctrine be true.

More seriously-we fully adopt the sentiments of the Quarterly Reviewer on this notable illus tration of Mr. M'Culloch's. "It is necessary to exert much more labor than the effort of industry here described to obtain the use of silver and gold; but to say that human labor is the sole source of these metals would surely be a most strange and useless perversion of terms As well might we say, when two men were cooperating in carrying a log of wood, which was too heavy for either of them separately, that one was the sole carrier, because, without the effort of industry made by him, the log might have remained unmoved and useless. We totally disapprove of such futile and unnecessary attempts at simplification. We are disposed to consider labor as a most essential source of wealth; but knowing, with Adam Smith, the absolute necessity of the co-operation of land to give us food, clothing, lodging, &c. &c., we see no kind of reason why we should not acknowledge, with him, what is so obviously true, that both land and and labor are sources of weath.'

As Dr. Adam Smith's book will be accessible to most of our readers, we will first, with the aid of the above writer, glance at the main priciples which characterise the modern school of political economy, and which are considered improvements on Dr. Smith's theory: then atend to Mr. Mill's exhibition of the Elements of the science; and finally, to its history from the earliest periods, marking its chief eras, after Mr. M'Culloch.

The main principles of the new school are the three following:

--

1. That the quantity of labor worked up in commodities is the sole regulator of their exchangeable value.

2. That demand and supply have no effect on price and value, except in cases of monopely, and for a short period.

3. That the difficulty of production in regard to land is the regulator of profits, to the excission of the cause stated by Dr. Smith, namely, the relative abundance and competition of capital

Certainly, of whatever other elements exchangeable value may be composed, the labor worked up in it must at all times be the most influential. It would indeed be most absurd to compare with it generally, the difference of value occasioned by any other ingredient. This is so obvious as scarcely to require stating. But, though the labor worked up in a commodity is allowed to be beyond comparison the main ingredient of value, if there be really other ingre dients, and they are at the same time of such a nature as essentially to encourage or discourage

production, and thus operate powerfully upon the creation or retardation of wealth, it would be inexcusable, from a foolish desire of simplification, not to allow them their due weight.

The author of the Wealth of Nations, in his chapter on the Component Parts of Price (B. i. c. 5), resolves the price of the great mass of commodities in every improved society into the three elements of wages, profits, and rent. And in his next chapter he considers natural price as made up of wages, profits, and rents, at their ordinary and natural rates. There is obviously in every society, as stated by this great writer, an ordinary or natural rate of wages and profits; but it is not the same with rents. On account of the different fertility of different soils in the same country, the portion of the produce of land which is resolvable into rent is extremely various. Sometimes it is a half, a third, or a fourth, and sometimes little or nothing; but if the price of a bushel of corn be the same, whether it be resolvable into more or less rent, rent cannot have much influence in determining its exchangeable value; we must therefore conclude that satisfactory reasons have been given why, in tracing the causes of exchangeable value, rent may be considered as having but a very small effect. Profits, however, are still left, besides wages or labor. And it remains to be considered whether profits do or do not influence, and if they do, to what extent they influence, the exchangeable value of commodities.

In the early periods of society, when labor alone is concerned in production and the returns are immediate, the value of commodities so obtained is determined, as our modern economists allow, by the quantity of labor employed to obtain them. But in all stages of society there are a few commodities which are obtained nearly in the same way.

A stone enclosure, for instance, is built from materials on the spot, and constructed in eight days by fifty laborers at half-a-crown a-day. This enclosure, when completed and fit for use, will, on account of the very small quantity of profits concerned, be worth but little more than the labor employed on upon it, that is, 400 days, or, in money, fifty pounds. Now, if a pipe of wine be worth, when it is first put into the cask, exactly this same money or quantity of labor, but must be kept two years before it is used, and the rate of profits be fifteen per cent., at the expiration of that time, it must be sold at above £65, or its value must be above 520 days instead of 400 days labor, in order that the conditions of its supply may be fulfilled. Thus two commodities have had the same quantity of labor employed upon them, and yet the exchangeable value of one of them exceeds that of the other above thirty per cent., on account of the very different quantity of profits worked up in each. Wine is frequently kept much more than two years. Ships are often five or seven years in building. The final returns for commodities which purchase teas in China, reckoning from the period when the first advances were made, are sometimes delayed not less than two or three years; and the same may be said of wrought cottons sold in India after the raw material had

been brought from that quarter of the globe and worked up in England. In short, the conditions of the supply of commodities at the same period in improved countries, with reference to the quantity of profits, are extremely various; but all must be repaid in their value when sold, and though it does not often happen that, in short periods, profits fall considerably, yet in the progress of nations great changes must necessarily occur; and, taking only what really happens, we are disposed to believe that the variations of value arising from profits are in many commodities freqeuntly more than twenty per cent., and that variations of ten or twelve per cent. are common. How then can it be asserted that commodities exchange with each other according to the quantity of labor worked up in them? So far as we can trust this plain view of facts it seems notoriously otherwise.

These authors, however, contend that, 'the profits of stock are only another name for the wages of accumulated labor.' We have always understood wages to mean the remuneration paid for some kind of human exertion; and it is certain that the accumulated labor worked up in machinery, raw materials, or any other species of capital, is just of the same nature as immediate labor, and paid for exactly in the same way: but the profits both upon the accumulated labor and the direct labor are totally a different kind of thing. On this point Adam Smith well observes, the profits of stock, it may perhaps be thought, are only a different name for the wages of a particular sort of labor, the labor of inspection and direction. They are, however, altogether different, are regulated by quite different principles, and bear no proportion to the quantity, hardship, and ingenuity, of this supposed labor of inspection and direction.'

But Mr. M'Culloch seems to intimate that he considers the effect of capital employed to keep a cask of wine till it is fit for drinking is to set in motion the agency of nature, or the processes which she carries on in the casks, instead of the agency, or labor of men. (See article POLITICAL ECONOMY, Encyclopædia Britannica, Supplement.) This, however, is utterly to confound the most obvious distinctions. The assistance of nature to give this kind of improvement to wine is at the command of every one who has capital, and therefore requires no wages; in this case nature gives her labor gratis. This is quite clear, because the increased value which the wine acquires is in no degree proportioned to the efficiency of her workmanship: all wine kept for two years must be paid for at the same price, whether it improved by keeping or not. În no view of the subject, therefore, is there the slightest ground for confounding the profits of stock with the wages of labor: yet, without this strange and most uncalled for misnomer, how is it possible to say that commodities exchange with each other nearly according to the quantity of labor worked up in them. Large concessions and modifications were, in consequence, repeatedly made on this point by Mr. Ricardo, and which, though not sufficient to meet the truth of the case, are sufficient to destroy the assumption that the products of the same quantity of labor

in the same country, always remam the same in value. In the last edition of his work he says, It is necessary for me to remark that I have not said, because one commodity has so much labor bestowed upon it as will cost £1000, and another so much as will cost £2000, that, therefore, one would be of the value of £1000 and the other of the value of £2000; but I have said that, their value will be to each other as two to one, and that in these proportions they will be exchanged. It is of no importance to the truth of this doctrine whether one of these commodities sells for £1100 and the other for £2200; or one for £1500 and the other for 3000; into that question I do not at present enquire. I affirm only, that their relative values will be governed by the relative quantities of labor bestowed on their production.'-(c. i. p. 46.)

On this assumption the whole of the calculations and reasonings throughout the remaining part of the work is founded; although, in two sections of the first chapter expressly devoted to the subject, it is allowed, that the principle that the quantity of labor bestowed on commodities regulates their relative value is considerably modified by the employment of machinery, as well as by the unequal rapidity of the returns of capital.

A second new principle of the modern school is, that demand and supply have no influence on price and value, except in cases of monopoly, or or short periods of time.

On this subject Mr. M'Culloch is very deided, having referred to Adam Smith on the zeneral equality of wages and profits, he says, the principle of the equality of wages and profits once established, it is easy to show that vaiations in the demand and supply of commodiies can exert no lasting influence on price. It s the cost of production, denominated by Smith and the marquis Garnier necessary or natural price, which is the permanent and ultimate regulator of the exchangeable value or price of every commodity which is not subjected to a monopoly, and which may be indefinitely increased in quality by the application of fresh capital and labor to its production.'

We are willing to allow that the natural prices of commodities are determined by the natural costs of production, according to the meaning of the term, as used by Adam Smith, or even after we have excluded the effects of rents: but, as profits will still remain a component part of price, it is absolutely necessary, before we can exclude demand and supply from a lasting influence on exchangeable value, to show that they can have no influence on the natural rate of profits. Dr. Smith, in using the term natural rate of wages and profits, says, that he means by it the ordinary or average rate which is found in every society or neighbourhood, and which is regulated partly by the general circumstances of the society, their riches or poverty; their advancing, stationary, or declining conditions; and partly by the particular nature of each employment. An average of ten or a dozen years may fairly be considered as sufficient or more than sufficient to determine this ordinary rate of profits. But it is a matter of universal notoriety

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that, in the progress of a nation towards wealth, considerable fluctuations take place in the rate of profits for ten, twelve, or twenty years together out of 100 or 200; and the question is, to what cause these fluctuations are to be assigned.

And upon this point Mr. Ricardo has established a most useful and important truth, i.e. that profits are determined by the proportion of the whole produce which goes to labor. It is, indeed, a direct corollary from the proposition, that the value of commodities is resolvable into wages and profits; but its simplicity and apparent obviousness do not detract from its utility. It is, however, only one important step in the theory of profits, which cannot be complete till we have ascertained the cause which, under all circumstances, regulates this proportion of the whole produce which goes to labor immediate and accumulated.

Into these we cannot go minutely; but it will be found that the specific reason which occasions a larger or smaller proportion of the produce of a given quantity of labor to go to labor, is the fall or rise in the value of the whole produce of such labor resulting from the temporary or ordinary state of the supply, compared with the demand. If we refer to the value of the whole produce of a given quantity of labor, this proposition is true, whatever may be the variations in the productiveness of labor; but, if we are considering the value of a given quantity of produce as determining profits, we must refer to the state of the demand and supply, while the productiveness of labor remains the same. To take a familiar case: if cottons fall in value from an abundant supply, not occasioned by improved machinery, will not a larger proportion of the produce of the same quantity of accumulated and immediate labor be necessary to repay that labor and will not a smaller proportion be left for profits, although, instead of an increased demand for labor, the capitalist will neither have the power nor the will to employ so much as before! On the other hand, if cottons rise in value from a diminished supply, not occasioned by the diminished productiveness of labor, will not a smaller proportion of the produce of the same quantity of accumulated and immediate labor go to repay that labor; and will not a larger proportion of the produce be left for profits, although, instead of a diminished demand for labor, the capitalists will have both the power and the will to employ more labor? It appears, therefore, that in these cases of varying profits, it is specifically the varying state of the demand compared with the supply of produce while the productiveness of labor remains the same, which determines them. And it seems to follow that the ordinary state of profits, or the ordinary proportion of the produce which goes to repay the advances of accumulated and immediate labor necessary to obtain it, is determined by the ordinary state of the demand compared with the supply of such produce.

The third important principle which peculiarly distinguishes the new school of political economy is, that the difficulty of production in the case of land is the regulator of profits, to the entire exclusion of the cause stated by Adam

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