Not content with thus broadly outlining a science to which he would have undoubtedly applied the name sociology if Comte or any one else had at that date suggested it, he proceeds to show how this science differs from that of political economy, and in these terms:
"Political Economy" is not the science of speculative politics, but a branch of that science. It does not treat of the whole of man's nature as modified by the social state, nor of the whole conduct of man in society. It is concerned with him solely as a being who desires to possess wealth, and who is capable of judging of the comparative efficacy of means of obtaining that end. It predicts only such of the phenomena of the social state as take place in consequence of the pursuit of wealth. It makes entire abstraction of every other human passion or motive except those which may be regarded as perpetually antagonizing principles to the desire of wealth, namely, aversion to labor, and desire of the present enjoyment of costly indulgences. . . . . Political Economy considers mankind as occupied solely in acquiring and consuming wealth; and aims at showing what is the course of action into which mankind, living in a state of society, would be impelled, if that motive, except in the degree in which it is checked by the two perpetual counter motives above adverted to, were absolute ruler of their actions."[1]
Although it is the old abstract political economy which is here described, and although the modern economics is much broader in its scope and rests to a far greater extent upon the observed facts of human life and action, still it remains true that the two sciences here so clearly marked off from each other by Mill are distinguished in substantially the way he shows them to be. The distinction is not essentially different from that between biology as now universally understood and taught and botany or zoölogy. It is a distinction of position in a scheme of classification. Rigidly construed, while the whole of the latter falls under the former, nothing that is distinctively botanical or zoölogical should be called biology. And in the same way,
- ↑ Mill, loc. cit., p. 12.
