IN the opening chapter of this volume, the main reason I gave for my proposed attempt to reconstruct the Science of Political Economy on the lines of Evolution and Sociology was that none of the sciences dealing with the actions of human beings could, if these sciences were to be appealed to for practical guidance in life, be cut out from the living tissue of civilization and erected into separate and independent specialisms on their own account, without constant reference to the existing condition of that civilization, - its social structure, politics, legislation, etc., - inasmuch as these outside influences while interpenetrating and profoundly modifying the laws of the special science at every point, are nevertheless so far as the special science itself is concerned, accidental, capricious, casual, or incalculable; and so can neither be embodied among the laws of the Science, nor yet left out of them, without destroying all its weight and authority for the purposes of life. And I went on to say further that nowhere would this be more clearly seen than in the existing specialism known as the orthodox Political Economy. So far as we have gone, however, it has not seemed necessary to allude further to this aspect of our subject; and indeed it will not be until we come to the laws of the distribution of wealth, that the havoc made by the irruption into them of the rude hand of Political, Social, or Legislative Power as such, will be fully and conclusively demonstrated.

But at the point we have now reached it is necessary to touch, if only for a moment, on the influence of general Civilization in affecting the problems of the Orthodox Economy, and particularly in giving rise to that paradox of Savings which by its doublings and shiftings is likely to give us much unnecessary trouble in hunting it down. But in order to o-et a sufficient perspective for the general remarks I have to make, I would ask the reader to imagine for the nonce that we had reached that millennial stage of civilization when all the world shall be but as one nation, with all its races like brothers, between whom all wars, jealousies, and aggrandisements have long ceased, where there is enough and to spare of consumable wealth for all, and where the amount of a man's worldly possessions over those of his neighbour brings him no more honour than, say, the possession of a larger or smaller appetite for food. In a word I would ask him to imagine that the Socialist's dream of an Utopia or ideal World-State had at last been realized or rendered possible.

Now in such a World-State the amount of wealth produced will be the greatest possible, inasmuch as the consumption of wealth, which the hypothesis of a millennium involves, will be the greatest possible also; and that in turn will have stimulated the inventive powers of Man to their highest point in the introduction of the best machinery and the best devices for the organization and division of labour which Science and Art can supply. In such a World-State, the savings of individuals - which as we have seen can exist only in the form of things having a relative permanency, such as fixed capital, gold, or credit notes redeemable in gold - will be the least possible, and will consist almost entirely of those forms of fixed capital from which the greatest amount of wealth proceeds. Gold or silver as a provision for the future will not be required, nor will the credits based on them; for where the material wealth that is continually being reproduced in sufficient quantities for the benefit of all, is continually being redistributed among all, there will be no point in saving gold or credits, inasmuch as there will be no rainy day, economically speaking, against which individuals must provide beforehand; while as for nations hoarding up gold and silver either for the purpose of aggrandising themselves at the expense of other nations, or of defending themselves against the aggrandisements of these other nations in turn, there will be no such nations in existence; for by our hypothesis they will all have been absorbed in and become parts of a single World-State. Practically the only savings beyond those that are being continually embodied in fixed capital will be of such consumable products as corn for example, which can be stored for a time as a provision against the dearths incidental to the seasons, and will act like a compensating balance merely, to steady the movements of the wheel from year to year.

All else will be consumed as it is produced. In other words, to put the matter economically, the amount of wealth produced, consumed, and continually reproduced by mankind will be greatest where the consumption of individuals is the greatest (compatible of course with the capabilities of its existing fixed capital), and where their personal savings are the least; thus mirroring and corresponding to our ideal or pure science of the wheel, where as we have seen the greatest amount of wealth is produced and reproduced when the amount of consumption is the greatest possible. Carrying, then, with us this law, namely that the wealth of the world will be the greatest possible when the state of civilization and the industrial arts admit of the greatest possible amount of consumption, and when in consequence the amount of saving for future contingencies is the least possible; and contrasting it in our minds with the opposite doctrine of the orthodox Economists, founded on their symbol of the rod or stick, namely that the wealth of the world will be the greatest when the amount of consumption is the least, - and in consequence the savings carried forward the greatest possible; - let us now consider how the matter stands in the stage of civilization reached at the present day.