creatures as need be desired. To sit in the seat of such disputants can be no present man's ambition. It ought to be, if it be not, superfluous to set down in words the assurance that we claim for no living poet a place beside the Master; that we know there is no lyrist alive but one who could have sung for us the cradle-song of death, the love-song of madness, the sea-song of exile, the hunting-song of revolution; that since the songs of Gretchen in "Faust" and Beatrice in the "Cenci," there have been no such songs heard among men as the least of these first four among all his lyrics that rise to recollection at the moment. Fantine's song or Gastibelza's, the “Adieu, patrie!" or the "Chasseur Noir," any one of these by itself would suffice to establish, beyond debate and beyond acclamation, the absolute sovereignty of the great poet whose glory could dispense even with any of these.

The claims to precedence of other men who stand in the vanguard of their time are open matters for the discussion of judgments to adjust or readjust. Among English-speaking poets of his age I know of none who can reasonably be said to have given higher proof of the highest qualities than Mr. Rossetti-if the qualities we rate highest in poetry be imagination, passion, thought, harmony and variety of singing power. Each man who has anything has his own circle of work and realm of rule, his own field to till and to reign in; no rival can overmatch, for firm completion of lyric line, for pathos made perfect, and careful melody of high or of intimate emotion, "New-Year's Eve" or "The Grandmother," "Enone" or "Boadicea," the majestic hymn or the rich lament for love won and lost in "Maud;" none can emulate the fiery subtlety and sinuous ardour of spirit which penetrates and lights up all secret gulfs and glimmering heights of human evil and good in “The Ring and the Book," making the work done live because "the soul of man is precious to man :" none can "blow in power" again through the notched reed of Pan by the river, to detain the sun on the hills with music; none can outrun that smooth speed of gracious strength which touched its Grecian goal in "Thyrsis" and the "Harp-player;" none can light as with fires or lull as with flutes of magic the reaches of so full a stream of story as flows round the "Earthly Paradise" with ships of heroes afloat on it. But for height and range and depth, for diversity and perfection of powers, Mr. Rossetti is abreast of elder poets not less surely than of younger. Again I take to witness four singled poems; "The Burden of Nineveh," "Sister Helen," "Jenny," and "Eden Bower." Though there were not others as great as these to cite at need, we might be content to pass judgment on the strength of these only; but others as great there are. If he have not the full effiuence of romance, or the keen passion of human science, that give power on this hand to Morris and on that to Browning, his work has

form and voice, shapeliness and sweetness, unknown to the great analyst; it has weight and heat, gravity and intensity, wanting to the less serious and ardent work of the latest master of romance. Neither by any defect of form, nor by any default of force, does he ever fall short of either mark, or fight with either hand "as one that beateth the air." In sureness of choice and scope of interest, in solidity of subject and sublimity of object, the general worth of his work excels the rate of other men's; he wastes no breath and mistakes no distance, sets his genius to no tasks unfit for it, and spends his strength in the culture of no fruitless fields. What he would do is always what a poet should, and what he would do is always done. Born a light-bearer and leader of men, he has always fulfilled his office with readiness and done his work with might. Help and strength and delight and fresh life have long been gifts of his giving, and freely given as only great gifts can be. And now that at length we receive from hands yet young and strong this treasure of many years, the gathered flower of youth and ripe firstlings of manhood, a fruit of the topmost branch "more golden than gold," all men may witness and assure themselves what manner of harvest the life of this man was to bear; all may see that although, in the perfect phrase of his own sonnet, the last birth of life be death, as her three first-born were love and art and song, yet two of these which she has borne to him, art, namely, and song, cannot now be made subject to that last; that life and love with it may pass away, but very surely no death that ever may be born shall have power upon these for ever. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

M. COMTE AND POLITICAL ECONOMY.

Of the writers who during the last half century have contributed to place Social Philosophy on the footing which it now holds, none deserve more deference on questions of classification and method than Auguste Comte. Opinions will differ as to the value of his views on the regeneration and reorganisation of society, but M. Comte has rendered services to the cause of social and historical speculation which are quite independent of the system of doctrines distinctively connected with his naine. Even those who reject what are known as Positivist doctrines, and who feel themselves in imperfect sympathy with the spirit of Positivism, may gratefully acknowledge that social studies have taken a new place in the field of speculative thought since M. Comte devoted to them his mind and life, and may recognise in his work an achievement not without analogy to that accomplished by Bacon in a different though neighbouring field. In

neither case, they will probably think, did the value of the performance consist in the positive contributions made to our knowledge, whether of physical nature by Bacon, or of the principles of social union by M. Comte,-though it will be allowed that our obligations to M. Comte on this score are vastly greater than any which can be credited to the author of the "Novum Organum," but in the distinctness and vividness of the conception which each alike had formed of the path of investigation to be followed in the pursuit of that knowledge which each had taken for his special goal, and in what was the consequence of this-the strength of conviction and the unfaltering faith with which each delivered his message. Bacon's dreams of a New Atlantis to be reached by experiment and induction were not more in advance of the current speculation of his time than were the analogous dreams of M. Comte of a society regenerated by Positive Philosophy. While the poet was singing that-

"Through the ages one increasing purpose runs,"

the French philosopher believed that he had divined that purpose, and could lay bare its scope. And he not only conceived the design, but, in the opinion of eminent judges, took important steps towards its realisation. The high authority, therefore, of M. Comte in the domain of Social Philosophy will scarcely be disputed certainly will not be disputed by the present writer; and it must therefore be allowed that the absolute proscription by him of a branch of social inquiry carries with it a certain presumption—some will think a weighty presumption-against the legitimacy of the speculation falling under this ban. Now this presumption, whatever may be its weight, lies, it must be frankly admitted, against the branch of study which it is the purpose of the following pages to promote.1 It was M. Comte's opinion that Political Economy, as cultivated by the school of Adam Smith's successors in this country and in France, failed to fulfil the conditions required of a sound theory by Positive Philosophy, and was not properly a science. He pronounces it to be defective in its conception, "profoundly irrational" in its method, and "radically sterile" as regards results. Such an opinion, proceeding from a philosopher of M. Comte's eminence, is a fact which ought not to be lightly passed by. M. Comte, moreover, has supported this unfavourable judgment by a train of elaborate argumentation; but, so far as I know, his arguments have not yet been seriously grappled with. I am very sensible to what an extent I shall leave myself open to the imputation of presumption in venturing on a task which has been avoided by so many incomparably better fitted than I am for its effective discharge. Nevertheless, the task is one which I feel bound to undertake; for it seems to me that (1) It should be stated that the present essay is intended as the preliminary chapter of a work on The Logical Method of Political Economy.

I should be guilty of even greater presumption were I to enter upon an investigation such as I propose to make the subject of the present volume, without, at all events, attempting to do justice, so far as my abilities permit, to M. Comte's views. As a preliminary step, therefore, to an examination of the character and method of Political Economy, I have to ask the reader to follow me in an examination of the grounds of M. Comte's judgment against the scientific pretensions of this study.

And, in the first place, let me endeavour to state the precise question on which M. Comte is at issue with the student of economic science. M. Comte does not deny that the phenomena of wealth are important elements in determining the condition and progress of society; still less does he deny-on the contrary, it is his emphatic assertion that these phenomena, like all others which in the aggregate constitute the social state, are subject to invariable law. On the other hand, political economists those political economists, at least, whose views the present writer shares-make no pretension to constitute Political Economy as the science of society. It is fully admitted that the subject-matter of their science is but one among many elements which go to form the aggregate social condition; and they are consequently bound to acknowledge, as they do acknowledge, that the most complete acquaintance with economic facts and laws furnishes of itself no adequate basis for general social speculation. But agreeing thus far, M. Comte and the political economists differ here:-While admitting that economic phenomena are subject to law, M. Comte denies that the law can be ascertained by study of the phenomena. His position is that the facts of wealth are, in the form in which they actually present themselves to our observation, so inextricably interwoven with facts of a different order-with facts, for example, of the intellectual, moral, and political order-that the determination of the laws which govern them is only possible when they are considered in connection with such associated facts; that consequently a science of Political Economy is impossible; as also is for the same reason impossible a science of Psychology, or of Jurisprudence, or of any distinct and separate order of social relations. It was accordingly with him a fundamental canon of philosophical method, that all investigations into the structure and laws of society should proceed on the principle of dealing with social facts, to use M. Comte's language, in the ensemble. Society, he said, should be contemplated in the totality of its elements; and no investigation should be undertaken into any portion of those elements except in constant connection with parallel investigations carried on contemporaneously into all co-existing portions of the complex whole. All isolated study of a single aspect of social life, of a particular order of its relations apart from the rest, he regarded as essentially vicious and

1

doomed to failure in advance. Such a view is, of course, altogether inconsistent with the existence of a science of wealth; and here, accordingly, the student of Political Economy came into collision with the teaching of M. Comte. Instead of proceeding by the method of the ensemble, and studying society in all its elements at once, the political economist proceeds by an opposite rule: he breaks up the aggregate social phenomenon into the elementary groups of which it is composed, and, selecting one of these, studies it apart from all the others. He does not indeed, as has been already intimated, confound the laws at which he thus arrives, the laws of this detached group, with the laws of society; but the laws of society itself, he holds, are only to be ascertained by working on the plan which he has adopted,-by making, that is to say, each distinct order of relations involved in the composite phenomenon of society the subject of a distinct and separate investigation, leaving it to the social philosopher, properly so called, the speculator on society as a whole, to combine the results of the labours of students of special branches in elucidation of the general problem.

Such is the question at issue between the student of Political Economy and M. Comte. Now adverting to the history of inductive research, it will at once be seen that the view taken by the political economist has this weighty presumption in its favour: it is in strict analogy with the course followed by all fruitful investigation from the dawn of scientific discovery to the present time.

When men first began to speculate on the facts of the universe, the line of investigation they fell into was precisely that which M. Comte holds to be the proper one in sociological inquiry. They contemplated nature in the ensemble, and propounded the question, What is the origin of all things? But so long as the problem remained in this form, nothing valuable issued from the efforts to solve it beyond the discipline afforded to the minds thus employed— nothing but a series of vague guesses more or less ingenious, yielding, it may be, some satisfaction to the speculative intellect, but incapable of throwing any light on the real relations of objective existence. In time, however, and by slow degrees, the spirit of the ensemble gave way to another spirit-that of specialisation and detail. Influenced mainly by the practical necessities of life, in some degree also by the exceptional conspicuousness of certain phenomena, people turned from speculation on the universe as a whole to observation and reasoning upon certain limited orders of facts. Thus geometry arose out of the practical requirement of measuring the earth; and beginning as an art, grew into a science, taking as its subject-matter the particular class of relations brought into view in that practical

(1) Philosophie Positive. Leçons 47 and 48. See also the Politique, vol. iii. p. 585 (1853), from which it will be seen that M. Comte's views on this point underwent no change in his later years.