It examines the effects of labor; in the
application of labor, you should consider the importance of the
object in view. When the application of labor is unfavorable to
an object higher than the production of wealth, it should not be
applied. . . Suppose that it would increase the national wealth
to compel children to labor fifteen hours a day: morality would
say that that is not allowable. Does that prove that political
economy is false? No; that proves that you confound things which
should be kept separate."
If M. Rossi had a little more of that Gallic simplicity so
difficult for foreigners to acquire, he would very summarily have
THROWN HIS TONGUE TO THE DOGS, as Madame de Sevigne said. But a
professor must talk, talk, talk, not for the sake of saying
anything, but in order to avoid silence. M. Rossi takes three
turns around the question, then lies down: that is enough to make
certain people believe that he has answered it.
It is surely a sad symptom for a science when, in developing
itself according to its own principles, it reaches its object
just in time to be contradicted by another; as, for example, when
the postulates of political economy are found to be opposed to
those of morality, for I suppose that morality is a science as
well as political economy.
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