Men ought to seek and find the best society in their wives, and wives ought to seek and find the. best society in their husbands. For a man to marry a housekeeper and a plaything, and seek his society elsewhere is degrading to both parties, and the only marriages worthy of the name are those which Milton had in view, and which Shakspeare contemplated in one of his finest sonnets.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters, when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove :

Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken:

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But braves it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

A marriage of minds presupposes mental cultivation on both sides, nor can it take place when one mind is enveloped in haughty consciousness or conceit of superiority.

A healthy civilized society will secure for its

women

1. Equality of education with men.

2. Equality of property rights with men, whether women be married or single.

3. Equal freedom in seeking congenial occupation.

4. Equal rights in domestic life.

5. Equal liberty and opportunity for influencing public affairs.

As woman becomes developed through the removal of circumstances that hinder her growth, and the accession of aids that will promote it, she will find ever-widening duties to perform, but no charm or grace will be lost, because none belong exclusively to a state of pupillage and ignorance; nor will man's sphere and dignity of action suffer diminution, but enjoy an increase as the beneficent process goes on. And when with multitudinous and harmonious labour he has erected enduring structures of justice and of power, he will reverence his fellow-worker, not only for the substantial service she has rendered, but because he will recognize her grand prerogative of forming and diffusing the moral sunlight of the world.

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CHAPTER X.

THE RELATION OF POLITICAL ECONOMY TO SOCIAL SCIENCE.

THE boundaries of science are artificial, not natural, and it would be impossible to assign any other reason than that of convenience, why any special science should begin or end at a particular point. Thus the branches of knowledge and investigation comprehended under the English use of the term "physics," include light, heat, and electricity, and exclude chemistry; but light, heat, and electricity either are, or are convertible into, chemical forces. In like manner, although for convenience, physics is separated from astronomy, many of the problems are of the same nature: an extension of physics from terrestrial to celestial bodies leads to astronomy; and no astronomy would be possible unless the laws of terrestrial physics were previously understood.

The more complicated sciences are, the more imperfect and unsatisfactory do they become

through the narrowness of their artificial boundaries. This is remarkably the case with political economy, which, for the sake of isolating certain phenomena and simplifying their consideration, commences with an assertion only partially true-that all men are busy and anxious in the pursuit of wealth. Much of British political economy is also founded upon circumstances of a local character, such as the division of society into landholders (mostly hereditary), capitalists, and labourers. It is not the function of political economy to discover and estimate the moral and social value of influences which induce men to subordinate wealth-getting to other considerations, and it regards human labour merely as a purchasable commodity, necessary like metal, wood, or steam, to industrial processes. In many directions, moreover, its duty is to trace tendencies, which must not be confounded with inevitable consequences. These limitations and imperfections are continually overlooked, and people often argue as if a thing were absolutely right, because right in relation to the laws of political economy. Thus the ten hours' factory bill and similar measures are pronounced wrong by certain persons, because they interfere with freedom of contract, which political economy declares good for trade. The mere political economist has no more objection to the

rapid consumption of children in cotton-mills, than to the rapid consumption of coals. Both in his eyes are commodities, and the only question is how to get as much work out of them as possible, and replace them in the cheapest market. In 1814, when Robert Owen-then one of the largest manufacturers and other philanthropists were endeavouring to secure some protection for juvenile factory hands, they encountered an immense opposition on the ground that masters ought not to be interfered with in their business. Owen tells us, "children at this time were admitted into the cotton, wool, flax, and silk mills, at six and even at five years of age. The time of working, winter and summer, was unlimited by law, but usually it was fourteen hours per day, in some fifteen, and even by the most inhuman and avaricious, sixteen hours; and in many cases the mills were artificially heated to a high state most unfavourable to health."* More recent efforts in the same direction have met with equal hostility; and the working classes have been disgusted with political economy, because its maxims have been continually appealed to in opposition to their human rights. Social Science, comprehending all that is true in political economy, but taking in also the whole range of moral and *Owen's Life,' vol. i. p. 116.