antity,'[386] he does not believe in the impossibility
of improvement. The 'necessary' rate of wages fixes only a minimum:
an increase of population has been accompanied by an increase of
comfort.[387] Wages rise if the standard of life be raised, and a rise
of wages tends to raise the standard. He cordially denounces the
benevolent persons who held that better wages only meant more
dissipation. Better wages are really the great spur to industry and
improvement.[388] Extreme poverty causes apathy; and the worst of
evils is the sluggishness which induces men to submit to reductions of
wages. A sense of comfort will raise foresight; and the _vis
medicatrix_ should be allowed to act upon every rank of society. He is
no doubt an individualist, as looking to the removal of restrictions,
such as the Conspiracy Laws,[389] rather than to a positive action of
the government; but it is worth notice that this typical economist is
far from accepting some of the doctrines attributed to the school in
general.

The classical school blundered when it supposed that the rules which
it formulated could be made absolute. To give them that character, it
was necessary to make false assumptions as to the ultimate
constitution of society; and the fallacy became clear when the formulae
were supposed to give a real history or to give first principles, from
which all industrial relations could be deduced. Meanwhile, the
formulae, as they really expressed conditional truths, might be very
useful so long as, in point of fact, the conditions existed, and were
very effective in disposing of many fallacies. The best illustration
would probably be given by the writings of Thomas Tooke
(1774-1858),[390] one of the founders of the Political Economy Club.
The _History of Prices_ is an admirable explanation of phenomena which
had given rise to the wildest theories. The many oscillations of trade
and finance during the great struggle, the distress which had followed
the peace, had bewildered hasty reasoners. Some people, of course,
found consolation in attributing everything to the mysterious action
of the currency; others declared that the war-expenditure had supplied
manufacturers and agriculturists with a demand for their wares,
apparently not the less advantageous because the payment came out of
their own pockets.[391] Tooke very patiently and thoroughly explodes
these explanations, and traces the fluctuations of price to such
causes as the effect of t