cially with reference to government, and would at once
ascribe to this circumstance the greater part of the success of any
aristocratic constitution. Now, if the effects of training are
inherited, they must, in an hereditary aristocracy, increase the energy
of the cause assigned by Mill; but, if not, such heredity is a condition
"not present or not operative." Still, if families are ennobled for
their extraordinary natural powers of administration or command (as
sometimes happens), it is agreed on all hands that innate qualities are
inheritable; at least, if care be taken to intermarry with families
similarly distinguished, and if by natural or artificial selection all
the failures among the offspring be eliminated. The Spartans had some
crude notion of both these precautions; and if such measures had been
widely adopted, we might deduce from the doctrine of heredity a
probability in favour of Mill's original proposition, and thereby verify
it in its generality, if it could be collected from the facts.

The Historical Method may be further illustrated by the course adopted
in that branch of Social Science which has been found susceptible of the
most extensive independent development, namely, Economics. First, by way
of contrast, I should say that the abstract, or theoretical treatment of
Economics follows the Physical Method; because, as Mill explains,
although the phenomena of industry are no doubt influenced, like other
social affairs, by all the other circumstances of Society, government,
religion, war, art, etc.; yet, where industry is most developed, as in
England and the United States, certain special conditions affecting it
are so much the most important that, for the purpose at least of a
first outline of the science, they may conveniently be considered as the
only ones. These conditions are: (1) the general disposition of men to
obtain wealth with as little trouble as possible, and (2) to spend it so
as to obtain the greatest satisfaction of their various desires; (3) the
facts that determine population; and (4) the tendency of extractive
industry, when pushed beyond a certain limit without any improvement in
the industrial arts, to yield "diminishing returns." From these premises
it is easy to infer the general laws of prices, of wages and interest
(which are the prices of labour and of the use of capital), and of rent;
and it remains to verify these laws by comparing them with the facts in
each case; and (if t