16

POLITICAL  ECONOMY

somewhat  anticipated.  Before  the  assault  on
political  economy  came  to  a  head,  Senior
and  the  younger  Mill  had  succeeded  Ricardo.
The  elder  Mill  and  Malthus—in  part  discoverer,
in  part  inventor  of  the  “  revolting  ratios  ”
between  food  and  population,  the  fundamental
notion  of  which,  nevertheless,  contained  “  a
very  valuable  discovery,  or  ‘  like  the  toad,
ugly  and  venomous,  had  yet  a  precious  jewel
in  its  head,’  ”  as  Hazlitt  unflatteringly  put
it—these  two  had  worked  contemporaneously,
partly  in  collaboration  and  partly  in  rivalry
with  Ricardo,  on  the  general  principles  of
economic  science  ;  and  to  them,  as  well  as  to
him,  an  important  step  in  its  development
must  be  attributed.  John  Stuart  Mill  improved
wonderfully  on  Ricardo  and  wrote  a  treatise
to  which  little  exception  could  be  taken  on
humanitarian  grounds,  but  the  public  notion  of
what  political  economy  taught  had  already  been
created  and  its  dissemination  was  continuing.
Nevertheless  we  can  hardly  ascribe  anything
path-breaking  in  the  progress  of  economics
to  Mill.  His  most  important  contribution,
perhaps,  was  to  put  together,  develop,  extend
and  combine  in  a  coherent  system  the  ideas
of  the  school  in  which  he  had  been  brought
up,  and  at  the  same  time  somewhat  to  soften
their  outlines.  But  to  do  this  a  master  mind