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