#100. Is Political Economy a Dismal Science?# This is only a Primer, a very brief and elementary account of some parts of political economy, and it is evidently impossible to argue out the subjects of such a science in so small a compass. But the purpose of this little treatise will be fulfilled if those who begin with the primer can be persuaded to go on and study larger works on the science. But even he who has read only thus far must know that political economy is no cold-blooded or dismal science, as people say. Is it a dismal thing to relieve the labourer of his load, or to spread his table with the most nutritious food? No doubt the science is dismal enough so far as it leads us to reflect upon the needless misery existing on every side. It is dismal to think of the hundreds of thousands who lengthen out a weary life in workhouses and prisons and infirmaries. Strikes are dismal; lockouts are dismal; want of employment, bankruptcy, dear bread, famine, are all dismal things. But is it political economy which causes them? #Is not our science more truly described as that beneficent one, which, if sufficiently studied, would banish such dismal things, by teaching us to use our powers wisely in relieving the labours and misery of mankind.#
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Political economy, by W. Stanley Jevons