to us; and with the far greater part of the processes concealed from our
observation.

The consequence of this unavoidable defect in the materials of the
induction is, that we can rarely obtain what Bacon has quaintly, but not
unaptly, termed an _experimentum crucis_.

In any science which admits of an unlimited range of arbitrary
experiments, an _experimentum crucis_ may always be obtained. Being able
to vary all the circumstances, we can always take effectual means of
ascertaining which of them are, and which are not, material. Call the
effect B, and let the question be whether the cause A in any way
contributes to it. We try an experiment in which all the surrounding
circumstances are altered, except A alone: if the effect B is
nevertheless produced, A is the cause of it. Or, instead of leaving A,
and changing the other circumstances, we leave all the other
circumstances and change A: if the effect B in that case does _not_ take
place, then again A is a necessary condition of its existence. Either of
these experiments, if accurately performed, is an _experimentum crucis_;
it converts the presumption we had before of the existence of a
connection between A and B into proof, by negativing every other
hypothesis which would account for the appearances.

But this can seldom be done in the moral sciences, owing to the immense
multitude of the influencing circumstances, and our very scanty means of
varying the experiment. Even in operating upon an individual mind, which
is the case affording greatest room for experimenting, we cannot often
obtain a _crucial_ experiment. The effect, for example, of a particular
circumstance in education, upon the formation of character, may be tried
in a variety of cases, but we can hardly ever be certain that any two of
those cases differ in all their circumstances except the solitary one of
which we wish to estimate the influence. In how much greater a degree
must this difficulty exist in the affairs of states, where even the
_number_ of recorded experiments is so scanty in comparison with the
variety and multitude of the circumstances concerned in each. How, for
example, can we obtain a crucial experiment on the effect of a
restrictive commercial policy upon national wealth? We must find two
nations alike in every other respect, or at least possessed, in a degree
exactly equal, of everything which conduces to national opulence, and
adopting exactly the same policy in all their other affairs, but
differing in this only, that one of them adopts a system of commercial
restrictions, and the other adopts free trade. This would be a decisive
experiment, similar to those which we can almost always obtain in
experimental physics. Doubtless this would be the most conclusive
evidence of all if we could get it. But let any one consider how
infinitely numerous and various are the circumstances which either
directly or indirectly do or may influence the amount of the national
wealth, and then ask himself what are the probabilities that in the
longest revolution of ages two nations will be found, which agree, and
can be shown to agree, in all those circumstances except one?

Since, therefore, it is vain to hope that truth can be arrived at,
either in Political Economy or in any other department of the social
science, while we look at the facts in the concrete, clothed in all the
complexity with which nature has surrounded them, and endeavour to
elicit a general law by a process of induction from a comparison of
details; there remains no other method than the _à priori_ one, or that
of "abstract speculation."

Although sufficiently ample grounds are not afforded in the field of
politics, for a satisfactory induction by a comparison of the effects,
the causes may, in all cases, be made the subject of specific
experiment. These causes are, laws of human nature, and external
circumstances capable of exciting the human will to action. The desires
of man, and the nature of the conduct to which they prompt him, are
within the reach of our observation. We can also observe what are the
objects which excite those desires. The materials of this knowledge
every one can principally collect within himself; with reasonable
consideration of the differences, of which experience discloses to him
the existence, between himself and other people. Knowing therefore
accurately the properties of the substances concerned, we may reason
with as much certainty as in the most demonstrative parts of physics
from any assumed set of circumstances. This will be mere trifling if the
assumed circumstances bear no sort of resemblance to any real ones; but
if the assumption is correct as far as it goes, and differs from the
truth no otherwise than as a part differs from the whole, then the
conclusions which are correctly deduced from the assumption constitute
_abstract_ truth; and when completed by adding or subtracting the effect
of the non-calculated circumstances, they are true in the concrete, and
may be applied to practice.

Of this character is the science of Political Economy in the writings of
its best teachers. To render it perfect as an abstract science, the
combinations of circumstances which it assumes, in order to trace their
effects, should embody all the circumstances that are common to all
cases whatever, and likewise all the circumstances that are common to
any important class of cases. The conclusions correctly deduced from
these assumptions, would be as true in the abstract as those of
mathematics; and would be as near an approximation as abstract truth can
ever be, to truth in the concrete.

When the principles of Political Economy are to be applied to a
particular ease, then it is necessary to take into account all the
individual circumstances of that case; not only examining to which of
the sets of circumstances contemplated by the abstract science the
circumstances of the case in question correspond, but likewise what
other circumstances may exist in that case, which not being common to it
with any large and strongly-marked class of cases, have not fallen under
the cognizance of the science. These circumstances have been called
_disturbing causes_. And here only it is that an element of uncertainty
enters into the process--an uncertainty inherent in the nature of these
complex phenomena, and arising from the impossibility of being quite
sure that all the circumstances of the particular case are known to us
sufficiently in detail, and that our attention is not unduly diverted
from any of them.

This constitutes the only uncertainty of Political Economy; and not of
it alone, but of the moral sciences in general. When the disturbing
causes are known, the allowance necessary to be made for them detracts
in no way from scientific precision, nor constitutes any deviation from
the _à priori_ method. The disturbing causes are not handed over to be
dealt with by mere conjecture. Like _friction_ in mechanics, to which
they have been often compared, they may at first have been considered
merely as a non-assignable deduction to be made by guess from the result
given by the general principles of science; but in time many of them are
brought within the pale of the abstract science itself, and their effect
is found to admit of as accurate an estimation as those more striking
effects which they modify. The disturbing causes have their laws, as the
causes which are thereby disturbed have theirs; and from the laws of the
disturbing causes, the nature and amount of the disturbance may be
predicted _à priori_, like the operation of the more general laws which
they are said to modify or disturb, but with which they might more
properly be said to be concurrent. The effect of the special causes is
then to be added to, or subtracted from, the effect of the general ones.

These disturbing causes are sometimes circumstances which operate upon
human conduct through the same principle of human nature with which
Political Economy is conversant, namely, the desire of wealth, but which
are not general enough to be taken into account in the abstract science.
Of disturbances of this description every political economist can
produce many examples. In other instances the disturbing cause is some
other law of human nature. In the latter case it never can fall within
the province of Political Economy; it belongs to some other science; and
here the mere political economist, he who has studied no science but
Political Economy, if he attempt to apply his science to practice, will
fail. [11]

As for the other kind of disturbing causes, namely those which operate
through the same law of human nature out of which the general principles
of the science arise, these might always be brought within the pale of
the abstract science if it were worth while; and when we make the
necessary allowances for them in practice, if we are doing anything but
guess, we are following out the method of the abstract science into
minuter details; inserting among its hypotheses a fresh and still more
complex combination of circumstances, and so adding _pro hác vice_ a
supplementary chapter or appendix, or at least a supplementary theorem,
to the abstract science.

Having now shown that the method _à priori_ in Political Economy, and
in all the other branches of moral science, is the only certain or
scientific mode of investigation, and that the _à posteriori_ method,
or that of specific experience, as a means of arriving at truth, is
inapplicable to these subjects, we shall be able to show that the latter
method is notwithstanding of great value in the moral sciences; namely,
not as a means of discovering truth, but of verifying it, and reducing
to the lowest point that uncertainty before alluded to as arising from
the complexity of every particular case, and from the difficulty (not to
say impossibility) of our being assured _à priori_ that we have taken
into account all the material circumstances.

If we could be quite certain that we knew all the facts of the
particular case, we could derive little additional advantage from
specific experience. The causes being given, we may know what will be
their effect, without an actual trial of every possible combination;
since the causes are human feelings, and outward circumstances fitted to
excite them: and, as these for the most part are, or at least might be,
familiar to us, we can more surely judge of their combined effect from
that familiarity, than from any evidence which can be elicited from the
complicated and entangled circumstances of an actual experiment. If the
knowledge what are the particular causes operating in any given instance
were revealed to us by infallible authority, then, if our abstract
science were perfect, we should become prophets. But the causes are not
so revealed: they are to be collected by observation; and observation in
circumstances of complexity is apt to be imperfect. Some of the causes
may lie beyond observation; many are apt to escape it, unless we are on
the look-out for them; and it is only the habit of long and accurate
observation which can give us so correct a preconception what causes we
are likely to find, as shall induce us to look for them in the right
quarter. But such is the nature of the human understanding, that the
very fact of attending with intensity to one part of a thing, has a
tendency to withdraw the attention from the other parts. We are
consequently in great danger of adverting to a portion only of the
causes which are actually at work. And if we are in this predicament,
the more accurate our deductions and the more certain our conclusions in
the abstract, (that is, making abstraction of all circumstances except
those which form part of the hypothesis,) the less we are likely to
suspect that we are in error: for no one can have looked closely into
the sources of fallacious thinking without being deeply conscious that
the coherence, and neat concatenation of our philosophical systems, is
more apt than we are commonly aware to pass with us as evidence of their
truth.

We cannot, therefore, too carefully endeavour to verify our theory, by
comparing, in the particular cases to which we have access, the results
which it would have led us to predict, with the most trustworthy
accounts we can obtain of those which have been actually realized. The
discrepancy between our anticipations and the actual fact is often the
only circumstance which would have drawn our attention to some important
disturbing cause which we had overlooked. Nay, it often discloses to us
errors in thought, still more serious than the omission of what can with
any propriety be termed a disturbing cause. It often reveals to us that
the basis itself of our whole argument is insufficient; that the data,
from which we had reasoned, comprise only a part, and not always the
most important part, of the circumstances by which the result is really
determined. Such oversights are committed by very good reasoners, and
even by a still rarer class, that of good observers. It is a kind of
error to which those are peculiarly liable whose views are the largest
and most philosophical: for exactly in that ratio are their minds more
accustomed to dwell upon those laws, qualities, and tendencies, which
are common to large classes of cases, and which belong to all place and
all time; while it often happens that circumstances almost peculiar to
the particular case or era have a far greater share in governing that
one case.

Although, therefore, a philosopher be convinced that no general truths
can be attained in the affairs of nations by the _à posteriori_ road,
it does not the less behove him, according to the measure of his
opportunities, to sift and scrutinize the details of every specific
experiment. Without this, he may be an excellent professor of abstract
science; for a person may be of great use who points out correctly what
effects will follow from certain combinations of possible circumstances,
in whatever tract of the extensive region of hypothetical cases those
combinations may be found. He stands in the same relation to the
legislator, as the mere geographer to the practical navigator; telling
him the latitude and longitude of all sorts of places, but not how to
find whereabouts he himself is sailing. If, however, he does no more
than this, he must rest contented to take no share in practical
politics; to have no opinion, or to hold it with extreme modesty, on
the applications which should be made of his doctrines to existing
circumstances.

No one who attempts to lay down propositions for the guidance of
mankind, however perfect his scientific acquirements, can dispense with
a practical knowledge of the actual modes in which the affairs of the
world are carried on, and an extensive personal experience of the actual
ideas, feelings, and intellectual and moral tendencies of his own
country and of his own age. The true practical statesman is he who
combines this experience with a profound knowledge of abstract political
philosophy. Either acquirement, without the other, leaves him lame and
impotent if he is sensible of the deficiency; renders him obstinate and
presumptuous if, as is more probable, he is entirely unconscious of it.

Such, then, are the respective offices and uses of the _à priori_ and
the _à posteriori_ methods--the method of abstract science, and that of
specific experiment--as well in Political Economy, as in all the other
branches of social philosophy. Truth compels us to express our
conviction that whether among those who have written on, these subjects,
or among those for whose use they wrote, few can be pointed out who have
allowed to each of these methods its just value, and systematically kept
each to its proper objects and functions. One of the peculiarities of
modern times, the separation of theory from practice--of the studies of
the closet, from the outward business of the world--has given a wrong
bias to the ideas and feelings both of the student and of the man of
business. Each undervalues that part of the materials of thought with
which he is not familiar. The one despises all comprehensive views, the
other neglects details. The one draws his notion of the universe from
the few objects with which his course of life has happened to render him
familiar; the other having got demonstration on his side, and forgetting
that it is only a demonstration _nisi_--a proof at all times liable to
be set aside by the addition of a single new fact to the hypothesis
--denies, instead of examining and sifting, the allegations which are
opposed to him. For this he has considerable excuse in the worthlessness
of the testimony on which the facts brought forward to invalidate the
conclusions of theory usually rest. In these complex matters, men see
with their preconceived opinions, not with their eyes: an interested or
a passionate man's statistics are of little worth; and a year seldom
passes without examples of the astounding falsehoods which large bodies
of respectable men will back each other in publishing to the world as
facts within their personal knowledge. It is not because a thing is
_asserted_ to be true, but because in its nature it _may_ be true, that
a sincere and patient inquirer will feel himself called upon to
investigate it. He will use the assertions of opponents not as evidence,
but indications leading to evidence; suggestions of the most proper
course for his own inquiries.

But while the philosopher and the practical man bandy half-truths with
one another, we may seek far without finding one who, placed on a higher
eminence of thought, comprehends as a whole what they see only in
separate parts; who can make the anticipations of the philosopher guide
the observation of the practical man, and the specific experience of the
practical man warn the philosopher where something is to be added to his
theory.

The most memorable example in modern times of a man who united the
spirit of philosophy with the pursuits of active life, and kept wholly
clear from the partialities and prejudices both of the student and of
the practical statesman, was Turgot; the wonder not only of his age, but
of history, for his astonishing combination of the most opposite, and,
judging from common experience, almost incompatible excellences.

Though it is impossible to furnish any test by which a speculative
thinker, either in Political Economy or in any other branch of social
philosophy, may know that he is competent to judge of the application of
his principles to the existing condition of his own or any other country,
indications may be suggested by the absence of which he may well and
surely know that he is not competent. His knowledge must at least enable
him to explain and account for what _is_, or he is an insufficient judge
of what ought to be. If a political economist, for instance, finds
himself puzzled by any recent or present commercial phenomena; if there
is any mystery to him in the late or present state of the productive
industry of the country, which his knowledge of principle does not
enable him to unriddle; he may be sure that something is wanting to
render his system of opinions a safe guide in existing circumstances.
Either some of the facts which influence the situation of the country
and the course of events are not known to him; or, knowing them, he
knows not what ought to be their effects. In the latter case his system
is imperfect even as an abstract system; it does not enable him to trace
correctly all the consequences even of assumed premises. Though he
succeed in throwing doubts upon the reality of some of the phenomena
which he is required to explain, his task is not yet completed; even
then he is called upon to show how the belief, which he deems unfounded,
arose; and what is the real nature of the appearances which gave a
colour of probability to allegations which examination proves to be
untrue.

When the speculative politician has gone through this labour--has gone
through it conscientiously, not with the desire of finding his system
complete, but of making it so--he may deem himself qualified to apply
his principles to the guidance of practice: but he must still continue
to exercise the same discipline upon every new combination of facts as
it arises; he must make a large allowance for the disturbing influence
of unforeseen causes, and must carefully watch the result of every
experiment, in order that any residuum of facts which his principles did
not lead him to expect, and do not enable him to explain, may become the
subject of a fresh analysis, and furnish the occasion for a consequent
enlargement or correction of his general views.

The method of the practical philosopher consists, therefore, of two
processes; the one analytical, the other synthetical. He must _analyze_
the existing state of society into its elements, not dropping and losing
any of them by the way. After referring to the experience of individual
man to learn the _law_ of each of these elements, that is, to learn what
are its natural effects, and how much of the effect follows from so much
of the cause when not counteracted by any other cause, there remains an
operation of _synthesis_; to put all these effects together, and, from
what they are separately, to collect what would be the effect of all the
causes acting at once. If these various operations could be correctly
performed, the result would be prophecy; but, as they can be performed
only with a certain approximation to correctness, mankind can never
predict with absolute certainty, but only with a less or greater degree
of probability; according as they are better or worse apprised what the
causes are,--have learnt with more or less accuracy from experience the
law to which each of those causes, when acting separately, conforms,
--and have summed up the aggregate effect more or less carefully.

With all the precautions which have been indicated there will still be
some danger of falling into partial views; but we shall at least have
taken the best securities against it. All that we can do more, is to
endeavour to be impartial critics of our own theories, and to free
ourselves, as far as we are able, from that reluctance from which few
inquirers are altogether him to expect, and do not enable him to
explain, may become the subject of a fresh analysis, and furnish the
occasion for a consequent enlargement or correction of his general
views.

The method of the practical philosopher consists, therefore, of two
processes; the one analytical, the other synthetical. He must _analyze_
the existing state of society into its elements, not dropping and losing
any of them by the way. After referring to the experience of individual
man to learn the _law_ of each of these elements, that is, to learn what
are its natural effects, and how much of the effect follows from so much
of the cause when not counteracted by any other cause, there remains an
operation of _synthesis_; to put all these effects together, and, from
what they are separately, to collect what would be the effect of all the
causes acting at once. If these various operations could be correctly
performed, the result would be prophecy; but, as they can be performed
only with a certain approximation to correctness, mankind can never
predict with absolute certainty, but only with a less or greater degree
of probability; according as they are better or worse apprised what the
causes are,--have learnt with more or less accuracy from experience the
law to which each of those causes, when acting separately, conforms,--and
have summed up the aggregate effect more or less carefully.

With all the precautions which have been indicated there will still be
some danger of falling into partial views; but we shall at least have
taken the best securities against it. All that we can do more, is to
endeavour to be impartial critics of our own theories, and to free
ourselves, as far as we are able, from that reluctance from which few
inquirers are altogether exempt, to admit the reality or relevancy of
any facts which they have not previously either taken into, or left a
place open for in, their systems.

If indeed every phenomenon was generally the effect of no more than one
cause, a knowledge of the law of that cause would, unless there was a
logical error in our reasoning, enable us confidently to predict all the
circumstances of the phenomenon. We might then, if we had carefully
examined our premises and our reasoning, and found no flaw, venture to
disbelieve the testimony which might be brought to show that matters had
turned out differently from what we should have predicted. If the causes
of erroneous conclusions were always patent on the face of the
reasonings which lead to them, the human understanding would be a far
more trustworthy instrument than it is. But the narrowest examination of
the process itself will help us little towards discovering that we have
omitted part of the premises which we ought to have taken into our
reasoning. Effects are commonly determined by a _concurrence_ of causes.
If we have overlooked any one cause, we may reason justly from all the
others, and only be the further wrong. Our premises will be true, and
our reasoning correct, and yet the result of no value in the particular
case. There is, therefore, almost always room for a modest doubt as to
our practical conclusions. Against false premises and unsound reasoning,
a good mental discipline may effectually secure us; but against the
danger of _overlooking_ something, neither strength of understanding nor
intellectual cultivation can be more than a very imperfect protection.
A person may be warranted in feeling confident, that whatever he has
carefully contemplated with his mind's eye he has seen correctly; but no
one can be sure that there is not something in existence which he has
not seen at all. He can do no more than satisfy himself that he has seen
all that is visible to any other persons who have concerned themselves
with the subject. For this purpose he must endeavour to place himself at
their point of view, and strive earnestly to see the object as they see
it; nor give up the attempt until he has either added the appearance
which is floating before them to his own stock of realities, or made out
clearly that it is an optical deception.

The principles which we have now stated are by no means alien to common
apprehension: they are not absolutely hidden, perhaps, from any one, but
are commonly seen through a mist. We might have presented the latter
part of them in a phraseology in which they would have seemed the most
familiar of truisms: we might have cautioned inquirers against too
extensive _generalization_, and reminded them that there are _exceptions_
to all rules. Such is the current language of those who distrust
comprehensive thinking, without having any clear notion why or where it
ought to be distrusted. We have avoided the use of these expressions
purposely, because we deem them superficial and inaccurate. The error,
when there is error, does _not_ arise from generalizing too extensively;
that is, from including too wide a range of particular cases in a single
proposition. Doubtless, a man often asserts of an entire class what is
only true of a part of it; but his error generally consists not in making
too wide an assertion, but in making the wrong _kind_ of assertion: he
predicated an actual result, when he should only have predicated a
_tendency_ to that result--a power acting with a certain intensity in that
direction. With regard to _exceptions_; in any tolerably ably advanced
science there is properly no such thing as an exception. What is thought
to be an exception to a principle is always some other and distinct
principle cutting into the former: some other force which impinges against
the first force, and deflects it from its direction. There are not a _law_
and an _exception_ to that law--the law acting in ninety-nine cases, and
the exception in one. There are two laws, each possibly acting in the
whole hundred cases, and bringing about a common effect by their conjunct
operation. If the force which, being the less conspicuous of the two, is
called the disturbing force, prevails sufficiently over the other force
in some one case, to constitute that case what is commonly called an
exception, the same disturbing force probably acts as a modifying cause
in many other cases which no one will call exceptions.

Thus if it were stated to be a law of nature, that all heavy bodies fall
to the ground, it would probably be said that the resistance of the
atmosphere, which prevents a balloon from falling, constitutes the
balloon an exception to that pretended law of nature. But the real law
is, that all heavy bodies _tend_ to fall; and to this there is no
exception, not even the sun and moon; for even they, as every astronomer
knows, tend towards the earth, with a force exactly equal to that with
which the earth tends towards them. The resistance of the atmosphere
might, in the particular case of the balloon, from a misapprehension of
what the law of gravitation is, be said to _prevail_ over the law; but
its disturbing effect is quite as real in every other case, since though
it does not prevent, it retards the fall of all bodies whatever. The
rule, and the so-called exception, do not divide the cases between them;
each of them is a comprehensive rule extending to all cases. To call one
of these concurrent principles an exception to the other, is
superficial, and contrary to the correct principles of nomenclature and
arrangement. An effect of precisely the same kind, and arising from the
same cause, ought not to be placed in two different categories, merely
as there does or does not exist another cause preponderating over it.

It is only in art, as distinguished from science, that we can with
propriety speak of exceptions. Art, the immediate end of which is
practice, has nothing to do with causes, except as the means of bringing
about effects. However heterogeneous the causes, it carries the effects
of them all into one single reckoning, and according as the sum-total is
_plus_ or _minus_, according as it falls above or below a certain line,
Art says, Do this, or Abstain from doing it. The exception does not run
by insensible degrees into the rule, like what are called exceptions in
science. In a question of practice it frequently happens that a certain
thing is either fit to be done, or fit to be altogether abstained from,
there being no medium. If, in the majority of cases, it is fit to be
done, that is made the rule. When a case subsequently occurs in which
the thing ought not to be done, an entirely new leaf is turned over; the
rule is now done with, and dismissed: a new train of ideas is introduced,
between which and those involved in the rule there is a broad line of
demarcation; as broad and _tranchant_ as the difference between Ay and
No. Very possibly, between the last case which comes within the rule and
the first of the exception, there is only the difference of a shade: but
that shade probably makes the whole interval between acting in one way
and in a totally different one. We may, therefore, in talking of art,
unobjectionably speak of the _rule_ and the _exception_; meaning by the
rule, the cases in which there exists a preponderance, however slight,
of inducements for acting in a particular way; and by the exception, the
cases in which the preponderance is on the contrary side.

THE END.

NOTES:

[8] We say, the _production_ and _distribution_, not, as is usual with
writers on this science, the production, distribution, and _consumption_.
For we contend that Political Economy, as conceived by those very
writers, has nothing to do with the consumption of wealth, further than
as the consideration of it is inseparable from that of production, or
from that of distribution. We know not of any _laws_ of the _consumption_
of wealth as the subject of a distinct science: they can be no other
than the laws of human enjoyment. Political economists have never treated
of consumption on its own account, but always for the purpose of the
inquiry in what manner different kinds of consumption affect the production
and distribution of wealth. Under the head of Consumption, in professed
treatises on the science, the following are the subjects treated of: 1st,
The distinction between _productive_ and _unproductive_ consumption; 2nd,
The inquiry whether it is possible for _too much_ wealth to be _produced_,
and for too great a portion of what has been produced to be applied to the
purpose of further _production_; 3rd, The theory of taxation, that is to
say, the following two questions--by whom each particular tax is paid
(a question of _distribution_), and in what manner particular taxes affect
_production_.

[9] The physical laws of the production of useful objects are all
equally presupposed by the science of Political Economy: most of them,
however, it presupposes in the gross, seeming to say nothing about them.
A few (such, for instance, as the decreasing ratio in which the produce
of the soil is increased by an increased application of labour) it is
obliged particularly to specify, and thus seems to borrow those truths
from the physical sciences to which they properly belong, and include
them among its own.

[10] The _science_ of legislation is an incorrect and misleading
expression. Legislation is _making laws_. We do not talk of the
_science_ of _making_ anything. Even the _science of government_ would
be an objectionable expression, were it not that _government_ is often
loosely taken to signify, not the act of governing, but the state or
condition of _being governed_, or of living under a government. A
preferable expression would be, the science of _political society_; a
principal branch of the more extensive science of society, characterized
in the text.

[11] One of the strongest reasons for drawing the line of separation
clearly and broadly between science and art is the following:--That the
principle of classification in science most conveniently follows the
classification of _causes_, while arts must necessarily be classified
according to the classification of the _effects_, the production of
which is their appropriate end. Now an effect, whether in physics or
morals, commonly depends upon a concurrence of causes, and it frequently
happens that several of these causes belong to different sciences. Thus
in the construction of engines upon the principles of the science of
_mechanics_, it is necessary to bear in mind the _chemical_ properties
of the material, such as its liability to oxydize; its electrical and
magnetic properties, and so forth. From this it follows that although
the necessary foundation of all art is science, that is, the knowledge
of the properties or laws of the objects upon which, and with which, the
art dons its work; it is not equally true that every art corresponds to
one particular science. Each art presupposes, not one science, but
science in general; or, at least, many distinct sciences.

(Editor's note:)

Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy

These five essays represent Mill's earliest thoughts on economic matters
and were first composed in 1829 and 1830 before his reputation had been
established by the publication of _Logic_ in 1843. Their successful
reception no doubt hastened the composition of his comprehensive work
the _Principles of Political Economy_ (1848).


Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

                              INHIBITION

                            BY JAMES CAUSEY

           _Regardless of scientific attainment, any culture
           is vulnerable to inhibition. And Saxon was a good
            agent; no culture nor individual would sway his
                         loyal appraisal...._

             Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1955.

Planetfall.

Here the forest was green and cool. A soft, damp wind promised rain.
The colonists moved down the ramp, staring at the crew members piling
crates of supplies in the meadow beyond.

Frowns. Then whispers.

Saxon glanced up. His nostrils flared. "Hurry," he told the crewmen,
and came forward, beaming. He was tired. It showed in his feverish,
too-bright smile as he said, "Afraid Engineering's a little behind
schedule. They'll be here tomorrow morning to erect your city. Tonight
you'll have to rough it."

Reactions varied. The women murmured and moved closer to their men.
Some smiled. One man thoughtfully eyed the mounting pyramid of supplies.

"You're getting a choice world, Jarl," Saxon said, clapping him on
the shoulder. "Survey spent thirty years here, balancing the ecology,
wiping out the bugs and carnivores. Eden." Saxon tasted the word like
wine.

Jarl Madsen's face was stone. "Aren't they all named Eden?"

From the forest came a chittering bark, like anthropomorphic laughter.
Saxon shivered, remembering the thing that chittered, the three-inch
fangs and the talons. "Hardly," he lied. "That, incidentally, was a
Narl. Herbivore, very harmless."

Madsen walked past him, towards the supplies.

Saxon moved among the colonists, shaking hands, congratulating,
speaking of green fields and good crops and a virgin planet where every
man could carve an empire. These last moments were the worst, when you
said goodbye, knowing that thirty percent of them would be dead within
the week. He saw Madsen opening a supply case. _Damn him! Just three
more minutes!_

The last crew member dumped his load and hurried into the airlock.
Saxon started casually after him, too late. Madsen stood there, his
grin taut, nailed on.

"Primitive pre-fab shelters," he said thickly. "Axes and seeds! The
city was a lie. We're on our own, is that it? _Why--_"

Saxon's palm flashed and Madsen fell writhing. There were shouts, hands
clawing at him as he tore free, sprinting for the ship.

_Always running_, he thought bitterly. _I'm getting old._

He walked through the silent corridors of the ship, a lonely figure
in the black uniform of the Inhibition Corps, and once he stared
through the porthole at Eden XXI, a mottled sphere receding into the
star-frosted night. His mouth twisted. Conceive a colony in fear, breed
it in terror. Watch it adapt, grow. If it grows too fast, hurt it. Hurt
it with disease, famine, dictatorship. If it keeps growing--destroy it.

The captain came down the corridor and stood at respectful attention
before the black uniform. "Stereo call, Commander. Prime Base."

Saxon slowly went to his cabin. The stereo panel was flashing steady
crimson to designate top priority and he restrained a savage impulse
to shut the thing off. He slumped in the control chair, and the tri-di
image of a man at a desk slowly coalesced. It was a granite-featured
old man with eyes like blue ice, and Saxon's head snapped sharply
erect. It was Primus Gant, Corps Director. At ninety parsecs Gant's
features were slightly hazed, but his voice was clear, sharp as a sword.

"Report, Commander."

"My extrapolation went through an hour ago. Also my resignation."

Nothing moved in Gant's face or his eyes. Saxon said stiffly,
"Planetfall uneventful. Area inimical. Initial shock conception,
probable God-betrayal mythology by fourth generation. Those things
in the forest should get thirty percent of them the first week.
Weaponless, they'll run. The two to one female ratio should make for an
agricultural matriarchy by the sixth generation. Recommend intermittent
check at that time." He took a slow angry breath. "Why didn't we give
them weapons?"

Gant's smile was acid. "Because we haven't yet tried an agricultural
matriarchy, Commander. Because the lower the initial survival factor,
the slower the culture development. Getting squeamish?"

Saxon said doggedly, "They didn't have a chance."

"Neither did twenty million people on Earth in the last atomic war."
The Director's voice was soft. "All colonists volunteer. Some have a
vision. Others have a latent power drive that stasis can't satisfy.
They're misfits regardless, potential threats to stasis. Remember your
last leave, Commander? I believe you met my son."

Saxon nodded curtly. He remembered the Director's son as a quiet,
soft-spoken youth with the yearning for far places in his eyes.

"I had hoped he would qualify for the Corps." Gant looked suddenly
old, tired. "Instead he's volunteering for Colonial Service. Did you
ever lose a son, Commander?"

They stared at each other across the humming emptiness and Saxon
finally whispered, "I'm sorry."

"Stasis is all we can afford," the Director said numbly. "Man can't
have Utopia yet. Because he's still--Man. Perhaps he'll never have it.
But by God he'll try! Resignation withdrawn?"

Saxon nodded. He could not speak.

"I'm glad. The ship's captain had orders to burn you down had you
refused." Gant's face was wooden. "Inhibition agents never quit, they
just die in harness. You'll take the lifeboat to Eden XI for sixth
generation check. Good hunting, Commander."

The image faded. Saxon sat for a long time, staring into the darkness.

Eden XI was three parsecs distant, near Algol. For the next ten hours
Saxon paced the marvelously equipped lifeboat and absorbed data from
the robot recorder. He stared at the hard crystal ache of the stars and
thought of the Director's son. He thought about the shining cities of
Earth, and about stasis.

Stasis meant--control.

It meant control of a billion people, a rigid planetary economy. It
meant the Assassination branch of the Corps. Assassination (carefully
contrived to appear accidental) took care of those few malcontents
who were either too smart or too stupid to sign up for colonization.
It meant a gradual weeding out of the unsane, the power-mad, it meant
learning the true meaning of sanity and peace and racial brotherhood.

And it meant the stagnation of science, a thick film of dust gathering
on the textbooks of the military tactician, and warships rotting at
anchor. It meant the white spire of the Stasis Administration Center at
New Washington, and the words graven over the golden portals:

_Know thyself, Man. Or die!_

Was the dream worth it?

Or was Man doomed to die like a brawling ape, playing with lightning?

Saxon could not answer.

Meanwhile the colonies had to be inhibited. One interplanetary war
could smash the fragile structure so painstakingly built over the last
few hundred years. This was the turning point, the final cross-roads of
Man's destiny.

Saxon smiled bleakly.

Ultimately there would be a colony they could neither inhibit or
destroy. The adaptive ultimate. That colony would be Man no longer, but
Homo Superior.

But by then, it wouldn't matter.

The lifeboat came in on the night side of Eden XI, and hung above the
blue mountains like a basking shark. Saxon checked his coordinates.
This had been the original landing site, almost two hundred years ago.
He switched the infra-view on maximum, and began to cruise in widening
spirals. These sixth generation hops were usually routine. If nomadic,
a few political shifts could help warp the culture into a set pattern.
A simple matter to play the visiting deity, pick one warped psychotic,
and invest him with power. A dictatorship was by far the best way of
inhibiting a young culture. Agricultural city-states were almost as
easy. Designate a particular crop as sacred, kill the rotation program,
impoverish the land, introduce serfdom.

By dawn, Saxon found what he was looking for. A row of cleared fields
and a farmhouse. He reconnoitered a hundred miles farther and frowned.
There was no clump of dwellings, no sign of a village trading community.

He brought the ship down in a forest three miles away from the
farmhouse and camouflaged it to look like a great mossy boulder. He
spent the entire morning testing the atmosphere and the soil with a
savage patience. In the early years of the Corps, virus mutations had
taken a fearful toll of intermittent spotters.

Finally he discarded his uniform and selected a pair of homespuns from
the ship's wardrobe locker. Under the homespuns reposed his utility
kit, a miniature arsenal.

Late that afternoon he emerged from the forest and stood at the edge
of the cleared fields, a weatherbeaten itinerant, obviously willing to
chop wood for a meal. Abruptly his jaw muscle twitched.

The scene was pastoral, perfect.

The man, plowing the south forty. The little girl, playing in the
shadow of the sleepy farmhouse.

But no beast pulled that plow. A giant of a man with power and
intelligence stamped on his bronze features pushed the plow by hand, in
a die-straight furrow.

The little girl was blonde and elfin. She wore sandals, her tunic was
brief and plain. She was playing follow-the-leader--

With a robot.

The robot was tall. The sun struck sparks from its steel carapace as it
lumbered after the girl. Saxon stood frozen as she came flying towards
him in a burst of tossing blond hair and laughter, as she saw him and
came to a dead halt.

"Hello," Saxon said. He tried to smile.

"Hello." Her inflection was slurred. After six generations, naturally.
Her blue eyes sparkled. "Foot-sore, stranger?"

The words had the cadence of a ritual greeting. Saxon stared at the
robot and said carefully, "Yes."

"He's only a primer model," she said, following his gaze. "Next year
when I'm twelve Father promised to install secondary circuits. My
name's Veena. What's yours?"

Saxon introduced himself, as the giant at the plow came forward. His
white smile was a benediction, his voice a lambent organ. "Welcome,
rover. Haven't seen one of you in months. I'm Lang. Agricultural
hobbyist. You'll stay?"

His tone was almost pleading. Saxon nodded inarticulately, followed
them towards the farmhouse. His hands were shaking.

The interior of the house was--dimensionless.

For a moment Saxon thought he was still outside. A silver brook tinkled
through the mossy carpet that was the floor. The south wall was a
golden vista of ripe wheat rippling in the warm breeze that ruffled his
hair. Birds twittered in the sun-flecked foliage overhead.

"Nice house," Saxon said numbly.

Lang's smile was different. "A bit pretentious, I'm afraid. Grandfather
built it right after the landing. We've been too lazy to do much
remodeling. A remarkable man, Grandfather."

That explained it, Saxon thought in relief. One titan in an infant
colony, warping it into a Utopian mold, passing on the heritage of his
genius. How long, he wondered coldly, before they built starships and
returned to demolish the Earth which had exiled them?

"It must be wonderful to be a rover," Veena said wistfully. "Lang, can
I go with him when he leaves?"

"You haven't completed Basic Ecology. Mentor's waiting for your
afternoon session."

Veena pouted and went outside to her robot. Lang grinned. "The
precocious brat's beginning to ask him questions he can't answer. Soon
I'll have to install a few more circuits."

Saxon shivered. _Regardless of scientific attainment, any culture is
vulnerable to inhibition._

So said his agent's handbook.

Later he met Veena's mother, Merl, a handsome woman with calm gray
eyes who served them dinner by firelight. It was a good dinner.
These colonists seemed like good people. A shame they qualified for
inhibition.

Gently, Saxon began to probe.

In only six generations the colonists has scattered throughout the
entire hemisphere. Although the matrix of their culture seemed to be
the individual family unit, they lived according to whim. Some lived
in small communal groups. Some lived alone. Some, by choice, were
wanderers, rovers. They had science. Their philosophy seemed nebulous,
based on a benevolent ecology, brotherhood with all living things.

Saxon frowned.

Six generations ago, the ecology on this world hardly had been
benevolent for man. This area of the continent had been a steaming
marsh, swarming with hungry saurians. Now it was all meadow and forest.

Saxon said thoughtfully, "Have you ever felt the need for organization?
For a leader?"

He leaned back and waited for the seed to sprout. Two years ago on Eden
VIII, near Rigel, he had said the same thing to a sixth-generation
shaman, and it took scarcely a month for the shaman to start an
intra-tribal war.

But now the seed fell on sterile ground. Lang said, "I don't
understand. Any problem which cannot be solved at family level is
referred to the annual council."

"A leader." Saxon was patient. "One strong man to represent everybody.
To settle all problems as he sees fit?"

"Remember, Father?" Veena prodded. "Those arboreal cannibals
Grandfather used to mention? They had a nomadic tribal culture based on
brute strength."

Lang nodded somberly. "Good analogy. The most favorable extrapolation
indicated a racial life expectancy of only ten thousand years. Their
emotional stability index was nil, they would eventually have destroyed
themselves. The first generation decided it would be more merciful to
exterminate them. An unwise decision, I think."

He launched into a spirited ethnological discussion with Veena, and
Saxon sat, numbly.

They had no emotional insecurity to feed, no power-hunger. No herd
instinct to pervert, nothing to utilize as destruction potential.

No cultural weakness.

The room they gave him was small and comfortable. For a time he lay on
the sleeping hammock, considering the situation. He was beginning to
like them. That in itself, was dangerous.

The house was very still.

He got quietly out of the hammock and crept towards the door. He had to
get back to the lifeboat, to feed facts into the monitor.

One thing disturbed him.

According to his agent's handbook, family-group anarchies didn't need
inhibition.

He was halfway across the plowed field when Mentor's iron voice said,
"Good evening."

Moonfire glimmered on metal. The robot stood impassively before him.
Saxon said slowly, "I was just going for a walk."

"You are our guest: I shall walk with you."

"I prefer to walk alone."

"Guests prefer company. The house of Lang must observe the basic
amenities."

Was there a hint of sardonicism in Mentor's voice?

They walked along the furrows, man and robot. Saxon felt beneath his
shirt for the utility kit. He kept his voice level.

"Am I a prisoner?"

"You are a guest."

"Did Veena tell you I might try to escape?"

A pause, while relays clicked silently.

"That is classified information."

Saxon's fingers were steady as they touched his tiny blaster.
Benevolent anarchy indeed! He said carefully, "Do the colonists resent
their exile?"

Another pause. Mentor's voice was a flat drone. "The concept is
meaningless, the question invalid."

_Like hell it is_, thought Saxon, and fired.

A cold blue wash of energy illuminated the robot. For a moment Saxon
was blinded. When vision returned he saw Mentor standing immobile,
unscathed.

"Please go back to bed," the robot said.

Saxon went back to bed.

Next morning Veena brought him breakfast. She seemed sad, withdrawn.
"Lang and Merl went to visit Aunt Tarsi. She lives near the Equator.
They won't be back till evening."

"How" Saxon had trouble breathing. "How did they go?"

"By transmitter, of course." She indicated a large shimmering platform
in one corner. "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot rovers hate the mention of any
type of gadgetry." Her eyes grew impossibly earnest. "But we try to
achieve some kind of balance, really. Once when I suggested that Father
let Mentor help him plow the fields, he got furious."

Saxon restrained wild laughter. First the robot, invulnerable to atomic
energy, now a matter transmitter.

Yet they plowed their own fields.

"Veena," he said.

She looked up at him.

"Why did you tell Mentor to keep me here?"

She bowed her bright head. Her blue eyes were brimming.

"Why, Veena?"

"Because I like you," she sniffled. "I wanted you to s-stay." Abruptly
she fled from the room.

He stood bleakly looking after her. After a time he went outside and
struck across the field towards the forest.

This time the robot did not stop him.

_Do not allow the emotional charm of any culture, nor any individual of
that culture, to sway your inhibition appraisal._

In the narrow confines of the lifeboat he repeated the quotation
grimly. Good inhibition agents are inflexible. He was a good agent.

For almost an hour he fed data into the monitor tapes. Then he touched
a stud and closed his eyes, waiting for judgment.

"Agricultural family-group societies are normally stagnant," the
monitor droned. "Such cultures, regardless of technological level, do
not warrent inhibition of any type. Reference: twelfth generation check
on Eden V."

The room spun. Saxon whispered, "But they have cybernetics, matter
transmitters."

"Regardless of technological level." The monitor was adamant.

This was madness. Saxon wiped his forehead and said, "Assuming
geographical isolation no barrier to united group action in the event
of emergency."

"United action is incompatible with family-group."

"Assume and advise!"

Relays chattered. Abruptly the entire panel flashed crimson. The
monitor spoke one word.

"_Annihilation._"

Saxon referred to his Inhibition handbook. He had never annihilated a
culture before.

One hour later he went into the forest. Birds sang overhead. The sun
dappled him in light and shadow. He stalked a small furry quadruped
that squealed at him from a log and brought it down with his sonic
pistol.

Back in the lifeboat he watched the animal regain consciousness in an
air-tight tank, and very slowly he pulled a lever. A green vapor rolled
into the tank. The quadruped screamed. The green vapor fed.

It was the penultimate in sporedom, yet it was more than a spore.
It had virus characteristics, and its propagation rate was almost
mathematically impossible. There was no known defense, and once used,
the entire planet was forever untouchable. To Saxon's knowledge it had
been utilized only once on Eden I.

At dusk, he took the lifeboat up fifty miles. He released the spores
in a widening spiral, and finally jettisoned the tank. He went into an
orbit at ten thousand miles, and waited.

It would take approximately a week.

It was a long week. Saxon slept little. He paced the cabin. He looked
at the stars and thought about a blue-eyed waif with tears in her
voice, begging him to stay.

After a week the lifeboat came down at the edge of a grassy plain.
Saxon took a sample of the contaminated atmosphere to determine
propagation rate.

The atmosphere was pure.

Some freak of expansion. One uncontaminated spot in a hemisphere of
death.

He selected another location. Then another. That evening he close the
coordinates of his original landing site and tested the air again.

Finally he went outside the airlock. He breathed deeply, and the air
was fresh and sweet, it smelled of forest and cool streams and evening
dew. In the blue dusk birds twittered. A small marsupial very much like
a squirrel scampered to the safety of a tree and scolded him.

Saxon began walking.

At the edge of the forest he saw the familiar plowed field. The
farmhouse was a friendly beacon in the twilight.

"Hello," Veena said. She stood at the edge of the forest. She was
smiling. "Welcome home, rover."

For the next few days Saxon was the perfect guest. He argued
philosophical abstractions with the family by firelight; by day he
hiked in the woods with Veena and listened to Mentor give her lessons.
He asked questions.

"Veena, do you know what a microorganism is?"

"Benevolent or malignant?"

"Malignant. A plague."

She pursed her lips. "Organic or cultural?"

"Organic of course."

"Bacteria." Veena shrugged. "Quite a few of the first generation
died immediately after the landing. Until they adapted. Until they
analyzed the basic metabolism of the planet's dominant life-forms, and
constructed a neutralizer."

"A neutralizer?"

"A protective shell of ionized particles," she said patiently, "keyed
to the individual body-chemistry."

"Classified information," Mentor droned.

Saxon licked his lips. "You mentioned cultural microorganisms?"

"Much more deadly. I call them that, but Lang says I'm being
semantically unsound. War, for example. Racial inferiority. To date we
haven't found a cure." She broke off, and her eyes were shining wet.

"But you don't have wars," Saxon said.

"No."

"Then?"

"We have a--ghetto," the girl said slowly. "I can't tell you about it.
Perhaps soon--"

Abruptly she changed the subject.

Slowly, Saxon's defenses began to crumble.

To all intents he was now a member of Lang's household, Veena's adopted
big brother.

Big brother--or pet?

It did not really matter.

On the fourth day he went back to the lifeboat. He remembered his
graduation day, the crash of the Corps anthem, and the pledge. _I do
faithfully swear to uphold the ideals of Man, to use this vested power
for the absolute good of Earth. I will not shrink from any cup of duty,
regardless of how bitter. I will guard stasis with my life, and the
lives of innocent people if need be, people whose only crime may be
that they are potential threats to stasis--_

He tinkered with the ship's reactor for an hour. Then he ran.

Behind him the lifeboat dissolved in a white blossom of flame.

Farewell the cold stars and the ache and the loneliness. Farewell the
destruction of newborn colonies to secure the rotting stagnancy of
Earth.

He would have a great many bad nights, but he was used to bad nights.
He thought of Veena and his stride quickened. She would be a beautiful
woman.

They were waiting for him back at the farmhouse, Lang, Veena and Merl.
They were staring at the dark pyre of smoke in the forest. Saxon took a
deep breath and squared his shoulders. "I've got a confession to make--"

They weren't listening. Lang said quietly, "You were right, Veena. He
may qualify."

"Come." Merl took her husband's arm. "Let's call the Council."

They went inside. Saxon looked at Veena. He moistened his lips. "You
knew," he said.

She nodded. There was a queer adult maturity about her as she said,
"Wait. They're calling an emergency Council meeting to decide if you're
fit."

"Fit," Saxon said. Coldly, it seeped in. To survive? To be a playmate,
a slave? "It's been a game," he said, grasping her shoulders. "You've
known all along."

"They're taking the transmitter to the Landing Site now," she said.
"Would you like to watch?"

Watch judgment of the outcasts on one of those who had marooned them?
Why not?

Lang and Merl were no longer in the house. Veena touched a silver stud
in one corner, and one side of the room dissolved from a vista of
golden wheat to a grassy amphitheatre. There were people assembled in
the clearing. Lang and Merl stood on a mossy dais, making a speech.

He saw the ship.

It was a giant silver ovoid, fretted with strange vanes, pockmarked by
the red cancer of rust. Towering forest patriarchs guarded that ship
like a woodland shrine. A ship that had never been born on Earth. An
alien ship.

Understanding came, and a quiet horror.

He lurched away from the screen, away from Veena. He was outside now,
and running. He was a good Inhibition agent, he had been conditioned
to the shock of alien concepts for half his lifetime, but the ground
reeled beneath him as he ran and he could feel the hot trickle of blood
where he had bitten through his lip to keep from screaming.

Aliens.

From _outside_.

Homo Superior, treating his ape-brother with an hospitable contempt.
Playing their inscrutable game.

The lifeboat came down almost in front of him.

It came down with a whining snarl and settled into the plowed field.
The airlock opened. Primus Gant stepped out. His blue eyes were very
cold and he was smiling.

"Report, Commander."

Years of conditioned reflex brought him erect, made him whisper,
"Mission unsuccessful." He swayed, almost fell. Gant held him.

"Easy, lad. We got the blowup a few minutes ago. It took us awhile to
home in on the distress transmitter in your utility kit." He chuckled
at Saxon's blank stare. "Whenever an agent's ship is destroyed his
utility belt automatically functions as a distress signal."

Saxon shook his head painfully. "You've been waiting?"

"We started ten days ago when your monitor gave out with the
annihilation alarm." He eyed Saxon keenly. "Just how bad is it?"

Saxon told him. Gant's face turned a dirty white.

"Aliens," he said thickly. "They probably murdered the original colony.
You've come through nicely, lad. It may mean promotion." He turned into
the ship. "Come on."

"Wait." Saxon's voice was a dry whisper. "You're not going to--"

"Demolition," Gant said. "I've got a task force up there that can crack
a planet. Let's go, Commander."

_I will not shrink from any cup of duty--_

"Please," Saxon said huskily. "I don't believe they're inimical to Man.
They're altruists."

"So?"

"They're benevolent," Saxon pleaded. "Both races can live together!"

"Don't be a fool," Gant grunted, and turned into the airlock.

Saxon leapt.

One palm came down hard at the base of the Director's skull.

And Gant twisted. He palmed the younger man with two deft blows, throat
and plexus. Saxon slumped, retching. Gant stood above him, his smile
strained.

"Amateur," he panted. "I was instructing hand tactics before you
were born." He took out his blaster. "They've infected you," he said
compassionately. "I'm sorry, lad. You'll get a posthumous decoration."

The blaster came up, steadied. Then Gant stood very still, a
white-haired statue.

Mentor came around the ship and helped Saxon to his feet.

"Destroying guests is forbidden," the robot clicked. "The concept is
irrational."

Later, in the shadows of the farmhouse that was not a farmhouse, Saxon
watched the scout disappear into the sky. He turned towards Veena.
"You're letting him go?"

"Mentor--treated him," she said dreamily. "He'll report that you
destroyed the colony, died in the process, and this planet is unfit
for further colonization. Incidentally, the council voted in the
affirmative. Otherwise you'd be with Gant."

Aliens, playing a game with their ape-brother. Recognizing him at first
glance, speaking his language, making him feel wanted, at home.

_Why?_

He was afraid to ask the question.

"We're on a vacation," Veena said. "We've only been here for one
generation. We were due to return almost thirty years ago, but we found
your colony."

"Did you--"

"Isolation," she murmured. "The ghetto. They're sick," she said.
"Infected with the culture plague. We couldn't leave them and we
couldn't help them." Her gaze was very steady. "Until you came."

It came to him. Man, clutching at the knees of Gods, envying, striving
futilely, finally hating.

Only Man can help Man.

"It's not fair," Saxon breathed. He took Veena by the shoulders,
made her look at him. "I'm happy here. You and Lang--Merl--I'm just
beginning to learn! I'd hoped that in a few years--"

"We are not human," Veena said gently. "And our life span is four
hundred of your years."

For the first time, he noticed the faint malformation of her ears, the
subtle differences in facial bone structure. He glanced past her, saw
Lang and Merl waiting in the doorway.

"It will mean months of study," she said. "You have so much to unlearn,
to understand. They may reject you, sacrifice you. That will not
matter. What does matter is your impact on their culture, what it will
mean a thousand generations hence."

_Diseased apes, with a touch of Godhood, suffering from an infection
that might be forever incurable. Why should he be the sacrifice? Who
was he, to help them?_

Looking at Veena, he knew the answer.