than its disparagers,--THE RELATION OF PROFITS AND WAGES.

What! an Academy of economists has offered for competition a
question the terms of which it does not understand! How, then,
could it have conceived the idea?

Well! I know that my statement is astonishing and incredible; but
it is true. Like the theologians, who answer metaphysical
problems only by myths and allegories, which always reproduce the
problems but never solve them, the economists reply to the
questions which they ask only by relating how they were led to
ask them: should they conceive that it was possible to go
further, they would cease to be economists.

For example, what is profit? That which remains for the manager
after he has paid all the expenses. Now, the expenses consist of
the labor performed and the materials consumed; or, in fine,
wages. What, then, is the wages of a workingman? The least
that can be given him; that is, we do not know. What should be
the price of the merchandise put upon the market by the manager?
The highest that he can obtain; that is, again, we do not know.
Political economy prohibits the supposition that the prices of
merchandise and labor can be FIXED, although it admits that they
can be ESTIMATED; and that for the reason, say the economists,
that estimation is essentially an arbitrary operation, which
never can lead to sure and certain conclusions. How, then, shall
we find the relation between two unknowns which, according to
political economy, cannot be determined? Thus political economy
proposes insolvable problems; and yet we shall soon see that it
must propose them, and that our century must solve them. That is