Cornhill Magazine,  2 (1860), 278–86.

"Unto This Last". II.—The Veins of Wealth  [2/4]

J R, pseud.  [John Ruskin]

Genre:

Essay, Polemic, Serial

Subjects:

Political Economy, Analogy, Electricity, Physiology, Mathematics, Manufactories, Soul


    Ruskin's condemnation of political economy draws on several analogies with natural science. Wealth and riches, for instance, are 'a power like that of electricity, acting only through inequalities or negations of itself' (278). Similarly, the 'circulation of wealth in a nation resembles that of the blood in the natural body', an analogy, Ruskin claims, which 'will hold, down even to minute particulars' (281). In conclusion, he asks whether 'among national manufactures, that of Souls of a good quality may not at least turn out a quite leadingly lucrative one?' (286).


Reprinted:

Ruskin 1862


© Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Project, Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, 2005 - 2020

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