ECONOMIC SCIENCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 23 



economy, is due, in considerable measure, to the widespread desire in 

 the science to have a name for the subject that shall be free from 

 the misleading associations of the old name, one that will more 

 completely identify its character as a science after the usual meaning 

 of the term. And, therefore, though the shadow of its early days 

 still hangs over the science, it has happily moved too far away from 

 that position to make an estimation of it as a utilitarian science 

 advisable. Some other course must be chosen. 



The course that I propose to take is to offer an outside view, to 

 see how economics looks when viewed from the general standpoint 

 of nineteenth century science. It ought not to be overlooked that 

 a leading purpose of this Congress is to bring out the fundamental 

 unity of all sciences, -- their mutual relations and advance. The 

 advance of knowledge in the nineteenth century has done much to 

 dispel the notion that the several sciences are independent of one 

 another. Those sciences that have lived unto themselves have 

 lagged. The mutual advance of the progressive sciences has stimu- 

 lated a belief that, in the midst of seeming diversity of character and 

 interests, there is a fundamental unity of knowledge. Whether this 

 belief will ultimately establish itself as a tested conclusion of experi- 

 ence, it needs no great insight to perceive that economics has a close 

 relationship with other sciences. It must go outside its own boundary 

 for much of its material, and it uses it with poor effect when not 

 habituated to the methods and standpoints of those sciences from 

 which it borrows. It is true that economics has not always ac- 

 knowledged its dependent character and, in its desire to avoid en- 

 tangling alliances, has sometimes incontinently isolated itself and led 

 a barren life. Something of this sort is doubtless in the minds of 

 those workers in other fields who tell us that economics is discredited 

 by its old-fashioned habits of thought. Economists cannot afford to 

 be indifferent to criticisms of such import, especially when spoken 

 with the sanction of authority. And this accounts for much of the 

 perplexity in which economists find themselves when viewing the 

 results of the work in their science in comparison with those of 

 the material sciences. 



Few things stand out more prominently in the history of nine- 

 teenth century thought than the change of attitude that the material 

 sciences have experienced. It is sometimes said that modern science 

 is realistic and sets a greater importance on facts as facts. But the 

 older sciences were surely not indifferent to facts; for all science 

 deals with facts. What distinguishes the later-day sciences is not 

 the insistence on facts, but the dispassionate habit of presenting 

 and construing them. For modern science, the matter-of-fact habit 

 of mind is everywhere decisive. Instead of seeking to find the 

 spiritual meaning which underlies appearances, modern science is 



