io8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



inquiry as to the scope of political economy and the methods which it 

 pursues. 



The division between the various fields of human knowledge is 

 largely a matter of convenience, a sort of intellectual division of labor. 

 This is particularly the case with those subjects which deal with the 

 various aspects of human relation's, especially political science, political 

 economy and sociology. Human activities are so interlaced that it is 

 comparatively easy, from whatever standpoint we begin their investiga- 

 tion, to extend the field of inquiry so as to embrace them all. There 

 has been therefore, respecting these three subjects, much unprofitable 

 controversy as to which should be deemed the dominant or master 

 science and to which priority should be given. If, however, the study 

 of each of these aspects of human society calls for peculiar aptitudes 

 on the part of the investigator, it would seem that the best results 

 should be obtained when each laborer cultivated his own patch without 

 indulging in border controversies with his neighbors. 



Political economy, the science of wealth, deals with man's relation 

 to nature in the satisfaction of his material wants. Since nature does 

 not shower its bounties abundantly, man's wants cannot be satisfied 

 without human effort. Economics seeks to discover the general rules 

 which govern man in this effort. Certain of the conditions of this 

 activity are axiomatic and fundamental, while others are dependent 

 upon time, place and circumstance. 



Primary conditions are nature's limits and man's wants, and both 

 have hitherto been accepted without inquiry. Of late years, however, 

 economists have sought to measure man's wants, to determine their 

 direction and intensity, and to thus ascertain their effects as molding 

 forces in the economic activities which result from them. This has given 

 us an analysis of demand which has been useful in pointing out the 

 subjective elements in our economic activities, though it has led its 

 adherents to trench closely upon the domain of psychology and has ex- 

 posed them to the criticism that they have been digging in other men's 

 gardens with inefficient instruments. The results of this analysis have 

 been extremely interesting, and despite the protest of the psychologists, 

 promise a restatement of economic theory based upon a more exact 

 formulation of the laws of demand. Yet it can hardly be said that these 

 views and the treatment which follows from them have become com- 

 monplaces of economic reasoning, and as it is the general consensus 

 of opinion with which we are concerned, we may pass them over. 



It was not until the economic processes became somewhat differen- 

 tiated that the necessity for an explanation of them was felt. When 

 men awoke to the idea that the affairs of every-day life were subject 

 to rules and order, they observed that the processes involved were by 

 no means simple. They saw men cooperating in the production of 



