146 KEASBEY — A CLASSIFICATION OF ECONOMIES. [Aprils, 



freedom, is not in the spectator who considers the action, but in 

 the agent? 



Is our failure to find proof of freedom in our bodily machinery 

 and its activity anything more than we should look for if freedom 

 is not in the spectator, so far forth as he is merely a spectator and 

 not a participant ? 



If the certainty of scientific predictions does not imply necessity, 

 and if freedom in willing and doing is not in the spectator, are we 

 not led to agree with Berkeley, that '^ certain and necessary are 

 very different, there being nothing in the former notion which im- 

 plies constraint, and which may not consist with a man's being 

 accountable for his actions " ? 



If physical necessity is not in nature, but in the spectator ; if 

 freedom is not in the spectator, but in the agent ; if the certainty 

 of scientific predictions does not imply constraint ; — does not the 

 controversy about necessity and freedom come to an end for the 

 man of science ? Does science afford any ground for controversy ? 



A CLASSIFICATION OF ECONOMIES. 



BY PROF. LINDLEY M. KEASBEY. 

 {Read April 5, IQ02,) 



Economics has to do with the weal relation between life and the 

 environment. From life, on the one hand, emanates demand for 

 well-being; from the environment, on the other hand, is derived 

 the supply of useful things or goods that minister to well-being. 

 In the last instance, therefore, the weal relation between life and 

 the environment is a relation between demand and supply. Now, 

 demand and supply are connected — made to meet, as economists 

 say— by the utilization of natural resources. The object of this 

 process is to derive from the outer world the qualities requisite to 

 fulfill the demands of well-being, or, more precisely, to convert the 

 potential utilities inherent in the environment into actual utilities. 

 Thus, in its simplest sense, an economy may be defined as a system of 

 activities whereby the potential utilities inherent in the environment 

 are through utilization converted into actual utilities. 



The very existence of life implies some such system of activities ; 



