38 ECONOMICS 



theoretic detail and emphasis rather than differences in point of 

 approach or method of attack. For them, it would appear, the 

 science has no new mission. The problems they handle are the old 

 ones and they handle them after much the old fashion, though, be it 

 said, with some change in the phrasing of their conclusions. Utility 

 may take the place of cost, and productivity that of sacrifice; a 

 single law of distribution may do the work that once required three; 

 but we still have the problems of the Ricardian economics, and the 

 apparatus for handling them shows little change. It is still deductive 

 economics of the old type, seeking by a skillful manipulation of 

 definitions to explain the normal case. A perfectly balanced system 

 in which everything is reduced to order and symmetry and congru- 

 ence with itself, that is the accepted test of truth. Such, for 

 example, is Professor Clark's Distribution, a consummate achievement 

 in the art of syst em-making. And though the phrase " system- 

 making " cannot be applied to Marshall's Principles without much 

 qualification, it is largely because the amplitude of accessories with 

 which he invests his treatment divides our interest with the system. 

 Every competent reader of this monumental work knows how much 

 more it contains than a system. But though Professor Marshall's 

 practice is mrro liberal than his precept, he has made it clear on more 

 than one occasion that the ideal he cherishes for economics is to 

 place it on a firm foundation as a systematic science, seeking to 

 establish a body of general principles an organon, as he has called 

 it by those methods which the natural sciences of an earlier 

 generation have made familiar. He aspires to make economics a 

 perfect, quantitative science and would, therefore, keep value in its 

 traditional position as the central problem of the science, to which 

 and from which all else leads. The play of human motives working 

 their way to a position of equilibrium, that is the thing to be 

 explained. Recourse is therefore taken to the analogies of physics 

 rather than of biology, and so the science remains a mechanics of 

 human action, a study of balance rather than of growth, a 

 theory of action, no doubt, but one in which the interest centers in the 

 conditions that limit the play rather than in the factors that vary it. 

 No doubt , neither Professor Marshall nor his colleagues are indifferent 

 to those considerations which the biological and anthropological 

 sciences of our day are pressing upon the attention of the learned 

 world. There are too many evidences in the writings of Professor 

 Marshall, at least, of a sincere and solicitous regard for the view- 

 points of these sciences, to charge such neglect. He is read to poor 

 purpose if it is not discovered how the notions of " continuity " 

 and " development " in the movement of things has tempered and 

 broadened his attitude. They are the watchwords of his preface. 

 But for all that, when the analysis is once under way, it is not 



