556 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



mediate neighbourhood of the market. He thus gets a 

 condition under which the cost of production is composed 

 of only two factors, that of labour and that of capital 

 (or accumulated savings of labour). He then seeks a 

 formula under which the wages of labour would stand 

 in a compound ratio to the cost at which labour can be 

 maintained and the value of the produce gained by this 

 labour in conjunction with the use of capital (or savings 

 of labour). He then calls the natural wage of labour 

 that amount which is the geometrical mean of those two 

 factors. Of this algebraical expression of a reasoning 

 which is in general correct but can probably not be 

 brought down to a rigid formula, he was nevertheless so 

 proud that he ordered it to be inscribed upon his tomb- 

 stone. According to his own statement it assisted him 

 in arriving at most important conclusions ; but he admits 

 that to make his theory really satisfactory he would 

 have to find the relation between the capital employed 

 and the produce resulting from its employment, and he 

 admits having laboured for twenty years in trying to 

 find this but without success. 



The pleasure which von Thiinen derived from this 

 algebraical formula reminds us again of Fechner's en- 

 thusiasm over his psycho-physical law. Though the 

 latter is supported by experience in various directions 

 more than the formula of Thiinen, both are doubtless 

 instances where the value of mathematical precision has 

 been exaggerated. 



I have mentioned Fichte's tract and Thiinen's formula 

 only as extreme examples of the application to social 

 problems of an abstract method such as has been success- 



