Ht> 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMICS 



' Economic investigation has hitherto fallen for the 

 most part into the hands of la\vyers and men of 

 letters, not into those of a genuinely scientific class. 

 Nor have its cultivators in general had that sound 

 preparation in the sciences of inorganic and vital 

 nature which is necessary whether as supplying bases 

 of doctrine or as furnishing lessons of method. Their 

 education has usually been of a metaphysical kind. 

 Hence political economy has retained much of the 

 form and spirit which belonged to it in the seventeenth 

 and eighteenth centuries, instead of advancing with 

 the times, and assuming a truly positive character. 

 It is homogeneous with the school logic, with the 

 abstract unhistorical jurisprudence, with the a priori 

 ethics and politics, and other similar antiquated 

 systems of thought ; and it will be found that those 

 who insist most strongly on the maintenance of its 

 traditional character have derived their habitual 

 mental pabulum from those regions of obsolete 

 speculation. We can thus understand the attitude 

 of true men of science towards this branch of study, 

 which they regard with ill-disguised contempt, and to 

 whose professors they either refuse or very reluctantly 

 concede a place in their brotherhood. The radical 

 vice of this unscientific character of political economy 

 seems to lie in the too individucd and subjective aspect 

 under which it has been treated. . . . The truth is, 

 that at the bottom of all economic investigations 

 must lie the idea of the destination of wealth for the 



