554 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



The historian of German economics, Wilhelm Roscher, 

 characterises Thlinen's method as follows : " Thiinen's 

 abstraction has really a great resemblance to the experi- 

 ments of the natural philosopher. In actual practice 

 every economical fact comes about by the co-operation 

 of many and various factors. Thlinen then isolates in 

 his mind that factor the peculiar nature of which he 

 desires to investigate. He considers all other factors 

 to be for the time at rest and invariable, and he in- 

 quires how a change of more or less in the factor 

 under examination would act. This procedure he con- 

 siders to be the very kernel of his writings. The 

 results may be incomplete, but they are never erroneous. 

 Also they can be completed by gradually submitting 

 all the other factors to the same process, which points 

 to a number, indeed to an immeasurable number, of in- 

 vestigations ; as when with the use of a more powerful 

 telescope nebulous masses are resolved into groups of 

 stars, revealing at the same time new nebulae." l 



Thiinen has been compared with Ricardo in England, 

 whose writings benefited similarly by his practical, but 

 much more one-sided, experience as a banker. Both 

 thinkers were influenced by the writings of Adam 

 Smith, but Thiinen does not seem to have been ac- 

 quainted with Ricardo's writings till he had inde- 

 pendently and from a different side arrived at a 

 similar theory of rent. 



The love of calculation and of mathematical formulae 

 in dealing with matters which can only in a forced 



1 Wilhelm Roscher, 'Geschichte land' (Munchen, 1874, p. 882). 

 derNational-OekonomikinDeutsch- 



