282 WHEAT PRODUCTION IN NEW ZEALAND 



CHAPTER XI. 

 CONCLUSION. 



1. The Aim of the Investigation. 



In many of its departments economic science has 

 reached the stage at which application to practical 

 problems long since desired is now possible. The 

 fundamental ideas in the general abstract theory are 

 almost universally accepted now, and, while many 

 problems mainly in Distribution and Exchange yet 

 remain unsolved, sufficient work has been done to 

 warrant the application of general theoretical know- 

 ledge to practical problems. In a lecture on ' ' Economic 

 Science in Relation to Practice," Prof. Pigou points 

 out emphatically that economics deals with real life, 

 not with mere abstractions; that it should therefore 

 be a practical study. He classifies the sciences as 

 "light-b earing " and " fruit-bearing," according to 

 the nature of the knowledge which they impart, and 

 in a comparison of economics and astronomy, he claims 

 for the former the distinguishing characteristic of 

 "fruit-bearing." While economists in the past have 

 generally and rightly confined their attention to an 

 analysis and interpretation of the facts of economic 

 life, their ultimate aim is undoubtedly the accumulation 

 of scientific experience to guide mankind to those 

 ideals which it is the function of economic ethics to 

 set up. "It has been frequently assumed, even by 

 economists, that pure economics, concerned as it is 

 with general theories, can have but scant relation to 

 the varying succession of particular instances of con- 

 crete life. And, indeed, it is sometimes regarded as 

 futile to attempt to bring the two into factual relation. 



