THE FALLACIES OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 213 



sometliing ; uothiajj; can be subtracted no times from notliinfr to 

 produce any number of somethings ; while under cerfciin mathe- 

 matical conditions algebra Bays that addition is the same as 

 subtraction, and tliat something can lie niultii»lied by or into itself." 

 " Fancy multiplying a line into a line to produce an area, or 

 multiplying an area into a line to produce a cube. It is impossible 

 physically ; but it is possil)le in higher mathematics." 



Such men as are here referred to, although possessing minds 

 of transcendent power and ability, are, so far as many of life's 

 affairs are concerned, of an exceedingly impracticable nature. 

 In respect to the highly important item of dietetics, for 

 example, your learned professor is, as a rule, proverbially 

 careless, despite the fact that suitable food and the proper 

 nutrition of the body are, after all, the most important factors 

 in our physical being. 



He does not know, for exaniple, that a pound of Dutch 

 cheese contains two and a half times the amount of nutriment 

 that beef does, and that all kinds of nuts contain nearly three 

 and a half times as much, and that both form better fuel fur 

 the human machine than does the time-honoured beef. 



"The people owe a deep debt of gratitude to their scientistr;, 

 philosophists, and thinkers ; to that splendid array of cultured 

 men and women who have given to the world all that is useful, 

 noble, and uplifting : and we stand in admiration and almost in awe 

 at the mighty deeds they have done, and we wonder at the greatness 

 of their intellectual power. l>ut beliind all this transcendent learn- 

 ing, these great ones of the earth are, in many cases, mere tyros in 

 the matter of feeding ; mere babes in knowledge and of no wisdom 

 whatsoever." "■ 



"AVbat, then, is the use of that marvellous inventive genius of 

 the age which has strewn the world with such wondrous shapes and 

 devices for man's comfort and enjoyment, if the inventor himself 

 remain ignorant of the iirst principles of life, ignorant of that 

 fundamental truth upon which his own body is built up, and 

 which it is absolutely essential he should know." t 



"Science" of Little Use in Domestic Economy 



At any rate it will be patent enough, at least to the 

 majority of people, that men who are capable of multiplying 

 a line into a line to produce au area, or, in other words, of 

 performing — on paper — a -physical impoasihiUt ji , might con- 

 ceivably not be quite the sort of people to apply t<» in order 



* " Errors in Eating," Sir W. E. Cooler, pp. 37, 38., 

 t Ibid., p. 37. 



