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TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 1151 
- tion of thorough work in any department. And so far as the charge hits a real 
defect, I doubt whether vague generalities about the ‘consensus of the different 
functions of the social organism,’ and the impossibility of ‘isolating the study of 
one organ from that of the rest,’ will be found of much practical use in correcting 
the defect ; since the relations of other social phenomena to those which primarily 
concern the economist vary indefinitely in closeness and importance; so that the 
question how far it is needful to investigate them is one which has to be answered 
very differently in relation to different economic enquiries. Thus, in considering 
generally the first subject of Adam Smith’s investigation—‘the causes of the im- 
provement in the productive powers of labour ’—the importance of a healthy condi- 
tion of social morality must not be overlooked ; but it is not therefore the econo- 
mist’s duty to study in detail the doctrine or discipline of the different Christian 
churches: while any reference he may make to the history of the Fine Arts will 
obviously be still more remote and brief. If, however, we are considering histori- 
cally the causes that have affected the interest of capital, the views of Christian 
theologians with regard to usury will require careful attention; if, again, we are 
investigating the share taken by a particular community in the international organi- 
sation of industry, the higher average of artistic sensibility among its members may 
be a consideration deserving of notice—as in the case of France. 
Or again, we may illustrate the different degrees in which economic science is 
connected with different departments of social fact by comparing the chief classes of 
statistics with which this Section has concerned itself. Some of the most impor- 
tant of these—such as the statistics of taxation, trade, railways, land-tenure and 
the like, and a great part of the statistics of population—obviously supply the in- 
dispensable premisses of much of the economist’s reasoning, so far as it aims at 
being precise and particular, and the indispensable verification of many of his 
conclusions. In other cases again, as, for instance, the great departments of 
sanitary and educational statistics, the interest of the economist is more general 
and limited: for though both sanitation and education have important bearings on 
the productiveness of national labour, the details of the organisation for promoting 
either end lie in the main beyond the scope of his investigation; while he has 
manifestly still less to do with criminal statistics, military and naval statistics, and 
several other species of social facts which governmental or private agencies now 
enable us to ascertain with approximate quantitative exactness. 
At this point, however, our crities will probably say that it is not so much a 
knowledge of the separate relations of different groups of social phenomena that 
the political economist lacks, but rather a true conception of the social organism 
as a whole, and of the fundamental laws of its development ; he does not recognise 
that his study can only be legitimately or profitably pursued as a duly subordi- 
nated branch of the general science of sociology. This view was strongly urged by 
Mr. Ingram in his presidential address to this Section seven years ago in Dublin!; 
and it was enforced by pointing contemptuously to the limited function which 
well-instructed economists at the present day are careful to allot to their science in 
the settlement of practical questions. When we explain, with Cairnes, that political 
economy furnishes certain data that go towards the formation of a sound opinion 
on such questions, but does not undertake to pronounce a final judgment on them, 
we are told that this ‘systematic indifferentism amounts to an entire paralysis of 
political economy as a social power’; and that the time has come for it to make 
way for, or be absorbed into, the ‘ scientific sociology’ which is now in the field, 
and certainly seems ready to offer statesmen the dogmatic, comprehensive, and com- 
plete practical guidance which mere economic science confesses itself inadequate to 
supply. 
It appears to me that Mr. Ingram and his friends somewhat mistake the point 
that they have to prove. It is not necessary to show that if we could ascertain 
from the past history of human society the fundamental laws of social evolution as 
a whole, so that we could accurately forecast the main features of the future state 
1 It has been recently expressed again, with no less emphasis, in Mr. Ingram’s 
article on ‘Political Economy,’ in the nineteenth volume of the Encyclopedia 
Britannica. 
