ON TUE COMTIST CRITICISM OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 463 



sentatives of the study who have presided over Section F, we may 

 remember that conflicting ntterances have been heard in diflerent years. 

 At Dublin much was said of the ' narrowness ' and ' vicious abstraction ' 

 of the ' dominant school of political economy,' and a fear was expressed 

 that the study would cease to gain attention unless it was ' subsumed 

 under and absorbed into sociology.' ' At Aberdeen, however, rival sociolo- 

 gists were introduced to make sport before the Section by their 'portentous 

 disagreement,' and we were admonished to follow the steps of the ' English 

 economists who maintain the tradition of Adam Smith and Ricardo,' ^ 

 and to continue ' that labour of reflective analysis by which our concep- 

 tion of fundamental economic facts has grown continually fuller and more 

 exact.' It is not a matter for surprise that the plain man should be 

 tempted to ask whether the study as at present pursued is more than a 

 jumble of conflicting opinions ; for such economic scepticism there is 

 ample excuse. At the same time I cannot but feel that this contemptuous 

 disregard arises from a too hasty judgnaent on a study of great and ever- 

 increasing importance. To my mind, each of the modes of treatment which 

 opponents advocate has a real place in the thorough investigation of 

 economic phenomena. The mere fact that diflerent teachers have adopted 

 such diflerent standpoints only serves to show ns the vast range of the 

 subject, when once we come to feel that the diS'erent modes of treatment 

 and statement do not necessarily conflict, but may really serve to supple- 

 ment one another. It will be my endeavour to show that there are 

 elements of truth in each view, and that therefore a reconciliation is 

 possible ; though I cannot profess to restate each opinion within such 

 limits that it shall be clearly compatible with all the rest ; to do so would 

 be to render the reconciliation complete. I shall only insist that each of 

 the conflicting views is important, and must be taken into account if our 

 investigations are to be exhaustive ; but I shall not attempt to show how 

 far each is true. 



Even before the repeal of the Corn Laws had crowned the eff'orts and 

 added to the reputation of the Manchester school, the question of the 

 adequacy of their treatment of social problems had been raised through 

 the wider views of human society which were propounded by Hegel,* 

 and in a more aggressive form by Comte.'' The Comtist criticism called 

 forth a reply from J. S. Mill,"' which has been re-echoed, as if it had been 

 conclusive.'^ So far from driving the Comtists from the field, however, it 

 has not prevented them from assuming leading positions. The recent 

 article in the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' was avowedly written from 

 this standpoint,'' and when Professor Thorold Rogers inveighs against 

 political economy as a ' crude metaphysic ' * which is ' strangling itself 

 with definitions,' ^ he seems to be re-echoing the language of Comte. If 

 we review his general attitude — for I do not propose to enter into detailed 



most reckless and treacherous of all theorists is he who professes to let facts and 

 figures speak for themselves, who keeps in the background the part he has played, 

 perhaps unconsciously, in selecting and grouping them, and in suggesting the argu- 

 ment, post hoc ergo propter hoc' 



' Itcport of JirUish Association, 1878, pp. 644, 648. 



- 7«>iV/.. 188.5, pp. 1148, 1150. 



' Comp. J. H. Stirling, Secret of Hegel, ii. 541. 



* Comte, Philos. Positive (1839), iv. 264. 



» AvguMe Comte, 80. « Marshall, Present Position, 36. 



' Ingram, Historg of Political Economy, 5, 240. 



' Economic Interpretation, 2. » Ibid. viii. 



