ON THE COMTIST CRITICISM OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 471 



the existence of perfectly free competition, and trace out what tends to 

 happen in some particular case on this supposition. This is the form 

 which our wvestigalions must necessarily take ; but it is one which may 

 be discarded as soon as we have reached definite results in re(jard to actual 

 society. The statement of what tends to happen under the conditions of 

 free comjictition affords an admirable instrumcjit of scientific investiga- 

 tion for modern society ; but economists sometimes seem to insist that it 

 is also a body of established truth about human society in general. It 

 was when the methods of economic analysis were thus hj^postatised into 

 a body of dogmatic truth that Comto felt justified in condemning the 

 'pretended science' as merely 'metaphysical,' or, as I should prefer to 

 say, ' transcendent,' since it parts company with actual experience and 

 becomes a body of empty and formal statements. That economic truths 

 would hold good in a planet where there was no wealth is an ingenious 

 speculation, even if it does appear somewhat ' trivial ' ; ' but a truth 

 which is so empty that it applies everywhere, can carry us but a little 

 way in the explanation of actual phenomena anywhere. When we 

 discuss the definitions of economic terms, not as the means of embodying 

 new knowledge and improving our instrument of investigation, but as a 

 mode of stating universal truths which have a mysterious ' reality ' alto- 

 gether apart from mundane phenomena, we are in danger of falling back 

 into the ' metaphysical ' stage of intellectual life in which scholastic 

 science flourished. 



Perhaps one might summarise this criticism of Comte's attitude 

 towards economic science by quoting a favourite phi-ase of Professor 

 Maurice's, and saying that he was right in what ho asserted and wrong in 

 what he denied. If we cherish a hope for the further progress of special 

 science, and especially for advance in economic study, we shall wish to 

 investigate the whole range of economic jihenomena, and to attach full 

 importance to the sociological conditions which underlie them ; but we 

 shall also welcome additional truth, when embodied in better definitions, 

 as an improvement in our instruments for investigating the phenomena of 

 modern life. 



On the Advisability of assigning Marks for Bodily Efficiency in 

 the Exaviination of Candidates for the Public Services. By 



FllANCIS G-ALTON, F.R.S. 



[Tlie foUon-ing communications to the Anthrojwlogical Section, n-ere ordered Jnj the 

 General Committee of the Beitish Association, to he printed in extcnso among 

 the liejwrts.'] 



An important paragraph occurs in the recently issued report of H.M. 

 Civil Service Commissioners (xxxiii. p. 15). It runs as follows : — 



' It was thought advi.sable, some years ago, to consider the possibility 

 of making physical qualifications an element in the competitions for 

 entrance into Woolwich and Sandhurst, and a joint Committee of this 

 Department and the War Office drew up a scheme of competition which 

 seemed easy of application. Circumstances caused it to be laid aside at 

 the time, but on our recently bringing it again under the notice of the 



' Marshall, Present Position, 24. 



