PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 667 



which political economy is said to rest, but it certainly seems to be an indis- 

 pensable adjunct to both. At a very early stage of abstract analysis it is usually 

 necessary to give due proportion and precision to our ideas by clothing the dry 

 bones with the flesh of concrete facts, and across the flow of economic phenomena 

 which history investigates we need to take frequent sections and soundings if we 

 desire to measure effects as well as to trace causes. I have some doubt if the 

 economic animal is a biped after all. I do not want to make him a centipede, 

 but I think that at least three feet must be postulated — abstract analysis, his- 

 torical (including comparative) investigation, and concrete statistical measure- 

 ment. 



The reconciliation of the historical and analytic schools of research does not 

 diminish, perhaps it increases, the necessity for perpetual vigilance on the part 

 of investigators of both types against their peculiar besetting sins. The his- 

 torical inquirer, full of his doctrine of relativity, must beware of supposing 

 that he justifies an institution when he unfolds its origin and shows how it 

 grew naturally out of the conditions and circumstances of its day, or that he 

 conclusively condemns its continuance when he shows that the conditions and 

 circumstances of its origin have passed away. On the other hand, the analytical 

 reasoner needs to be continually on the watch to detect in his assumptions which 

 appear universally valid the elements which in reality are true only for particular 

 times and places. 



The next tendency which I notice in recent economic literature is one which 

 can only be welcomed with some qualifications. I refer to the increasingly 

 technical character of the phraseology and methods employed. Economic and 

 statistical science is in the course of elaborating a highly specialised technical 

 terminology of its own, so that no careless reader may be misled by an ambiguous 

 word or phrase. Since the fundamental terms of economic science are words 

 in common use, such as wealth, capital, wages, rent, prices, and the like, each 

 of which is used in everyday conversation in half a dozen different senses, and 

 none of which have any claim to scientific precision, it can be readily understood 

 that the greatest of the classical economists was not always proof against the 

 danger of using his terms in different senses in different portions of his argument, 

 while the pamphleteer successors of the early economists scarcely made a serious 

 attempt to use terms in a consistent way throughout. 



Hence the great convenience for the purpose of analytical reasoning of having 

 a purely scientific terminology, free from ambiguity and incapable of being 

 confused with the popular words used in the market-place. 



And yet while welcoming the movement which has given us such terms as 

 'flow,' 'national dividend,' 'consumers' surplus,' 'quasi-rent,' and the like, I 

 venture to sound a mild note of warning. All these special terms and the 

 technical reasonings into which they enter should be restricted so far as possible 

 to purely scientific publications, and even in these their meanings should be 

 carefully explained and not assumed. I do not say this wholly or mainly in 

 the interests of the popular reader, but quite as much, and perhaps more, in the 

 interests of science. Political economy cannot from its nature ever be in the 

 position, say, of mathematical physics, which, though necessarily a closed book by 

 reason of its abstruseness to the vast majority of intelligent persons, nevertheless 

 commands their complete confidence. No one is afraid to trust himself on a bridge 

 because he cannot follow the reasonings which have made the engineers confident 

 in its stability. He accepts the results though he cannot follow the pro- 

 cess. But I do not think that the ordinary man will readily take up this 

 attitude towards a science like economics dealing with matters of everyday life 

 which he deems himself fully competent to understand and discuss. If then 

 the language of economic science is to him an unknown language, he is likely to 

 pass it by as an affair of a clique having no relation to practical life. This might 

 not perhaps matter much if we could get along without the practical man, but we 

 cannot, because we need his criticism at every point. A vast amount of rubbish 

 is, of course, said and written annually on economic matters by persons who are 

 imperfectly equipped for the task either of discovery, exposition, or criticism ; 

 but this should not blind us to the fact that a great deal of very valuable economic 

 criticism comes, and still more ought to come, from men who are not professional 



