466 REPORT—1905. 
Section F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 
PRESIDENT OF THE Section.—Rey. W. Cunnineuam, D.D., D.Sc. 
CAPE TOWN. 
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16. 
* The President delivered the following Address :— 
Unconscious Assumptions in Economics. 
Amona the members of any such gathering as a meeting of the Kconomic 
Section of the British Association there are likely to be some who come to give 
information and some who come to get it. In the latter class may, I am sure, be 
included all those habitués of the Section who have seized the opportunity which 
the visit of the Association affords with the view of learning something about the 
present condition and prospects of the enormous territory which we hope to be able 
to traverse. It may not be so to the same extent in all Sections. Those who come 
from the great chemical and physical laboratories of Kurope may have much to say 
as to the result of experimental investigation, which they can carry on under more 
favourable conditions than are at present generally available to students in South 
Africa, But in Economics there is no room for experimental inquiries consciously 
undertaken in the interest of the advancement of science. The issues are too 
serious ; the conditions on which they depend cannot be arranged for the con- 
venience of the inquirer. Economics is a science of observation, not of experiment ; 
and we are fortunate to find ourselves in specially favourable circumstances for 
noting and appreciating the results of investigations which have been made by 
skilled observers on the spot. 
While we gratefully acknowledge the pains that have been taken here in pre- 
paring papers for this Section, we may yet feel that the task we are setting 
ourselyes as visitors is not an easy one. There are few harder things in this world 
than to preserve a genuinely receptive frame of mind, and hold the judgment in. 
suspense when we are brought face to face with the unexpected. There are so many 
assumptions we all make, and so many canons of criticism we have habitually 
accepted, that are not easily laid aside, even temporarily. ‘The worst use of 
theory,’ as a great Cambridge professor has warned us, ‘is to make men insensible 
to fact,’! and the danger may be most real when we are not aware of the influence 
exercised by some hypothesis which we habitually make. 
I. The popular discussion of economic problems teems with unconscious hypo- 
theses, which tend to obscure the facts of the case, Mill-described political 
economy as a science which, assuming the facts of human nature and of the 
1 Lord Acton, Hnglish Historical Review, i. 40, 
