642 report — 1878. 



social discussions of the day, signs of belief that political economy has ceased to 

 he a fruitful speculation ; nay, I fear I must go further and admit that it is regarded 

 by some energetic minds in this country as even worse than unfruitful — as obstruc- 

 tive — a positive hindrance in the path of useful reform. ... It is not denied that 

 the science has done some good ; only it is thought that its task is pretty well 

 fulfilled." 



The attitude which the working classes generally take up with respect to 

 political economy, may be seen from Mr. Howell's candid and instructive book on 

 the Conflicts of Capital and Laboiu\ 



Professor Jevons has recognized quite recently the state of facts indicated by 

 these testimonies, though he has no misgiving as to any grounds for it in the 

 current methods or doctrines of political economy ; if the public do not like the 

 science, so much the worse, he thinks, for the public — " the fact is," he says, "that 

 just as physical science was formerly hated, so now there is a kind of ignorant dislike 

 And impatience of political economy." 



It is plain, therefore, that the low estimate of the studies of our Section which 

 is entertained by some members of the Association, is no isolated phenomenon, but 

 is related to a mass of opinion outside the body — that, in fact, the crisis which, as I 

 have said, has shown itself in the Association with respect to our Section, is only 

 the counterpart, -in a more limited sphere, of a crisis in the history of economic 

 science, which is apparent on the face of English — and, as I shall point out by and 

 by, not of English only, but of European — thought. It is important to understand 

 the origin and significance of this state of things ; and to that subject, accordingly, 

 I purpose to direct your attention. 



We must take care to distinguish, at the outset, between two views which are 

 sometimes confounded — namely, between the opinion that economic facts do not 

 admit of scientific investigation, and the quite different opinion that the hitherto 

 prevailing mode of studying those facts is unsatisfactory, and many of the current 

 generalizations respecting them unsound. That economic phenomena are capable 

 of scientific treatment is a proposition which I do not intend to spend time in 

 demonstrating. It is comprehended in the more general question of the possibility 

 of a scientific Sociology ; and any one who disputes it will have enough to do in 

 combating the arguments by which Comte, and Mill, and Herbert Spencer have 

 established that possibility. Nor do I intend to waste words in showing that, if 

 there be a science of society, no other branch of investigation can compete with it 

 in importance or in dignity. It has the most momentous influence of all on human 

 welfare. It receives contributions from all other departments of research — 

 whether in the ascertainment of results to be used for its purposes, or in the 

 elaboration of methods to be applied in its inquiries. It presides, in fact, over the 

 whole intellectual system — an office which some, mistaking the foundation for the 

 crown of the edifice, have claimed for Mathematics. It is the most difficult of all 

 the sciences, because it is that in which the phenomena dealt with are most com- 

 plex and dependent on the greatest variety of conditions, and in which, accordingly, 

 appearances are most deceitful, and error takes the most plausible forms. That the 

 professors of the more stably — because earlier — constituted branches of knowledge 

 should ignore the claims of this great department of inquiry would be doubly 

 disastrous — first, by leaving the scientific system without its necessary com- 

 pletion in a true theory of the highest and most important class of phenomena 

 accessible to our researches ; and secondly, by tending, so far as prejudice and mis- 

 conception can temporarily produce such an effect, to hand over to minds of insuffi- 

 cient power, and destitute of the necessary preparation, studies which, more than 

 any others, require a strong intelligence, disciplined in the methods and furnished 

 with the results of the sciences of inorganic and organic nature. There is, in my 

 judgment, no duty more incumbent in our day on the professors of these last, than 

 that of recognizing the claims of Sociology, whilst at the some time enforcing^ on 

 its cultivators the necessity of conforming to the genuine scientific type. Yet it is 

 now sought to expel from this Association, which ought to represent the har- 

 monious union of all positive research, the very limited and inadequate portion of 

 the science of society which has ever found recognition in its scheme. 



I assume, then, that economic phenomena are proper subjects for scientific 



