The Kinetic Theory of Economic Crises 7 



6. Like Ricardo, he compels the reader to make difficult as- 

 sumptions as to "other things being equal." 



The above criticisms of Mill are not offered in an adverse 

 spirit. On the contrary, it is maintained that the static method of 

 thought is necessary at some stage in the development of a so- 

 ciety, of an individual, and of the investigation of any given 

 social phenomenon. It is nevertheless manifest that the higher 

 truth consists in the apprehension of things as they move, live, 

 grow, and act. The rapid movement of modern life necessitates 

 increased rapidity of movement of the modern scientific mind 

 engaged upon social problems. When progress was slow the 

 method of noticing single variations seemed satisfactory ; the 

 student did not realize its inadequacy ; he did not feel as though 

 his labor was lost through the rapid change of environment. 

 The environment apparently was the same when he had con- 

 cluded his investigation that it was when he began it. Not so 

 with the modern student : he feels that the environment that he 

 begins with is slipping away in the very course of the investiga- 

 tion of one of its parts. 



While we are casting about for a new method of investigation, 

 it would not be surprising if the subject-matter itself changed. 

 New methods, new subjects. It is now the change in the en- 

 vironment itself, whether capitalistic, squirearchal, or what not, 

 rather than its details, such as wages, rent, and interest, that 

 attracts our attention. The changes of detail are looked upon as 

 flowing from the change in environment. This change of sub- 

 ject-matter comes in to relieve somewhat the strain of the kinetic 

 process, for we may treat the social change as a whole and so 

 retain something of that simplicity which constitutes the advan- 

 tage of static thought. At the present moment, however, we are 

 to inquire, not into the concessions that must be made to static 

 thought even in a kinetic investigation, but as to the nature of 

 the kinetic investigation itself. 



The desideratum is a method of reasoning in which several 

 elements may be allowed to vary at once so that we are not held 

 down by the condition that but one factor may be changed at a 

 time. We wish to hear no more of the cumbersome and glaring 



