TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 721 



hive found no English translator or even effective imitator?^ Other instances 

 ne irly as glaring might be mentioned, leading to the general result that the 

 distinctive differences of the English mode of treating economics are not sufficiently 

 recognised, and further progress is for the time hindered. 



Increased political power obtained by the class of manual workers has most 

 markedly altered the prevalent tone of thought on industrial questions, and, if it 

 has not caused, has at all events coincided with the adoption of more tolerant 

 views respecting the effect of labour combinations. Fuller analysis has shown that 

 the consequences of economic action are far more complex and more affected by 

 surrounding conditions than upholders of the orthodox doctrines were willing to 

 admit ; but this modification in theory has been guided by the urgent pressure 

 of non-expert opinion. It needed a very hard struggle to secure due recognition 

 of the elements of truth in the trade-union position as to the determination of 

 wages. But the mere substitution of ' working class ' for * middle class ' dogma 

 would not indicate any scientific advance. It is rather in the evidence of the close 

 connection of economic facts with other forms of social activity that the true 

 importance of the change consists. It is henceforth clear that no interpretation of 

 industrial or other economic phenomena can claim to be adequate unless it takes 

 into account the particular forms of social structure and the special political 

 conditions which have helped to produce them. 



More profound and far-reaching, both in its actual effects and in its still greater 

 promise for the future, was the appearance of the principle of evolution, that 

 became an active force from 1859. Its immediate influence in one branch of social 

 study is well shown in the reception given to Maine's ' Ancient Law ; ' and though 

 the economists did not at once recognise the full import of the method in respect to 

 their own department of work, they saw its value in some special points, and 

 thereby gave an opening for its further and more extensive employment." The 

 most obvious of the services that the new conception rendered was in bringing out 

 the general similarity of the various sciences dealing with man, which again made 

 examination of the bonds joining economics to the related subjects a more 

 prominent object. Just as in biology the older inelastic views as to the nature of 

 species and types gave way before the idea of innumerable gradations and 

 transitional forms, so rigidity of definition and isolation of the study of wealth 

 became no longer possible. Economic problems were found to be in contact at 

 many points with social and political ones, and even within the artificially limited 

 field of economics maintenance of the sharp lines between 'capital' and 'non- 

 capital,' between ' rent' and ' interest,' between ' currency ' and ' credit,' presented 

 difficulties in face of the complexities of real life.^ 



Thus the disposition to take a broader view of the subject, and to widen the 

 general conceptions and the 'setting' in which the received economic doctrines 

 were presented, was encouraged by a series of influences operating in the same 

 direction, and which, taken together, have left no inconsiderable mark on the 

 actual condition of the science. The severest critic of the current political 

 economy cannot, without unfairness, refuse to admit the improvement in tone, the 

 greater thoroughness in the investigation of economic problems, and the wider 

 range undertaken by the latest work of the English school. Much that was 

 misleading or positively erroneous has been removed, and many valuable additions 

 have been made to that part of the older system which has successfully stood the 

 test of hostile examination. There is, besides, ample opportunity afforded for 

 carrying on the work of reconstruction ; indeed, it is chiefly because any suggestions, 

 no matter how crude or imperfectly thought out, are likely to receive fair and candid 

 consideration that I venture to notice some of the respects in which the revised 



' The Grwbdlagen, the least characteristic and original of Koscher's works, has 

 been translated in America, but the other volumes of his ' System ' and his remaining 

 writings are inaccessible to the English student. 



- See J. S. Mill's Principles, Book XL, chap. ii. § 3«, and Cairnes' Political Egsays, 

 p. 154, for recognition of Maine's services. But to the end neither seemed to 

 understand the real bearing of the evolutionary mode of thought. 



' See Marshall's Principles, Preface, pp. vi.-x., on this point. 

 1894. 3 A 



