TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. lli 



by a reference to the actual position of economic science. After all the sustained 

 attacks on it from different quarters it seems to have regained some of its lost ground, 

 both as regards theory and practical influence. This partial recovery can be sustained 

 and completed only by adjustment to suit the external conditions, and must be of 

 tlie nature I have sought to indicate, otherwise the revival will be but temporary, 

 and followed by more complete collapse. 



Other countries are showing significant indications as to the true course of de- 

 velopment. In the United States, where economics has taken so prominent a position, 

 courses in social science are being established, and one university * has gone so far 

 as to create a chair of general sociology, in addition to the special ones assigned to 

 difl'erent branches of economics and politics. Another instance is much more in- 

 structive. France has long^ been known as the home of economic ' orthodoxy,* 

 which has the ' Journal des Economistes ' as its organ, and yet the last number of 

 that eminently respectable and conservative journal opens with an excellent article 

 on ' The State and Society ' belonging altogether to the domain of political science.'^ 

 Further on in the same number there is a report of an interesting discussion at 

 the Political Economy Society of Paris on ' The Relation between Political 

 Economy and Sociology,' where, though there were differences as to the exact 

 nature of the relation, there were none as to its existence.^ Similar indications are 

 to be found in the movement of thought amongst economists in other European 

 nations. 



Practical considerations may also be put forward. It is highly desirable that 

 certain professions — law, journalism, and public administration may be mentioned — 

 should have economics as part of the training necessary for their exercise. To 

 accomplish this object its combination with jurisprudence and pohtical and admin- 

 istrative science in a common group seems by far the best way.' The _ strictly 

 professional students would obtain a better and more suitable training, and it might 

 be reasonably expected that some with genuinely scientific tastes would be led to 

 take up social science as a regular pursuit, and contribute to its progress. 



But it is in dealing with the practical problems that present themselves in ever- 

 increasing number that this wider mode of treatment is most essential. To take first 

 cases that are regarded as peculiarly within the domain of the economist — is it not 

 true that commercial policy must largely depend on political and legal conditions ? 

 Even in carrying out the thoroughly wise and sound principle of free trade the British 

 Government finds itself involved in many curious complications. Treaties and ad- 

 ministrative regulations have to be taken into account. The political forces that guide 

 the tariff' policy of nations have their decided effects, and whether we desire merely 

 to estimate the actual character of any particular policy, to form a rational forecast 

 of the course that nations will take in the future, or to give judicious advice as to 

 ■what should be done, we cannot limit ourselves to abstract economic theory or 

 even to economic considerations. And this is equally true of the currency 

 question. The weightiest arguments for and against bimetallism are, I believe, 

 political rather than economic, while such social influences as habit and custom 

 powerfully affect the possibilities of action that purely deductive reasoning from 

 economic "premises might appear to suggest. 



The case becomes stronger when we turn to more fundamental and far-reaching 

 problems. The essential character of the socialistic movement that is passing over 

 Western civilisation cannot be properly judged if we look on it as merely economic. 

 The ordinary antithesis between socialism and individualism, or, as it is often 

 conceived, between self-sacrifice and selfishness, seems to me altogether misleading. 

 The struggle is rather one between two distinct types of social organisation, one 



' Columbia. 



- ' L'Etat et la Society,' by Maurice ^\o^. Jour tial des EconomisleB,Zm\Q 15, 189i, 

 pp. 321-343. 



* Ih. pp. 420-431. The remarks of MM. Worms, Leroy-Beaulieu, and Levasseur 

 are instructive as to the opinions current among French economists. 



^ The rudiments of such a training existed in the case of the selected candidates 

 for the Indian Civil Service, but the recent changes have practically removed this 

 valuable part of the system previously in force. 



