F.— ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS i6i 



precision of the data at his disposal suggest that a further advance on 

 broad front is likely to occur in the near future. The notion that investi- 

 gators in other branches of social study should be asked to help forward 

 their lame brother economist and guide him on his proper path must, in 

 the interest of intellectual honesty, be set down as fatuous and derisory. 



To some minds it may seem that in the field of the social studies, 

 workers who treat of human values in direct, simple and intelligible terms 

 are the most useful members of the fraternity. But not to minds well 

 informed of the progress of the sciences. To reach general laws it is 

 usually necessary to abandon the straightforward terms of common sense, 

 to become immersed for a time in mysterious symbols and computations, 

 in technical and abstruse demonstrations, far removed from the common 

 light of day, in order to emerge finally with a generalisation which may 

 then be retranslated into the language of the workaday world. 



Zealous humanitarians may be impatient for quick results. All men 

 of goodwill may see without more ado that there is much amiss with the 

 world. Should not social students postpone their abstruse intellectual 

 problems, of fascination mainly to themselves, and get together in a sort 

 of academic tea-party to list our known abuses and our known resources 

 and arrive at a programme of reform on the basis of mutual goodwill ? 

 And do they not in fact, so the critic proceeds, bury themselves in unintel- 

 ligible jargon, because they fear that, if they proceeded with their more 

 immediate duties, they would disturb vested interests, incur social odium 

 and signally fail to feather their own nests ? 



The criticism misconceives the duty of the student and the true source 

 of his power for good. It may be the case that much could be put to 

 rights without further scientific knowledge. But the sociologist will agree 

 that if known abuses are not redressed it is not for lack of a catalogue of 

 them or even for lack of men of goodwill. He may not be able to formu- 

 late the sociological or psychological laws by which society is held in a 

 fatal equilibrium of internecine hostility. But his experience will lead 

 him to suspect that the equilibrium is not likely to be shattered by the 

 breath of an academic tea-party. Nor have academic students a monopoly 

 of goodwill or the power to express it. 



Only in one way can the academic man change the shape of things, 

 and that is by projecting new knowledge into the arena. In goodwill 

 he may partake in greater or less degree along with more practical persons, 

 and he is at liberty to join with them in political parties or social welfare 

 groups. His specific contribution is the enlargement of knowledge and 

 particularly of the knowledge of general laws. The task of the economist 

 is rendered arduous by the intractable nature of the phenomena which he 

 has to study ; but he is better placed than other social students, and, if 

 he turn a deaf ear to cavillers, the past achievements of his subject and 

 its present vitality may buoy him with a reasonable hope. 



References. 



Aristotle. Ethica Nicomachea, 1094b. 



Cassel, G. Fundamental Thoughts on Economics, 1925, 14 and 66-70. 



Theory of Social Economy, vol. i, 8-9 (tr. McCabe). 



