December 4, 1885.] 



SCIENCE, 



495 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



♦♦* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



Newcomb's 'Political economy.' 



In reviewing my ' Political economy ' in the last 

 number of Science, Prof. E. J. James makes some 

 pertinent remarks about workers in one field tres- 

 passing- in another. But his method of dealing with 

 such a trespasser is one to be condemned by all lovers 

 of good morals in criticism. It consists, in brief, in mis- 

 representing- his teachings, and putting into his mouth 

 language which he never used, and doctrines and opin- 

 ions which he never sustained His misrepresentations 

 are so flagrant, that I feel it necessary to expose 

 them immediately in the journal in which they ap- 

 peared. 



He represents me as undertaking " to bring order 

 into the reigning confusion," and "to give the sub- 

 ject a recognized place among the sciences by being 

 the first to treat and develop it as a science ; " putting 

 this pretentious language in quotation-marks in such 

 a way as to make his readers believe that I used it. 

 I used no such language, and made no such preten- 

 sions. The first-quoted phrase is, so far as I can de- 

 termine, entirely of Professor James's fabrication. 

 In the second quotation he has taken a sentence 

 about the possible future development of economics, 

 and altered it so as to change it into a ridiculous 

 claim made by me for my work. What I wrote was, 

 " The author takes a more hopeful view of the future 

 development of economics than that commonly found 

 in current discussion. He holds that nothing is 

 needed to give the subject a recognized place among 

 the sciences, except to treat and develop it as a 

 science." 



It will be seen that Professor James takes the 

 sentence from its connection, and interpolates several 

 words m such a way as wholly to change its mean- 

 ing and application. I shall not trust myself to 

 characterize this proceeding. 



The review tends to strengthen the modest hope, 

 expressed in the preface, that the principles laid down 

 would be accepted as forming a well-ascertained, 

 even if limited, body of doctrine. He does not join 

 issue on a single principle of those referred to, but 

 reverses, perverts, or misapplies my views on nearly 

 every principle which he discusses. 



I never asserted that " the individual, in following 

 out his own interest, as he views it, will, at the same 

 time, always promote in the most efficient manner 

 the public interest." On the contrary. Book v., § 5, 

 is devoted to showing the error of such a proposition. 

 I have italicized the words in which the misrepresenta- 

 tion consists. Strike out the italicized words, and 

 substitute as a general rule for always, and we shall 

 have a different proposition, which I sustain. 



'' But he is trying to get formulas for a general po- 

 litical economy which shall hold good of present, 

 past, and future societies alike," is an atrocious mis- 

 representation. The proposition in question is one 

 which my book distinctly combats. Section 25 is 

 wholly devoted to showing its error; and, lest the 

 student should forget, he is again warned against it 

 in the summary at the end of the book (p. OoU). 



He takes a sentence in which I shovt^ one of the 

 compensations for the apparent evils of private own- 

 ership of land, and comments on it as if it were ray 

 main proposition in dealing with the subject. The 



statement that I confuse the labor party with the 

 socialists is perhaps pardonable as being an im- 

 pression which a hasty and superficial reader might 

 readily receive, from the fact that, owin^ to want of 

 space, only certain general ideas common to both 

 could be considered. In fine, there is one, and only one. 

 point in which he correctly reproduces the spirit of 

 my teaching, and joins issue with it; and that is, my 

 conclusion about the practicability of socialistic ideas 

 in the present state of society. This subject, how- 

 ever, is not included in that portion of the book which 

 I hoped would meet with universal acceptance. 



I wish it clearly understood that I take no exception 

 to the terms in which Professor James characterizes 

 my work. That my ideas are those of a ^Jast gener- 

 ation, and my expressions like a voice from the dead ; 

 that I am unacquainted with the recent literature of 

 the subject, and ignorant of actual facts in the social 

 organism, — are views which I not only recognize his 

 right to hold and express, but in the expression of 

 which I admire his frankness. At the same time I 

 do not disguise the fact that it would be very inter- 

 esting to me to know whether Professor James and 

 his school dissent from any of the principles which I 

 lay down as forming the basis of economic science. 



S. Newcomb. 



Whatever may be thought of the general tenor of 

 Professor James's review of Newcomb's ' Political 

 economy,' there are one or two points in it which 

 simply demand correction. In particular, there is a 

 passage in the first paragraph of the review, the in- 

 justice of which can only be set right by citing- it in 

 full, and along with it the passage in Professor New- 

 comb's preface of which it professes to be a quota- 

 tion. Professor James says, — 



" Certain it is, at any rate, that if a man who had 

 given the best years of his life to the study of politi- 

 cal economy should wander over into the field of 

 astronomy and physics, and undertake ' to bring 

 order into the reigning confusion,' and ' to give the 

 subject a recognized place among the sciences hy be- 

 ing the first to treat and develop it as a science,' 

 Professor Newcomb would be just the man to admin- 

 ister a severe and deserved castigation." 



The paragraph in Professor Newcomb's preface 

 upon which this charge of outrageous pretension is 

 based is the following : — 



'* The author takes a more hopeful view of the 

 future development of economics than that commonly 

 found in current discussion. He holds that nothing 

 is needed to give the subject a recognized place 

 among the sciences, except to treat and develop it as 

 a science. Of course, this can be done only by men 

 trained in the work of scientific research, and at the 

 same time conscious of the psychological basis on 

 which economic doctrine must rest. To such investi- 

 gators a most interesting and hopeful field of re- 

 search is opened in the study of the laws growing 

 out of the societary circulation. If the same amount 

 and kind of research which have been applied to the 

 development of the laws of electricity^ were applied 

 to this subject, there is every reason to suppose that 

 it would either settle many questions now in dispute, 

 or would at least show how they were to be settled." 



Of course, no one would charge Professor James 

 with purposely inserting the words we have italicized, 

 and thus completely altering the meaning of his 

 quotation ; but no one can read the paragraph in 



