June 18, 1886 ] 



SCIENCE, 



539 



allowed to interpret it in rny own way. I yet fancy 

 that I see in it an undercurrent of thought which 

 conveys a false implication. Possibly I may make 

 myself clearer by being allowed to intrude my own 

 views of the abstract or so-called English political 

 economy of the past generation. They may briefly 

 be summed up in two propositions : — 



First, this economic system has become entirely 

 insufficient to satisfy the progress of the age, and 

 does not furnish us the means of solving the new 

 problems which now confront us. 



Second, this same system is a most necessary 

 part of sound economic teaching, and embodies 

 the principles winch the public now most need to 

 understand. 



If the reader now sees any thing contradictory 

 in these two propositions, I beg him to compare 

 the following illustrations of their relation. I 

 have a carefully built roadway from my house to 

 a city five miles away, part of which comprises 

 costly bridges over streams and ravines. In the 

 course of events the city is moved five miles 

 farther oa, so that my road only carries me half- 

 way to it. I can now say of the old road just 

 what I have said of abstract or mathematical 

 economy, that it is totally insufficient for my pur- 

 pose, and yet is most necessary to enable me to 

 reach the city. My wise course is not to tear 

 down the road as useless, but simply to extend it 

 farther on. If I employ men to build the exten- 

 sion, and at the same time denounce the old road 

 as a nuisance in such strong terms, that, on going 

 out next morning, I find my men have blown up 

 all the costly bridges in obedience to my supposed 

 wish, I will have made a great mistake. The fact 

 is, I do not want a new road, but an extension of 

 the old one to suit the changed conditions. 



Professor Seligman says that we are compelled 

 to regard much that was at the time probably cor- 

 rect and feasible, as to-day positively erroneous 

 and misleading. Now, I regard this statement as 

 itself misleading, being true or false according to 

 the way in which it is understood, and as more 

 likely to be understood in a false sense. "Whether 

 such doctrines as we meet with in economics will 

 prove feasible or misleading depends upon the way 

 we interpret and apply them rather than upon the 

 doctrines themselves. The doctrine that a straight 

 line is the shortest distance between two points is, 

 abstractly considered, always true. It teaches us, 

 that, other conditions being equal, a straight road 

 between two points is the easiest. If we apply it 

 to cases in which the different roads we may take 

 to our destination are all alike except in their 

 directness, we shall apply it correctly. But if, 

 blindly following it. we pursue a perfectly straight 

 i road which is very bad and rough, in preference 



to a crooked one which is hard and smooth, we 

 shall make a great mistake. Are we, then, to 

 denounce the doctrine as false and misleading ? If 

 we did, we should only act on the same principles 

 upon which three-fourths of the critics of the older 

 political economy act. Considered in the con- 

 crete, every general proposition is true or false ac- 

 cording to the circumstances. Practical wisdom 

 consists in selecting such propositions as apply to 

 the case in hand. It seems to me that abstract 

 English political economy, as I find it in the text- 

 books, contains a number of great and valuable 

 truths applicable to the present state of society, 

 mixed with a quantity of matter which can be 

 made useful only by reconstruction In the latter 

 category I include the leading propositions about 

 profits, wages, demand for labor, the wage-fund, 

 and the fimctions of a paper currency. In a 

 word, economic principles should be looked upon 

 as the tools of trade of the economist, to be used as 

 occasion offers to make them useful. 



Professor Ely's paper opens with a most timely 

 exposition of the necessity that disputants should 

 begin by understanding each others position. I 

 have often suspected disputants of deeming it 

 highly impolitic to define their position on the 

 points under discussion, because, when they do 

 so. they have to stand there to be fired at, while 

 by refraining from it they can step around briskly 

 in such a way as to dodge all the enemy's shots. 

 Professor Ely goes on to take exception to the 

 statement that economic science should not con- 

 cern itself with what ought to be. The question 

 here raised is one which we can decide either 

 way with equal correctness, according to the 

 view we are to take of the scope of science. If 

 we confine the word 1 science ' to what I think 

 should be its proper scope, it is a contradiction in 

 terms to call a talk about what ought to be, 

 science. In the proper sense of the term, science 

 consists of exact and systematized general knowl- 

 edge ; and the great difficulty with Professor 

 Ely's extension is, that it tends to increase the 

 prevailing confusion in men's minds between talk 

 about things as they are, and about things as we 

 would like them to be. I see no more logical ob- 

 jection to building up a science of political econ- 

 omy which shall be wholly concerned with things 

 as they are, especially with the relations of cause 

 and effect in the commercial world, than I do to 

 getting up a guide-book showing how long it takes 

 different ships to cross the Atlantic. On the 

 other hand. I would no more consider this the 

 end of the matter than I would consider the 

 guide-book as the only one the tourist should 

 read. The economic student is no doubt very 

 much interested in what ought to be, and, in 



