979 
of Edinhurgh, Session 1883 - 84 . 
sary and possible, and that on the present lines ; (b) that the 
analysis does yield many results of clear principle and practical 
application ; and (c) most important of all, that many of the most 
burning questions between producer and consumer, worker and 
capitalist, individualist and socialist, utilitarian and sentimentalist, 
are soluble on the field of pure science without appeal to sociological 
or political methods at all.* 
To the present scheme numerous objections are constantly pro- 
posed, and these, so far as the writer is aware, may be analysed and 
grouped as follows: — It is said (1) that the present survey is too 
wide, that it discusses principles which are not relevant within the 
proper sphere of economics; (2) it seems difficult to make sure of 
the actual logical sequence of the argument, and (3) to see its 
applicability to details ; or (4) there arises a suspicion of the 
insidious postulation at some early stage of the argument of the 
ethical considerations which appear as results ; or (5), and most 
commonly, the results seem too good to be true. 
To which it may be replied, that (1) hardly any matters are intro- 
duced which will not be found, in chaotic form indeed, in the 
standard works on economics, and that the usual restrictions of the 
subject to one particular division of the subject {e.g., to the theory 
of production and consumption apart from the relation of these to 
the organisms), are arbitrary, and proceed usually from ignorance or 
misconception of the subjects excluded ; and moreover that, even if 
it may still be thought by some to be too wide in its scope, it is yet 
a continuous train of reasoning connecting the widest generalisation 
of knowledge (the classified sciences) on the one hand, with the 
minutest details of technology or consumption on the other ; 
while most so-called systems have been set afloat either without 
cargo of fact or compass of science ; (2) that the present channel 
of publication is the most direct method known to the writer 
of challenging and obtaining a keen scientific scrutiny; (3) that 
the indispensable and yet less pressing question of its applica- 
tion to detail, although excluded because of limits of space, &c., can 
not only be tested by any one who cares fairly to master the general 
* Thus the dispute preceding the passing of the Factory Acts did not lie 
between “economic science” and “sentiment,” but between the ideals of 
physical and biological economics (q.v.). 
