Analyses of Books. 295 
w The 1S case with the ideas of “competition ” and 
co-operation” These are manifestly biological conceptions,' 
yet our normal professor of economics still treats these points 
without reference to the “ general conceptions of struggle for 
existence, functional differentiation and change, polymorphism, 
and the like, of which they are really special cases.” This, 
surely, is undeniable by anyone who knows what the author is 
really discussing. 
But we have to go with him a step further. The normal 
economists interweave in their systems obsolete theories on 
man’s mental and moral nature, quite out of harmony with any 
school of Psychology now existing. In like manner they indulge 
in views on the origin and structure of society which savour 
lather of the “ Contrat Social ” than of any scientific results on 
these subjects. 
Mr. Geddes then argues that the student of economics should 
prepare himself for his task by a preliminary study of the 
sciences — Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Psychology. He is 
not called upon to become a specialist or a discoverer in any of 
ihese sciences, but merely to acquire a rudimentary, but clear 
and accurate, insight into their principles and their methods. 
In the application of these preliminary sciences to Economics 
we find mention of two errors to which the author gives the 
names of “ Materialism ” and “ Transcendentalism,” using these 
terms in somewhat novel sense. Under “ Materialism ” he 
ranks the intrusion of each science upon the domain of its 
ascending successors, whilst “ Transcendentalism ” is the con- 
verse attempt to make any one science do duty for those which 
underlie it. Terms are certainly wanting for the errors which 
Mr. Geddes points out, but we fear that the public will confound 
the proposed connotations of these words with those sanctioned 
by convention. 
. Tlie author then proceeds to expound in succession the phy- 
sical, the biological, and the psychological principles of Econo- 
mics, giving as an appendix to each a praftical application. 
As an instance of the analysis to which he submits the common 
platitudes of economic “ science,” we may instance the manner 
in which he discusses the oft-quoted saying of Bastiat, that “ a 
value does not reside in the commodities themselves, and is no 
more to be found in a loaf of bread than in a diamond, the water, 
or the air,” but merely, according to him, in its purchasing 
power. Mr. Geddes, on the contrary, shows that loaf and 
diamond have, (1) a mathematical value, i.e., they are exchange- 
able in a certain ratio ; (2) a physical value, i.e., they contain as 
combustibles a certain number of units of potential energy ; 
(3) a physiological value, i.e , the loaf is capable of maintaining 
an average adult for a certain definite time, whilst the diamond 
possesses a definite power of sensory stimulus ; (4) a psycholo- 
logical value, i.e., a subjective aspeCt relating to human wants 
VOL. VII. (THIRD SERIES). 
Y 
