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.In order todetermine the latter, we have further to take into account the specialconditions under which the general principles operate; and such condi-tions are indefinitely variable.But what is here maintained is that theabstract theory is invaluable as a preliminary study.The principles in-volved and the modes of investigation employed have a significance andimportance which it would be misleading to call merely relative; and theeconomist who would deal with the more concrete problems of any par-ticular age or state of society cannot afford to neglect them.Thus, as wehave already seen, there is a good deal of abstract reasoning in regard tothe laws of supply and demand that has a very wide application indeed.These laws work themselves out differently under different conditions,and in particular there are differences in the rapidity with which theyoperate.Their operation may, however, be detected beneath the surfaceeven in states of society where custom exerts the most powerful sway.And this would in all probability be overlooked were not our attentionturned in the right direction by the method of analysis afforded by ab-stract economics.B.On the Conception of Political Economy as aDistinctively Historical ScienceIt has been strewn in the preceding chapter that the study of economichistory plays a distinct and characteristic part in the building up andperfecting of political economy There are many problems belonging toeconomic science whose solution must necessarily remain incomplete,apart from the aid afforded by historical research; and the historicalmethod is, therefore, rightly included amongst the methods to which theeconomist ought to have recourse.Nevertheless economics is not to beconsidered, as some maintain, an essentially historical science.This viewis opposed to the doctrines of those more advanced members of thehistorical school who maintain that their method should supersede andnot merely supplement, other methods, and who seek to bring aboutthereby a complete transformation of political economy.A claim of thiskind is sometimes put forth explicitly.Thus Cliffe Leslie treats the de-ductive and historical methods as necessarily antagonistic, and rejectsthe former on the ground that its professed solutions of economic prob- 144/John Neville Keyneslems are illusory and false.It yields, he says. no explanation of thelaws determining either the nature, the amount, or the distribution ofwealth ; the philosophical method of political economy must, on theother hand, be historical, and must trace the connexion between theeconomical and the other phases of national history. 196 From a similarpoint of view, Dr Ingram blames Jevons for seeking to preserve the apriori mode of proceeding alongside of, and concurrently with, the his-torical. He adds that the two methods will doubtless for a time coex-ist, but the historical will inevitably supplant its rival. 197Other writers, while professing that they do not entirely reject thedeductive method, still set it contemptuously on one side as having al-ready done all it can do, and played to the full its unimportant part ineconomic investigations.The necessity for a completely new departureis no less strenuously insisted upon.Even if the doctrines reached by themethods of the older economists possess a relative truth, they are, it issaid, of little importance; and political economy can do fruitful work inthe future only by taking on a new form and becoming a distinctivelyhistorical science.The abstract method, says Professor Schmoller, hasdegenerated into intellectual consumption; the spring of its vitality isdried up.A necessary revolution is in progress, whereby things are viewedfrom a totally different side the historical. In the future a new epochwill come for political economy, but only by giving value to the wholehistorical and statistical material which now exists, not by the furtherdistillation of the already-a-hundred-times-distilled abstractions of theold dogmatism. 198The extreme historismus of which we are now speaking is char-acteristic only of the more advanced wing of the historical school, andnot of Roscher, who is usually regarded as its chief founder, or of itsmore moderate representatives such as Wagner, whose treatment of thewhole subject of economic method is admirable.199Roscher, for instance, insists on the necessity of taking into consid-eration the varying character of economic habits and conditions, andattacks especially the fallacy of criticizing economic institutions, re-gardless of a people s history and the stage of social and industrial de-velopment to which they have attained.But he neither effects nor seeksto effect a complete transformation of political economy.Whilst hischief treatise on the subject abounds in historical and statistical illustra-tions, and is full of information about the history of economic prin-ciples, the doctrines taught in it follow in the main the orthodox lines The Scope and Method of Political Economy/145both in substance and in manner of exposition [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.In order todetermine the latter, we have further to take into account the specialconditions under which the general principles operate; and such condi-tions are indefinitely variable.But what is here maintained is that theabstract theory is invaluable as a preliminary study.The principles in-volved and the modes of investigation employed have a significance andimportance which it would be misleading to call merely relative; and theeconomist who would deal with the more concrete problems of any par-ticular age or state of society cannot afford to neglect them.Thus, as wehave already seen, there is a good deal of abstract reasoning in regard tothe laws of supply and demand that has a very wide application indeed.These laws work themselves out differently under different conditions,and in particular there are differences in the rapidity with which theyoperate.Their operation may, however, be detected beneath the surfaceeven in states of society where custom exerts the most powerful sway.And this would in all probability be overlooked were not our attentionturned in the right direction by the method of analysis afforded by ab-stract economics.B.On the Conception of Political Economy as aDistinctively Historical ScienceIt has been strewn in the preceding chapter that the study of economichistory plays a distinct and characteristic part in the building up andperfecting of political economy There are many problems belonging toeconomic science whose solution must necessarily remain incomplete,apart from the aid afforded by historical research; and the historicalmethod is, therefore, rightly included amongst the methods to which theeconomist ought to have recourse.Nevertheless economics is not to beconsidered, as some maintain, an essentially historical science.This viewis opposed to the doctrines of those more advanced members of thehistorical school who maintain that their method should supersede andnot merely supplement, other methods, and who seek to bring aboutthereby a complete transformation of political economy.A claim of thiskind is sometimes put forth explicitly.Thus Cliffe Leslie treats the de-ductive and historical methods as necessarily antagonistic, and rejectsthe former on the ground that its professed solutions of economic prob- 144/John Neville Keyneslems are illusory and false.It yields, he says. no explanation of thelaws determining either the nature, the amount, or the distribution ofwealth ; the philosophical method of political economy must, on theother hand, be historical, and must trace the connexion between theeconomical and the other phases of national history. 196 From a similarpoint of view, Dr Ingram blames Jevons for seeking to preserve the apriori mode of proceeding alongside of, and concurrently with, the his-torical. He adds that the two methods will doubtless for a time coex-ist, but the historical will inevitably supplant its rival. 197Other writers, while professing that they do not entirely reject thedeductive method, still set it contemptuously on one side as having al-ready done all it can do, and played to the full its unimportant part ineconomic investigations.The necessity for a completely new departureis no less strenuously insisted upon.Even if the doctrines reached by themethods of the older economists possess a relative truth, they are, it issaid, of little importance; and political economy can do fruitful work inthe future only by taking on a new form and becoming a distinctivelyhistorical science.The abstract method, says Professor Schmoller, hasdegenerated into intellectual consumption; the spring of its vitality isdried up.A necessary revolution is in progress, whereby things are viewedfrom a totally different side the historical. In the future a new epochwill come for political economy, but only by giving value to the wholehistorical and statistical material which now exists, not by the furtherdistillation of the already-a-hundred-times-distilled abstractions of theold dogmatism. 198The extreme historismus of which we are now speaking is char-acteristic only of the more advanced wing of the historical school, andnot of Roscher, who is usually regarded as its chief founder, or of itsmore moderate representatives such as Wagner, whose treatment of thewhole subject of economic method is admirable.199Roscher, for instance, insists on the necessity of taking into consid-eration the varying character of economic habits and conditions, andattacks especially the fallacy of criticizing economic institutions, re-gardless of a people s history and the stage of social and industrial de-velopment to which they have attained.But he neither effects nor seeksto effect a complete transformation of political economy.Whilst hischief treatise on the subject abounds in historical and statistical illustra-tions, and is full of information about the history of economic prin-ciples, the doctrines taught in it follow in the main the orthodox lines The Scope and Method of Political Economy/145both in substance and in manner of exposition [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]