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818 in economics which I called "social economics." That paper was specially addressed to economists, and no attempt was made to harmonize it with the present series of papers, which, however, were at that time for the most part written, and began to appear a month later. It is only necessary to say now that social economics as thus defined is simply sociology, and those economists who proceed from the standpoint of consumption, whether they realize it or not, whether they desire it or not, are in so far sociologists.

One or two examples of the two distinct points of view of economics and sociology will make them clearer. Prior to the year 1881, in the capacity of librarian of the United States Bureau of Statistics, I had occasion to study the statistics of railroads of various countries. Many foreign countries had commenced the assumption of their control by the state as their charters expired, and already a large number of important lines in France, Italy, Austria, Germany, and other countries on the continent had passed out of corporate management and were administered by the state either as owner or for the companies. The agitation of state ownership had begun both in Great Britain and in the United States. The railroad journals were filled with the discussion of this question, and I had it as a part of my official duty to keep abreast of the movement and to compile statistics bearing upon it. The tone of the railroad press was of course uniformly hostile to the movement, and I observed that all the arguments were directed to showing that the companies "managed" the lines with greater economy than the state "administered" them. I was required to prepare tables demonstrating this, which was an easy matter, and there really was no room for a difference of opinion. As a pastime I had devoted considerable of my unofficial time for the preceding fifteen years to writing and rewriting my Dynamic Sociology, which was then nearly ready for publication, and I could not avoid occasionally taking the sociological point of view as distinguished from the economic one, alone taken by the railroad press, and I took home some of the elaborate Prussian statistical reports (Stotis-