Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/55



dealing with any problem of direction, the reformer sees his mark, and no matter what winds are blowing and with no regard for inertia, aims point-blank. The net result of his far and true vision, and his haste, is to plow up his neighbor’s peaceful garden in the foreground. Among the most urgent of reforms is a provision that the professional reformer be only allowed to operate under license as any other pilot. His first qualification should be a thorough knowledge of ballistics, so that in plotting our forward path, we may be certain that he has taken into consideration not only the desirability of his objective and his available driving force, but also the factors of drift, friction, humidity, dispersion, altitude and gravitation, to say nothing of our recently acquired knowledge of air-pockets. To solve a very simple problem in exterior ballistics, the matter-of-fact artillery-man employs formulæ including all these factors; and if such an array of modifications is involved in calculating the path and destination of a body of known weight and shape, propelled by definite chemical force, and moving through as penetrable a medium as air, are we justified in following with any confidence a ruled line between Earth and Heaven, even though laid down with as unshaking a hand as that of the enthusiastic reformer, notwithstanding our full appreciation of his beatific vision?

In the realms of economics we have also conflicting and modifying factors, particularly if we regard economics as the study of the measurement, development and distribution of human energy. The conflicting factors are possible of co-ordination, even though some are vertical and some horizontal, to say nothing of being both negative and positive. There