Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/77



This generous list of so-called elemental factors is enough to keep the electrician calculating aimlessly for the rest of his life. Yet they are as parallel as may be to the medley of factors that preoccupy the economist. He may insist upon using them with devout and tremulous hands—but he must not insist upon our interest in his findings.

The electrician would brush all these away and would call for his well-calibrated instruments of precision which are nothing more than elaborations of the foot-rule, the balance and the chronometer. He would request the economist to take away his inventory and guess again at available energy by making some toast for the next meal on the electric toaster, and calling it capital, his prime factor.

At this juncture it is advisable to give the reader rest by changing the picture. In trying, with the best intentions in the world, to extricate an economist politely, the rescuer sooner or later goes down for the third time into the weedy depths with the struggling object of his pity and is lost. The results are a