Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/243

 THE ART OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (CONTINUED PgoFsso H. STANLEY JEVNS, .A., n.sc., r.s.s. UNIVERSITY PIOFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, ALLAHABAD V.--PRINCIPLES OF FINANCE always difficult Definition and Scope of l'iance--rinancc is considered to be one of the most elusive and subjects with which practical men of affairs and much study and experi- are obliged to grapple; ence are supposed to be ne6essary before its can be so thoroughly understood that they principles may be safely applied in government, in business, and in private life. Yet the theory of finance is not intrinsically difficult, like higher mathematics, or the arguments of metaphysics. Finance seems difficult only because it has never been converted into an ordered body of precepts, logically developed from a scientific study of financial operations. Such study must relate them on the one hand to the ends or they are undertaken, and on the economic laws characteristic at the o. bjects for which other hand to the time of the social order in which the finance is to be practised. Finance must also b co-ordinated with psychological, physical, and even with political and other social generalizations; but, speaking generally, these are of somewhat less