Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/742

722 who do not intend to study it to consider whether they have formed a right judgment upon the work already accomplished by economists.

The mental qualities brought into use by political economy are of two seemingly opposite kinds; and, simply because of this distinct opposition between them, few persons combine them both, and consequently few persons have achieved great success in the study. To illustrate best the mental operations required, let me first recount briefly the process followed in an economic investigation. Certain phenomena are observed, and their accuracy ascertained; an hypothetical explanation, or a statement of the cause operating to produce the observed phenomena, is made on the best possible ground known to the investigator; a process of verification then follows, wherein the hypothetical principle is applied to other observed economic facts; and, if it explains the given conditions in all known cases, the law is considered established—just as we proceed to discover a law in physics (although the economic law is not capable of quantitative accuracy in statement like the physical law). First, there is observation, then deduction, and lastly inductive verification, with a severe and exacting standard. Or, to again use the words of Bagehot, we act as if a man were arrested under suspicion of murder: a murder was known to have been committed, and the doer of the crime has been suspected; and then, if, on resort to legal and just proof, the suspicion is found correct, he is declared guilty. Likewise, when economic phenomena are observed, the law expressing the relation between cause and effect is suspected; and if, on comparison with the facts, this law is wholly substantiated—as it were, "found guilty"—it is considered established.

By the deductive part of the process, the logical and reasoning powers are called forth in a marked degree. Hence economic study needs, and in its processes gives, the discipline of the severer logical and mathematical subjects. And many years of observation in the classroom warrants the statement that, as a rule, he who enjoys and masters mathematical and logical work will succeed with political economy, provided he has to some extent also the other necessary mental qualities. What these other qualities are may be seen by considering that, in the inductive part of the process above described, an imperative need exists for an honest, practical appreciation of facts, such as is possessed by merchants and men of affairs, coupled with an economic intuition, a faculty which is more or less innate, and not very much, in my opinion, a matter of cultivation. The capacity to collect and arrange facts is a book-keeper's function; but the ability to see through the confusing mass of details and trace the operation of a governing principle, requires an intuitive regard for facts and their causes possessed in a large measure hitherto by only a few men. If this analysis be a true one, it will appear distinctly how it is that qualities almost diametrically opposed to each other are necessary for