Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/443

 Rr. vmws 41 lessors Cohn, Roscher, Wagner, and other eminent Germans cited by Mr. Keynes, attest the justice of the following observations :--- ' We must not... exaggerate the opposition between what may be called the classical English school and the new school.... The dif- ference is strictly speaking one of degree only; and we find the oppo- sition reduced to a minimum, when we compare the actual procedure in the solution of given problems adopted by the best contemporary economists, whether they profess to belong to the new school, or are content to be classed with the old.' Contemplating separately the two functions of inductive reasoning-- so far as it is possible to distinguish in consideration processes that are inextricably intertwined in action we may first observe that Hr. Keynes in his analysis of the Deductive Method very correctly grounds abstract reasoning on what may be called' hypotheses :' in much the same sense as geometrical axioms have been so called. A perfectly straight .line nowhere exists, says Mill; and the rigidity o.f the ' economic man' s even more hypothetical. At the same time it s not to be supposed that the hypotheses rest upon nothing. The hypothesis of the' economic man,' is not, in the present state of society, as arbitrary as the hypo- thesis which might be entertained of a perfectly altruistic man. You could not say of these two assumptions that they were equally true or false and equally useful. But, though the foundations of abstract reasoning do not rest upon nothing, they are seldom strong enough by themselves to sustain prac- tical conclusions. To complete the supporting arch there is needed the consilience of specific experience. Mr. Keynes has surveyed with equal eye both parts of the scientific structure. The importance of ascertaining facts, the value of' history' in the wider Greek sense, is not underrated by him. He points out how history of bygone times is use- ful in illustrating and confirming economic theories. He holds, indeed, that ' deduction from elementary principles of human nature also finds some place in the argument.' But not in every case; for it is not true ' that economic history never provides premisses for the economist or forms the basis of his doctrines.' But, while thus rendering to specific experience the things which belong to her province, Mr. Keynes gives no countenance to the preten- sions of a one-sided ' Historismus.' ' Mere description,' he justly says, ' cannot constitute a science; and political economy has no purely classificatory stage, such as will enable it to be compared with sciences of the type of zoology and botany.' The complex problems of political economy cannot be successfully attacked without what Professor Marshall has called 'a special organon.' As Bagehot, quoted ap- provingly by Mr. Keynes, has said ' If you attempt to solve such problems without some apparatus of method, you are as sure to fail as if you try to take a modern military fortress. a Metz or a Belfort by common assault. You must have guns to attack the one, and method to attack the other.' In one respect, perhaps, it might appear at first sight that Mr.