Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/655

 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY 633, to expatiate upon acvantages which are known to most of you from personal experience. I will only advert to a secondary and less obvious benefit attenclin historical researches. To trace the affiliation of ideas in the progress of science is calculated to correct our estimates of authority: to reduce in eneral the extravagant regard which the youthful student is apt to entertain for contemporary leaders, and to assign clue weight to real originality. It is impossible to overrate the importance of the histori- cal method; understanding it in the sense defined by one of those who have most ably recommended and practised it, Professor Ashley,  as 'direct observation and generalization from facts past or present.' I do not pretend to determine with precision the parts played by theory and history in this sense; I would as soon attempt to solve the. 01d dispute, whether nature or man does more in the production of wealth. As the producer of wealth will push his investment in the different agents of production up to a certain limit which has been called the 'margin of profitableness '; so, in the manufacture of economic wisdom, each of us should expend his little fund of energy, partly on the fixed capital of the deductive organon and partly on the materials of historical experience. The margin of profitableness in the intellectual as in the external world will differ with the personality of individuals. No general rule is available, except that, like the cultivated Athenians, - we should eschew the invidious disparagement of each others' pursuits. I rejoice that such illiberal jealousy among the votaries of eco- nomic science is becoming as obsolete as the Battle of the Books. As it has been well said by one among us, Mr. Price,' The quarrel between the "old" and "new" economists seems to be giving way on all sides to a hearty desire to recognize good work where- ever it is to be found, and to an honest endeavour to seek for grounds of agreement rather than reasons for difference. 's In this broad and liberal spirit our school of modern history has included political economy among its studies. In this spirit . the teachers of both subjects will, I hope, cordially co-operate. While referring to the historical side of political economy, I cannot but think of my immediate predecessor, whose brilliant achievements have reflected lustre on this University: who not )nly extracted the crude ore of historical material from the dim Inaugural Address, University o! Toronto. Pericles apud Thucydiden. Econom/c Journal, No. 3, p. 509.