New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-03-05
THE "DISMAL SCIENCE"
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL RAKES THE POLlIl-
CAL ECONOMISTS
TILE rNsEEx FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY. a

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ruLIisbcd in his day. for never has the dismal
ecience as the sage Of Chelsea loved to call IT.
been subicctcd 10 "A more unsparing and literally
smashing critquc. The Duke OF Argyll is familiar
with all the turns and Developments polItlcai
economy has undergone in England during inc
present century. I'm his youth he was one vi
the band of enthusiastic rcformers who had Kooert
Peel for their leader. and. as he observes IN the
Introduction 20 this volume, to-day Gladstone and
be are alone left 10 represent that movement. lie
has followed the sO-caled development OF economic
science ever since. and has. in common no doubt
with careful observers everywhere. noted how time
has modified and altered views which were once
held as necessary truths. and how the now school
of economic writer's has for years been tending
mere and more TO separate from and to condemn
the old.
But the Duke himself is truly catholic IN the
SCOPE of mis- criticism If on the one hand he inds
Adam Smith Ricardo. and John Stuart Mill 10 De
laborins under the most deporable falllcles II Is
not less apparent to him that many. II not h'os''
OF the younger school. AMI especially 'cvons' are
Just rs far astray in other directions lhe %chcTai
effect of his pOlemic consequently Is TO reduce
the dismal science as taught up to the present
time TO a dismal wreck amid which the econo-
mists great and small, ale painfully, Dut WIN
little success striving to keep their heads above
swecping result but. no matter what his primary
Intentions the effect Of his criticism Is to discredit
economic science almost altogether. and to leave
tho immersion on the minds Of his readers that
the sooner sueh a makc-bclicvc is scuttlcd and
sunE the better it will be for the wits of man
kind.
For. while the proposition advanced covers IN
terms. only what the Duke calls the neglected
conditions examination shows that these ne@lcc'e'
conditions profoundly Affect almost every III
portant conclusion that has been reached by
modern economists and that their neglect practl-
callv yitiatcs every theory and system. All
American writers upon political economy must
recall the arrogance with which the doctrines oil
the English school have been brandisllc" over
tbon the ASSUMPTION that the RcarGos, the
MilTses and the JevOnses must be right, ana every
body else wrong; the equally prcsumptucus I'M
plication that political economy was an exact
science the principles of which could be ana
should be known to all students, and which were
nnchanccable as the laws of the Modes ana Fer
slams Whatever American with tins past en-
perience in his memory, now reads the Duke Oh
Arpylls Unseen Foundations of Society VIII
realize that the day of retaliation las been brought
about by Times whrlieig and that 1t IS inc turn
of the British economists to experience their pad
quarter OF an hour.
Yet it must not be imagined that the Duke has
written in the least iippanly lightly or sarcasti-
cally. The weight of his positions lies IN the
force with which he demonstrates them one AFTER
another. His argument is deliberate slow. cnhn-
I,tive. and therefore the more convincing.
Moreover, lie begins ny striking where Carlyle
struck What he inquiries, lave these writers
really known about tho conditions of the society
they undertake to analyze and 10 reconstruct
Have they proceeded upon certain knowledge, or
have they depcnded in the main. upon abstrac-
tons derived nobody really knows whence
When the actual circumstances come 10 be e\-
amincd II at once appears that they nave 1aieo
20 take into account the rather important FACTOR
known as human natdre. OF that omission there
is plenty of evidence and so il seems with others.
"They are accused" says the Duke, of having
omitted-not temporarily for legitimate lmme-
date purpose, but altogether and through sheer
blindness and forgetfulness-somc OF the most
essential elements in the problems with winch they
had TO deal. The latest. one OF the most apc'
and certainly the most temperate of these critics,
has not hcsitatcd TO say of them that they over
looked whole groups of facts which we now see
10 be of vital importance, and they often failed
10 make the best use of those they had collected.
This was the criticism of Daechot, certainly one
of the most luminous and penetrating OF eco
nomic writer's But the Duke holds that even this
eweeping charge does not exhaust the true IN
dictment THE truth is he says, that the
errors which have been detected lie even deeper
than mere neglected outward facts They lie IN
defects of mental vision. and in systematic mis-
interpretations of our own human faculties, ana
OF the language in which their operations have
been reflected This very decp-scatcd source OF
error is the true one, and the only one which Inst-
fies Professor Marshals words that the economists
were not only blind TO many facts OF vital lihpor-
lance, but did not make the best use of those
they actually did see. The Duke next proceeds to
deal summarily with the speciors pretence that
pOitical economy is a new science, because IL
deals with facts and conditions Of society Which
are of recent development in the world
Bat" observes the author, tho most invidlous
NJ all falacics is involved in this plea. 1t is
true that economic science is a new one, out only
i'm the same sense in which the science OIL
language is a new one. The science OF language
;s new not because the facts with which 1t deals
are ncw-for language is as old as man-but pc-
cause the facts have only recently been recOs-
nized as fit subject for separate, systematic ana
comparative investigation. Men have been max
ing grammar, and have been evolving dialects ny
the thousand. ever since the world began. and
the laws which have governed the process are az
prevailing in the latest changes Of form as III the
oldest facts of which we have any knowledge.
Go H. is with economic facts and laws; they UNI
derie and govern every act of barter among the
rudcst savages Just as much as they undcrlie and
govern every transaction on the Stock Exchange
This il true and not 10 be 2ainsaid, and 1t strips
away almost the last rag which the economists
have left 10 cover Themselves wtha
But the Duke does not 20 with the men OF the
new school in all their criticism Of Ricardo.
Smith, MILL etc. On the contrary. lie differs from
them often fundamentally, as for example. in what
follows: 1T has been said Of late years by the
Younger school that the method Of the older
echool was bad because it was too abstract,
that its results were erroneous because they were
often 'mere distractions This theory must