SECTION VII
REVIEWS
The Scope and Method of Political Economy. By JOHN NEVILLE KEYNES, M.A. (London : Macmillan & Co.), 1891.[1]
MR. KEYNES' first laurels were won in the comparatively barren field of formal logic. He has now obtained an equally brilliant triumph by an attack on the most arduous part of the material or inductive logic.
It used to be true, according to Bagehot, of books relating to currency that the first question asked, perhaps the only curiosity felt by most readers, was directed to the Bank Act of 1844 : was the author for or against that measure ? With equal truth it may be said that interest in a work relating to the methods of Economics centres round the issues raised in recent years by the writers who have revolted against the abuse of abstract dogmas. We once heard the question put to a lecturer : " Are you in favour of the Old or the New Political Economy ? " " I am in favour of the true Political Economy," the person thus interrogated replied with sufficient readiness. We imagine that Mr. Keynes' answer to a question which had better not be asked would be very similar. " The method of political economy cannot adequately be described by any single phrase," he says justly. The Hallam of methodologists, he gives complete satisfaction to the partisans of neither extreme.
" No one method will be advocated to the entire exclusion of other methods. . . . "If pure induction is inadequate, pure deduction is equally inadequate. It is a mistake, that is only too common, to set up these methods in mutual opposition, as if the employment of either of them excluded the employment of the other. It is on the contrary by their unprejudiced combination alone that any complete development of economic science is possible. For, as Professor Cohn remarks, all induction is blind, so long as the deduction of causal connection is left out of account ; and all deduction is barren, so long as it does not start from observation."
This we hold to be the right faith concerning the double nature of economic method : in a just mean between the monophysite heresies at each extreme. It is significant that Mr.
- ↑ When the date of the book reviewed is not given in the review the date of the review is printed in this volume outside not, as otherwise, within brackets.
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