Reasoning And Method In Economics

The work on the “Character and Logical Method of Political Economy” may be recommended to students as a safe guide to help them through the mazy labyrinths which the earlier stages of the study present. The purpose of the work is to ascertain the true relation of Political Economy to the Physical Sciences on the one hand, and to the Moral Sciences on the other, both as regards method and compass. The supporters and opponents of Political Economy have each done it injustice by misapprehending its aims and limits. The study, as Professor Cairnes points out and explains with inimitable clearness, does not consist in an investigation into the causes of physical facts or the evolution of psychological processes. Political Economy begins at the point at which physical science and psychological science each end.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.