ABSTRACT
a. The Historical Schools.—As we have learned, in the classical political economy the deductive method prevailed. The economists of the classical school, regarding economic individuals atomistically, and conceiving them to be actuated exclusively by self-interest, were able on this presupposition to formulate for themselves a unified general picture of economic life. It would be more correct, however, to style this method of the classical economists “abstractly isolative” rather than “deductive”, for the crucial element in their procedure was the endeavour to contemplate economic processes undiluted, that is to say, abstracted from their setting, and completely isolated. That is the important point here, and not any question as to the preponderance of inductive or deductive constituents.
