ABSTRACT
Economics and political science have as their function the study of various forms of "economic" and "political" behaviour or opinion. Three distinct stages in the deliberate procedure are in fact distinguishable, each cast in an appropriate mood, the Indicative, the Optative, and the Imperative. Turning from criticism to a constructive plan, this chapter suggests that economists and political scientists should leave the "shocked missionary stage" and imitate modern anthropological writings in their amoral attitude to social life. Few economic or political circumstances and events can have their causes explained or their results foreseen without reference to statistical descriptions of, for instance, the business cycle, or the distribution of wealth, or the age-distribution. These also include the distribution of personal abilities in the population, or without reference to statistical descriptions of the general trend of birth and death rates, or of the actual mechanism of governmental or industrial organization.
