ABSTRACT
Economic theory is unified by its teleological account of human affairs. The essential form of economic concepts and theories is that of counterpoint. Two ideas are found in this pattern to be set in partnership, comparison, contrast and opposition with each other. Such pairs are ends and means, needs and satisfactions, sacrifices and rewards, costs and results, desires and obstacles, input and output, argument and function. The cost of any chosen course of action, and of the results which can be envisaged for it or looked upon as an aspect of it, is then anything which could have been done, or had, instead. Cost is a term and a concept belonging to the highly special world-picture, by which the governance of men's affairs by reason and their resulting determinate conduct can be reconciled to their ascription to themselves of freedom of choice.
