SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN POLITICS

Is Politics a Science? Politics is a science in the sense that it is a body of knowledge that admits of statement, as much as Economics, in general laws. These laws are capable of empirical verification no less than the economic law of the inverse ratio between supply and price where demand is constant.^I It will be the object of this book to endeavour to justify so bold a statement. That it needs justification no reasonable person will doubt. For, despite the well-remembered treatises of Sir Frederick Pollock and Sir John Seeley,² with their striking titles, it cannot be said that Politics, or, for that matter, Sociology, is at present generally admitted to have vindicated its claim to be scientific in any precise sense of that too often abused word.^I