ABSTRACT
The discussion will seem to many economists to be outside the range of their subject, as the work of economics is mainly analytic and relates to “social statics.” But a purely analytical and statical inquiry seems impossible. We can never nd all the truth about the present condition of industry in the present itself; and, when we try to do so, we nd ourselves altering the meaning of the word “present” at every step. We cannot understand the nature of Work for Wages, for example, without looking backwards to the formation of the capital that made its rst payment possible and forwards to the protable sale of the product which is the condition of its continued payment. The “present” comes to mean a day or a year, a generation or a century, as may suit the purpose of the particular analysis on hand. We may abstract from all causes except the economical; but, if our method led us to abstract from all economical sequences and look only at economical facts without any dynamical or causal connection, it could not lead us to any truth. Economical progress (or at least process) is the object of our inquiry even when we are trying to study what we call the facts of our own time. Whether such economical movement takes place according to the principles of Evolution is therefore not a question beyond the range of economics.
