Section XXVI.

The Historical Method—The Anatomy And Physiology Of Public Economy.

We refuse entirely to lend ourselves in theory to the construction of such ideal systems. Our aim is simply to describe man’s economic nature and economic wants, to investigate the laws and the character of the institutions which are adapted to the satisfaction of these wants, and the greater or less amount of success by which they have been attended.(175) Our task is, therefore, so to speak, the anatomy and physiology of social or national economy!

These are matters to be found within the domain of reality, susceptible of demonstration or refutation by the ordinary operations of science; entirely true or entirely false, and, therefore, in the former case, not liable to become obsolete. We proceed after the manner of the investigator of nature. We, too, have our dissecting knife and microscope, and we have an advantage over the student of nature in this, that the self-observation of the body is exceedingly limited, while that of mind is almost unlimited. There are other respects, however, in which he has the advantage over us. When he wishes to study a given species, he may make a hundred or a thousand experiments, and use a hundred or a thousand individuals for his purpose. Hence, he can easily control each separate observation, and distinguish the exception from the rule. But, how many nations are there which we can make use of for purposes of comparison? Their very fewness makes it all the more imperative to compare them all. Doubtless, comparison cannot supply the place of observation; but observation may be thus rendered more thorough, many-sided, and richer in the number of its points of view. Interested alike in the differences and resemblances, we must first form our rules from the latter, consider the former as the exceptions, and then endeavor to explain them. (Infra, § 266).