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The Scope and Method of Political Economy/57
absolutely alone and apart, the science being concerned with man solely
as a being who desires to possess wealth. Just as the geometer considers
the dimensions of bodies apart from their physical properties, and the
physicist their physical properties apart from their chemical constitu-
tion, so the economist is said to regard man simply as a being who, in all
his economic relations, is actuated by an enlightened self-interest, and
who is also free to act accordingly, so far as he does not interfere with a
like freedom on the part of others.
This view of political economy is taken by J. S. Mill in his Essays,
although, as we have previously had occasion to remark, his construc-
tive treatise on the science is worked out on different and much broader
lines.68 He describes economics as treating of the laws of the production
and distribution of wealth, not so far as these laws depend upon all the
phenomena of human nature, but only so far as they depend upon the
pursuit of wealth, or upon the perpetually antagonizing principles to
this pursuit, namely, aversion to labour, and desire of the present enjoy-
ment of costly indulgences. Entire abstraction is to be made from every
other human passion or motive. In other words, the economist is sup-
posed to take as his subject of study, not the entire real man, as we know
him in all the complexity of actual life, but an abstraction usually
spoken of as the economic man a being, who, in the pursuit of wealth,
moves along the lines of least resistance, and does not turn aside to-
wards other ends.
In accordance with this view, political economy is defined as the
science which traces the laws of such of the phenomena of society as
arise from the combined operations of mankind for the production of
wealth, in so far as those phenomena are not modified by the pursuit of
any other object. 69 It is admitted that the economist must allow for the
interference of other impulses in applying his results, and that he ought,
even in the formal exposition of his doctrines, to introduce many practi-
cal modifications; but the recognition of these other impulses is excluded
from the science itself.
The single error involved in the above view is that of mistaking a
part for the whole, and imagining political economy to end as well as
begin with mere abstractions. The practical modifications, of which Mill
speaks, themselves demand a scientific treatment, and should, there-
fore, have a place accorded to them within the science itself. For in
many cases they are not mere isolated modifications, admitting of appli-
cation to individual instances only. It is often possible to generalize on
58/John Neville Keynes
other foundations. than that of the economic man; and, at any rate, the
various interferences with free competition admit of scientific enumera-
tion and classification.
The abstraction by which men are supposed in their economic deal-
ings to act exclusively with a view to a certain proximate end,70 namely,
the attainment of a maximum value with a minimum of effort and sacri-
fice, has nevertheless its place, and a very important place, in political
economy. For while it is true that our economic activities are subject to
the influence of a variety of motives, which sometimes strengthen and
sometimes counteract one another, it is also true that in economic af-
fairs the desire for wealth exerts a more uniform and an indefinitely
stronger influence amongst men taken in the mass than any other imme-
diate aim. Hence, in order to introduce the simplicity that is requisite in
a scientifically exact treatment of the subject, it is legitimate and even
indispensable to begin by tracing the results of this desire under the
supposition that it operates without check. By thus ignoring at the out-
set all other motives and circumstances, except those implied in the no-
tion of free and thoroughgoing competition, we may, at any rate in cer-
tain departments of enquiry, determine the more constant and perma-
nent tendencies in operation, and hence reach a first approximation to-
wards the truth.
As a matter of fact, this approximation is cases a very near ap-
proximation indeed. In dealing, for instance, with prices on the Stock
Exchange, or in the great wholesale markets, under modern industrial
conditions, we are for the most part concerned with the economic activi-
ties of persons who practically realise in actual life the notion of the
economic man. This by no means implies that the persons referred to
are what we should ordinarily call selfish. For men of the most unselfish
character are, in many of their commercial dealings, influenced directly
by what may be termed strictly commercial aims subject only to the
restraints of law and of ordinary commercial custom and morality. They
may desire wealth in order to educate and bring up their children with a
view to their children s best interests, or in order that they may devote
their wealth to particular philanthropic objects, or to the general
well-being of the community to which they belong. Still the desire for
wealth is in its immediate economic effects the same, whatever its ulti-
mate object may be.71
There are cases, then, where ends other than pecuniary exert so
little immediate influence that they may, without serious risk of error, be
The Scope and Method of Political Economy/59
neglected even in the concrete applications of economic doctrines. More
usually, however, this abstraction from other influences yields only an
approximation towards the actual truth, which approximation needs
subsequently to be developed and corrected.
Even the above degree of validity is denied to the postulate in ques-
tion by some economists. They hold that if the abstraction whereby we
suppose men to act solely with a view to their own advantage is not
condemned as leading to positive error, it should at least be rejected as
practically useless. It is in manifest contradiction, they say, to the facts
of life. Knies, for example, rejects it on the ground that a society of men
actuated solely and continuously by self-interest, and an absolute free-
dom of action, has never actually existed. He admits the possibility of
hypothetically working out the laws of price, etc., that would arise in
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