II
Disagreement (1) about method (2) postulates: (1) Nothing arbitrary in economic method, analogy of classificatory sciences erroneous: (2) Metaphysical postulate that facts of human activity same as physical facts erroneous: Definition of practical activity in so far as admits of definition: Moral and economic activity and approval: Economic and moral remorse: Economic scale of values.
Esteemed Friend,
Our disagreement concerning the nature of economic data has two chief sources: disagreement on a question of method and disagreement on a question of postulates. I acknowledge that one object of my first letter was to obtain from you such explanations as might set clearly in relief our disagreement on the two points indicated.—To reduce controversies to their simplest terms, to expose ultimate oppositions, is, you will agree, an approach to truth. I will explain briefly the two points at issue. In regard to that of method, although I agree with you in upholding the claims of a procedure that is logical, abstract and scientific, as compared with one that is historical (or synthetic, as you say), I cannot in addition allow that the former procedure involves something of the nature of an arbitrary choice, or that it can be worked out equally well in either of two ways. You talk of cutting away a slice from a concrete phenomenon, and examining this by itself; but I inquire how you manage to cut away that slice? for it is no question here of a piece of bread or of cheese into which we can actually put the knife, but of a series of representations which we have in our consciousness, and into which we can insert nothing except the light of our mental analysis. In order to cut off your slice you would thus have to carry out a logical analysis; i.e. to do at the outset what you propose to do subsequently. Your cutting off of the slice is indeed an answer to the problem of the quid in which an economic fact consists. You assume the existence of a test to distinguish what you take for the subject of your exposition from what you leave aside. But the test or guiding concept must be supplied by the very nature of the theory, and must be in conformity with it.
Would it for instance be in conformity with the nature of the thing, to cut away, as you wish to do, only that group of economic facts which relates to objects capable of measurement? What intrinsic connection is there between this merely accidental attribute, measurability, of the objects which enter into an economic action, and the economic action itself? Does measurability lead to a modification in the economic fact by changing its nature, i.e. by giving rise to another fact? If so, you must prove it. I, for my part, cannot see that an economic action changes its nature whether it relates to a sack of potatoes, or consists in an exchange of protestations of affection!
In your reply you refer to the need of avoiding waste of time over matters that are too simple, for which 'it is not worth while to set in motion the great machine of mathematical reasoning.' But this need relates to the pedagogy of the professional chair or of the book, not to the science in itself, which alone we are now discussing. It is quite evident that anybody who speaks or writes lays more stress on those portions which he thinks harder for his hearers and readers to grasp, or more useful to be told. But he who thinks, i.e. speaks with himself, pays attention to all portions without preferences and without omissions. We are now concerned with thought, that is with the growth of science; not with the manner of communicating it. And in thought, we cannot admit arbitrary judgments.
Nor need we be turned aside by an analogy with the classes of facts, made by zoology and other natural sciences. The classifications of zoology and botany are not scientific operations, but merely views in perspective; and, considered in relation to really scientific knowledge, they are arbitrary. He who investigates the nature of economic data, does not, however, aim at putting together, in perspective and roughly, groups of economic cases, as the zoologist or the botanist do, mutilating and manipulating the inexhaustible, infinite varieties of living creatures.
Upon the confusion between a science and the exposition of a science is based also the belief that we can follow different paths in order to arrive at a demonstration of the same truth. Unless in your case, since you are a mathematician, it arose from a false analogy with calculation. Now, calculation is not a science, because it does not give us the reasons of things; and hence mathematical logic is logic in a manner of speaking, a variety of formal logic, and has nothing to do with scientific or inventive logic.
When we pass to the question of the postulates, you will certainly be surprised if I tell you that the disagreement between us consists in your wish to introduce a metaphysical postulate into economic science; whereas I wish here to rule out every metaphysical postulate and to confine myself entirely to the analysis of the given facts. The accusation of being metaphysical will seem to you the last that could ever be brought against you. Your implied metaphysical postulate is, however, this; that the facts of man's activity are of the same nature as physical facts; that in the one case as in the other we can only observe regularity and deduce consequences therefrom, without ever penetrating into the inner nature of the facts; that these facts are all alike phenomena (meaning that they would presuppose a noumena, which evades us, and of which they are manifestations). Hence whereas I have called my essay 'On the economic principle,' yours is entitled 'On the economic phenomenon.'
How could you defend this postulate of yours except by a metaphysical monism; for example that of Spencer? But, whilst Spencer was anti-metaphysical and positivist in words, I claim the necessity of being so in deeds; and hence I cannot accept either his metaphysics or his monism, and I hold to experience. This testifies to me the fundamental distinction between external and internal, between physical and mental, between mechanics and teleology, between passivity and activity, and secondary distinctions involved in this fundamental one. What metaphysics unites philosophy distinguishes (and joins together); the abstract contemplation of unity is the death of philosophy. Let us confine ourselves to the distinction between physical and mental. Whilst the external facts of nature, admitted by empirical physical science, are always phenomena, since their source is by definition outside themselves, the internal facts or activities of man, cannot be called phenomena, since they are their own source.