ABSTRACT
WHETHER economics is to us a subject of thrilling W interests or a dismal pseudo science depends upon ourselves. If we come to it with literal minds, seeing only what has been definitely accomplished, we find the discussions dull and the conclusions dubious. But if we come thinking of man’s long struggle to master his own fate, then the effort to solve economic problems by taking thought seems a vital episode in human history, a hopeful portent for the future. Seen in this perspective, economic speculation represents a stage in the growth of mind at which man’s effort to understand and control nature becomes an effort to understand and control himself and his society. The beginnings of that effort may be crude, yet they stand for a high endeavor. And the future of economics, the question whether men will ever succeed in establishing a serviceable science of economic behavior, becomes one of the crucial issues on which hangs the doubtful fate of humankind.
