[36] I may be allowed to remark that in similar discussions, economists usually make the serious mistake _of making the concept economic coincide with the concept egoistic_. But the economic is an independent sphere of human activity, in addition to all the others, such as the spheres of ethics, æsthetics, logic, etc. The moral _goods_ and the satisfaction of the higher moral _needs_ of man, just because they are _goods_, and _needs_, are taken into account in economics, but still _only as goods and needs_, not as _moral_ or _immoral_, _egoistic_ or _altruistic_. In like manner, a _manifestation_ (by words or by any other means of expression) is taken into account in æsthetics; but only _as a manifestation _not_ as true, false, moral, immoral, useful, harmful, etc._ Economists are still impressed by the fact that Adam Smith wrote one book of theory and of ethics, and another of economic theory; which may interpret to mean that one dealt with a theory of _altruistic_ facts and the other with one of _egoistic_ facts. But if this had been so, Adam Smith would have discussed, in both of his chief works, facts of an ethical character, estimable or reprehensible; and would not have been an economist at all; a ridiculous conclusion which is a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the identification of economic action with egoism. [37] _Discorrendo di socialismo e di filesophia_, l. vi. [38] It is strange how among the students of pure economics also this need for a different treatment makes itself felt, leading them to contradictory statements and to insuperable perplexities. PANTALEONI, _Principî di economia pura_, Florence, Barbara, 1889, p. 3, Ch. iii § 3 (pp. 299-302), contradicts Böhm-Bawerk, inquiring whence the borrower of capital at interest is able to find the wherewithal to pay the interest. PARETO, _Introd. critica agli Estratti del Capitale del Marx_, Ital. trans. Palermo, Sandron, 1894, p. xxx, n.: 'The phenomena of _surplus value_ contradicts Marx's theory which determines values solely by labour. _But, on the other hand, there is an expropriation of the kind which Marx condemns._ It is not at all proved that this expropriation helps to secure the hedonistic maximum. _But it is a_ _difficult problem how to avoid this expropriation._' A learned and accurate Italian work which attempts to reconcile the opinions of the hedonistic school with those of the followers of Ricardo and Marx, is the memorandum of Prof. G. RICCA SALERMO, _La theoria del valore nella storia delle dottrine e dei fatti economici_, Rome 1894. (extr. from the _Memorie dei Lincei_, s. v. vol. I., pt. i.) [39] See above, chap. I. [40] The over-abused Dühring was not mistaken when he remarked that in Marx's works expressions occur frequently 'which appear to be universal without being actually so' (Allgemein aussehen ohne es zu sein). _Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Socialismus_, Berlin, 1871, p. 527.