Clark or divergent from the main current. * * * * * Since hedonism came to rule economic science, the science has been in the main a theory of distribution,--distribution of ownership and of income. This is true both of the classical school and of those theorists who have taken an attitude of ostensible antagonism to the classical school. The exceptions to the rule are late and comparatively few, and they are not found among the economists who accept the hedonistic postulate as their point of departure. And, consistently with the spirit of hedonism, this theory of distribution has centered about a doctrine of exchange value (or price) and has worked out its scheme of (normal) distribution in terms of (normal) price. The normal economic community, upon which theoretical interest has converged, is a business community, which centers about the market, and whose scheme of life is a scheme of profit and loss. Even when some considerable attention is ostensibly devoted to theories of consumption and production, in these systems of doctrine the theories are constructed in terms of ownership, price, and acquisition, and so reduce themselves in substance to doctrines of distributive acquisition.[4] In this respect Mr. Clark's work is true to the received canons. The "Essentials of Economic Theory" are the essentials of the hedonistic theory of distribution, with sundry reflections on related topics. The scope of Mr. Clark's economics, indeed, is even more closely limited by concepts of distribution than many others, since he persistently analyses production in terms of value, and value is a concept of distribution. * * * * *