In the general body of knowledge in modern times the facts are apprehended in terms of causal sequence. This is especially true of that knowledge of brute facts which is shaped by the exigencies of the modern mechanical industry. To men thoroughly imbued with this matter-of-fact habit of mind the laws and theorems of economics, and of the other sciences that treat of the normal course of things, have a character of "unreality" and futility that bars out any serious interest in their discussion. The laws and theorems are "unreal" to them because they are not to be apprehended in the terms which these men make use of in handling the facts with which they are perforce habitually occupied. The same matter-of-fact spiritual attitude and mode of procedure have now made their way well up into the higher levels of scientific knowledge, even in the sciences which deal in a more elementary way with the same human material that makes the subject-matter of economics, and the economists themselves are beginning to feel the unreality of their theorems about "normal" cases. Provided the practical exigencies of modern industrial life continue of the same character as they now are, and so continue to enforce the impersonal method of knowledge, it is only a question of time when that (substantially animistic) habit of mind which proceeds on the notion of a definitive normality shall be displaced in the field of economic inquiry by that (substantially materialistic) habit of mind which seeks a comprehension of facts in terms of a cumulative sequence. The later method of apprehending and assimilating facts and handling them for the purposes of knowledge may be better or worse, more or less worthy or adequate, than the earlier; it may be of greater or less ceremonial or aesthetic effect; we may be moved to regret the incursion of underbred habits of thought into the scholar's domain. But all that is beside the present point. Under the stress of modern technological exigencies, men's every-day habits of thought are falling into the lines that in the sciences constitute the evolutionary method; and knowledge which proceeds on a higher, more archaic plane is becoming alien and meaningless to them. The social and political sciences must follow the drift, for they are already caught in it. FOOTNOTES: [1] Reprinted by permission from _The Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xii, July, 1898. [2] "The Fundamental Laws of Anthropo-sociology," _Journal of Political Economy_, December, 1897, p. 54. The same paper, in substance, appears in the _Rivista Italiana di Sociologia_ for November, 1897. [3] "The Old Generation of Economists and the New," _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, January, 1897, p. 133. [4] _Political Economy_, Book III, chap. i. [5] Marshall, _Principles of Economics_ (2d ed.), Book V, chap. ii, p. 395, note. [6] Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_ (Bohn ed.), Book II, chap. ii, p. 289. THE PRECONCEPTIONS OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE[1] I