3. _Political economy is related to all the other social sciences, it being the study of certain of men's relations, while politics, law, and ethics have to do with other relations or with relations under a different aspect._ Politics treats of the form and working of government and is mainly concerned with the question of power or control of the individual's actions and liberty. Law treats of the precepts and regulations in accordance with which the actions of men are limited by the state, and the contracts into which they have seen fit to enter are interpreted. Ethics treats the question of right or wrong, studies the moral aspects of men's acts and relations. The attempt just made to distinguish between the fields occupied by the various social sciences betrays at once the fundamental unity existing among them. The acts of men are closely related in their lives, but they may be looked at from different sides. The central thought in economics is the business relation, the relation of men in exchanging their services or material wealth. In pursuing economic inquiries we come into contact with political, legal, and ethical considerations, all of which must be recognized before a final practical answer can be given to any question. Nevertheless the province of economics is limited. It is because of the feebleness of our mental power that we divide and subdivide these complex questions and try to answer certain parts before we seek to answer the whole. When we attempt this final and more difficult task, we should rise to the standpoint of the social philosopher. § III. THE RELATION OF ECONOMICS TO PRACTICAL AFFAIRS [Sidenote: Economics is first a science] 1. _The ideal of political economy here set forth is that it should be a science, a search for truth, a systematized body of knowledge, arriving at a statement of the laws to which economic actions conform._ It is not the advocacy of any particular policy or idea, but if it arrives at any conclusions, any truths, these cannot fail to affect the practical action of men. [Sidenote: But it touches many practical interests]