PROBLEMS OF DISTRIBUTION 249 
quite devoid of facts—of facts as they were 
conceived by Dickens’ embodiment of a dry 
and inflexible commercial philosophy, or 
negation of philosophy. It would be some 
what late in these closing words to defend 
my envisagement of the real elements of 
Political Economy—which are not such 
facts—and it is now unnecessary after 
the remarks contained in the Introduction 
and others scattered throughout the book. 
Nevertheless a few observations may be 
offered, as much by way of summary as of 
supplement, concerning the nature, sphere 
and limitations of economic theory, the true 
elemental fact which transforms discussion 
of economic problems from haphazard em 
piricism into a science. 
Every student of Economics who thinks for 
himself is bound, from time to time, to feel 
with something of a shock the contrast between 
what he sees and hears in the world as it is 
on the one side and what he has learnt on 
the other side. He may search in vain 
for the marginal “ dose,” and find the con 
ception of the marginal return in a firm 
foreign to the business mind and underivable 
from ledgers ; he may see workmen arranged 
in trade clusters which seems as little likely 
to be recruited from each other as flocks of