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POLITICAL  ECONOMY

and  accomplish  the  good  and  great  is  the  wish
of  every  age  in  its  most  exalted  mood,  but
intuition  will  not  satisfy  this  wish,  and  movement ­
  backed  by  confused  ideas  means  mere
bustle  without  achievement.  The  nature  of
man  and  of  the  product  of  his  gregariousness  in
society  must  be  explored,  if  social  efforts  are
not  to  meet  with  disappointment,  and  in  their
exploration  we  shall  find  ourselves  studying
now  Ethics  and  Psychology,  now  Political
Science  and  Sociology,  and  now  the  romance  of
History.  The  investigation  of  ends  or  ideals
is  out  of  the  question  in  these  closing  pages,
but  expression  may  be  given  to  two  thoughts
connected  with  the  bearing  of  abstract
economics  on  their  construction.  It  is  an
error—from  which  the  past  has  suffered—
to  suppose  that  the  ideal  social  system  must
necessarily  be  very  like  the  one  now  pictured
by  the  abstract  economist  when  for  purposes
of  theory  he  removes  social  friction.  Yet,
economic  theory  may  afford  help  in  testing  the
workableness  of  schemes  of  reform  ;  but  we
must  be  on  our  guard  against  trusting  over
much  to  the  infallibility  of  the  economic  test
when  it  is  abstract,  and  against  assuming  too
readily  that  circumstances  are  unmodifiable
when  our  economic  test  is  realistic—though,
granting  that  “  we  were  fishes  and  may  become