34 
POLITICAL ECONOMY 
was regarded as measurable. The so-called 
Psychological Utilitarians used to hold that 
we were impelled to our actions by this 
feeling element as motive force, and by its 
opposite ; and the Ethical Utilitarians main 
tained in addition that it was right to allow 
ourselves so to be governed provided that 
the distribution of pleasure corresponded 
with the then conceptions of equity. To-day 
cautious psychologists shun dogmatising about 
the impulses which set on foot human action ; 
and the economist has, therefore, learnt, or 
should have learnt, so to lay the foundations 
of his science in demand that no special 
views on the determination of human action 
are implied, and his science is not left in 
compromising company. The only thing of 
which we can be quite sure is that people 
choose one course of action to the rejection 
of another, and choose to buy one thing 
rather than another. When people select 
in this way, we may say that they exercise 
preference. Preference is the fundamental 
fact with which the economist begins the 
construction of his Science of Consumption. 
And it must be firmly grasped that the 
existence of preferences does not imply that 
people always seek self-gratification. We 
work for others as well as ourselves, and