THE RELATION BETWEEN STATICS AND DYNAMICS 69 
be cast in static molds: so much is clear at the start. In dealing 
with questions of utility, sacrifice and efficiency, it will necessarily 
view society as an organic whole, rather than a mechanical sum- 
mation of the results of theoretical acts of independent “free 
exchange.” It will leave room for moral forces and its ideals of 
value and efficiency will be dynamic and not static. In all this 
its general point of view will be essentially similar to that 
exhibited in the Philosophy of Wealth: a study which contains 
many elements of a true economic dynamics, and stakes out 
territory which dynamic theory has not yet been able effectively 
to occupy. But to say in advance that such a study can have no 
use for the static method of approach or for static pictures as 
partial representations of reality: this would be premature. In 
fact, it seems possible to predict that certain elements of statics 
will find a place, and probably a permanent one, in the actual 
pursuit of the dynamic analysis. 
In the first place, the dynamic picture will never, in the nature 
of the case, be complete. The facts change so rapidly that induc- 
tion can never hope to catch up, and they are so multitudinous 
that a complete picture would not only be unattainable, but 
would hardly help the human mind to grasp the facts, since it 
would be as complex as the facts themselves. Interpretation 
means simplification, and economics must always simplify in 
order to be of any use as a mediating agent between the human 
mind and the facts with which it deals. One effect of the dynamic 
approach will be to limit staties again largely to its original prob- 
lem: that of the forces governing the levels of prices and the 
shares in distribution. And in this field, the static picture will 
for a long time, if not permanently, afford an indispensable point 
of departure, and inductive studies will reveal the effect of the 
static forces, combined with others suggested by the dynamic 
point of view. 
In the realm of price theory, quantitative modifications of the 
static hypotheses will produce quantitative allowances from the 
static results, and these will probably always be of use. An 
interesting example is found in the recent work of Professor H. L. 
Moore; in which he develops the concepts of partial elasticity of 
demand, and of a moving equilibrium of economic forces, putting 
the theories of demand and supply, and the marginal productivity 
theory of distribution into forms permitting of inductive verifica-