PREFATORY NOTE

HIS volume contains hardly any references to the
T writers who have built up the theories of economics
and given them the form which renders them useful
in understanding modern economic facts. In omitting
these references, my desire has been, not merely to avoid
introducing controversies which can only interest students
more advanced than those for whom I wrote, but also to
retain a freedom of expression which I must have denied
myself had I assigned each point of doctrine to those who
first, or most clearly, gave it expression. I should like to
express my indebtedness to many recent writers, and, if I
have given an interpretation of them, here and there, somewhat
 different from their own, I trust that I have not lost
the essence of their doctrines. so far as [ am able to accept
them.
No Cambridge student of economics in recent years can
fail to have gained inspiration from contact with Professor
Marshall, and the writer is conscious of a very special
obligation to the teacher to whom he owes his chief guidance
in economic study.
As with others, so especially in this case, the acknowledgment
 of inspiration carries with it no attempt to place
a burden of responsibility for either the form or the substance
of what is written here.
The text contains no explicit reference to the mathematical
 apparatus which has rendered eminent service in
economics, especially in recent years. Some of the simpler