¿8  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED

of  sociological  studies.  It  is  not  really  scientific  to  specialise ­
  without  any  “  fundamentum  divisionis  ”,  and  without
any  attempt  or  intention  to  apply  the  results  of  specialised ­
  enquiry  to  a  philosophic  interpretation  of  the  subject ­
  as  a  single  whole.  “  There  is  no  Social  Problem,
there  are  only  social  problems,”  Gambetta  is  reported  to
have  said.  This  is  the  attitude  of  most  of  our  statesmen
and  many  of  our  economists:  it  is  the  typical  position  of
the  politician  and  the  academic  person.  Being  a  practical
denial  of  the  possibility  of  Social  Science,  the  very  existence ­
  of  which  depends  on  the  admission  of  unity  in  the
subject  matter,  the  prevalence  of  this  falsehood  explains
why  progress  in  social  study  is  so  slow.  It  also  explains
the  vague  and  chaotic  character  of  the  general  judgments
to  which  our  public  bodies  of  enquiry  commit  themselves
when  they  occasionally  break  loose  from  the  tabulation
of  raw  facts.  A  delightful  example  of  this  judgment  is
contained  in  the  Final  Report  of  the  Labour  Commission,
when  that  body,  confronted  with  the  necessity  of  saying
something  on  the  wider  aspects  of  Irregularity  of  Employment, ­
  gives  vent  to  the  following:
“Fluctuations  of  trade  in  this  country  are  due  to  a
variety  of  causes,  the  chief  of  which  may  be  briefly
indicated  here.  The  majority  of  these  periodical  changes
are  connected  in  some  way  with  the  state  of  commercial
credit,  and  the  willingness  or  unwillingness  of  business
men  to  embark  on  new  ventures.  The  state  of  credit  in
every  country  depends  each  year  more  and  more  upon
the  general  conditions  of  business  throughout  the  world.”
Omitting  the  middle  terms  of  this  syllogistic  argument,  we
attain  the  valuable  conclusion  that  irregularity  of  employment
is  attributable  to  “the  general  conditions  of  business”!