7

POLITICAL  ECO]

CHAPTER  I

INTRODUCTORY

This  book  is  in  no  sense  historical  or  concerned
with  social  development.  Its  scope  is  confined
to  things  as  they  are  in  communities  which
have  reached  a  certain  stage  of  civilisation  ;
and  its  purpose  is  to  offer  general  explanations
of  these  things,  so  far  as  they  are  economic,
without  tracing  their  evolution.  Such  explanations ­
  make  up  the  elements  of  political
economy,  according  to  the  commonest  conception ­
  of  that  study.  Business  affairs  will
not  be  handled  in  this  work  in  any  great
detail,  but  the  fundamental  characteristics
of  economic  generalising  of  the  kind  indicated
will  be  pretty  thoroughly  explored.
The  explanations  that  will  be  presented  are
those  which  became  current  after  the  exact
analysis  begun  by  devons  and  Léon  Walras
had  been  perfected  and  applied  to  the  whole
field  of  economic  phenomena  by  later  writers,