INTRODUCTORY

II

concerned  with  what  human  actions  should  be
in  relation  to  wealth.  Economic  politics  is
all  that  part  of  politics,  whether  ethical  or  not,
which  has  reference  to  economic  facts.  An
economic  art  consists  in  a  systematic  exposition ­
  of  the  methods  by  which  a  given  end
may  be  attained.  Positive  economic  science
—which  I  call  “  positive  ”  in  order  to  make
plain  that  its  inquiries  do  not  proceed  from
the  ethical  point  of  view—takes  as  its  object
neither  more  nor  less  than  the  explanation
of  economic  data  in  the  manner  of  the  natural
sciences,  or,  as  we  may  put  it,  the  tracing  of
cause  and  effect  in  the  economic  universe.
This  book  will  be  confined  to  matters  which
lie  unmistakably  within  the  sphere  of  positive ­
  economic  science  ;  but  it  goes  without
saying  that  it  has  not  been  possible  to  do  more
than  indicate  the  broad  scientific  results
which  have  hitherto  been  achieved  within
this  sphere.
A  systematic  treatise  on  economics  was
comparatively  late  in  presenting  itself.  In
England  the  first  work  of  this  kind  which
was  at  all  satisfactory  and  approximately
complete  was  Adam  Smith’s  Wealth  of  Nations,
but  before  its  publication  much  valuable
economic  writing  had  appeared  in  this
country  from  the  pens  of  Mun,  North,  Child,