Economic relativity

Abstract

If the sole purpose of the work of the Society were statistical investigation, I would be completely unqualified to preside over its meetings. It is possible, however, to slip in under the second part of our title. In the field of social inquiry, economics plays an important, although by no means an exclusive, part. Our Society, among its other manifold useful functions, serves as a meeting place for those engaged in the different departments of social inquiry, where we can exchange our experiences, compare our researches and collate our results. It may not prove out of place, therefore, to utilize this occasion to attempt to explain to my fellow-workers in the social sciences some of the peculiar difficulties under which the economist has always laboured and is doomed to continue to labour. Such an explanation may do something to reduce the misunderstandings which are perpetually arising between economists and their critics.