The Theory of Economic Progress.

THE CLASSICAL tradition of economic thinking was formed in the eighteenth century in a climate of opinion one of the principle features of which was the idea of natural order. It also embodied an eighteenth century conception of human nature which antedates the modern science of psychology. Much has been made of both these points by later criticism, but without notable effect. No one doubts the influence of the philosophy of natural order upon eighteenth century economists; but contemporary economists protest vehemently that their use of such terms as “normal” and “equilibrium” has nothing in common with eighteenth‚century ways of thinking. Similarly no one doubts the psychological naiveté of the eighteenth‚century writers, but our contemporaries insist that no such traces of it are to be found in their work. So long as such charges are preferred and answered one at a time, the defense may be disconcertingly effective. How is the critic to prove, in the face of vigorous denial, that the phrase “normal price” is an evocation of the “laws of nature” of another age? The answer lies in the cumulative character of intellectual guilt. Modern representatives of the classical tradition may or may not talk the language of bygone ages at any particular point; nevertheless the whole theory of value which lies at the heart of all their reasoning is the embodiment and summation of all they disavow.