Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences

The Terminology and the Classification of the Economic Sciences

We have already spoken in another place1 about the nature of “political economy” and of its subdivisions, and the terminology which has come into usage for designating the latter. Only the question might still arise whether this expression is apt for the designation of the totality of the theoretical-practical sciences of national economy brought together under that heading, and whether the expressions “theoretical economics,” “economic policy,” and “science of finance” are apt for the individual subdivisions of “political economy.” This is a question which, to be sure, offers only a secondary, terminological interest with regard to the previously mentioned investigations into the sciences discussed here. Still, because of the fundamental character of the problems that lie at its foundation, it is not completely without importance.

The desire to establish satisfactorily the terminology of a science, particularly in consideration of its main categories, to harmonize the nature and designation of these categories, to harmonize objects and concepts in the sciences, appears to us under all circumstances to be highly praiseworthy. For a correct terminology not only prevents countless confusions in the investigation and reception of scientific knowledge. It really affords a lodestar for that large number of fellow scientists, whom experience shows always to predominate, whose attention is really directed less toward things than toward words.

The terminological problem which concerns us here first offers, moreover, very particular difficulties. These explain the most varied attempts, continued into the present, to change the terminology referring to the designation of political economy and its subdivisions in contrast to the terminology which has become prevalent.2 These are difficulties, the ultimate reason for which is probably to be found mainly in the fact that political economy according to its present conception comprises sciences of very different formal nature, and that the problem of a thoroughly adequate designation of them according to their character offers formal difficulties not easy to overcome.

Here one question seems to us above all to be worthy of consideration, because it touches the very nature of political economy and its subdivisions. It is the question whether political economy is to be included in the political sciences or the social sciences. We should not like to avoid it completely because, as is well known, it has really become basic for the terminological attempts under discussion.

If, as is the intention of the majority of those who characterize political economy as a social science, the concept of society is viewed as a contrast to that of the state and political economy is designated nevertheless as social-economy (économie sociale, etc.), the point is overlooked that economic policy and the science of finance are political sciences in the truest sense. This designation, with the above presupposition, thus seems at least to be unsuitable for presentations of our science which include the latter elements. Conversely the expression “science of state economy” used with preference for political economy by older German authors (still by Lotz, Fr. B. W. Hermann, and even by Roscher in his first writings!) again produces many doubts about the designation of “theoretical economics” as such (cf. L. v. Stein, Die Volkswirtschaftslehre, 1878, p. 571 ff.).

The expression “economics”3 seems less dubious as the designation of the totality of theoretical-practical sciences which are included in common under the concept of political economy. If the concept “national economy” is correctly understood, i.e., in the sense of a complex of all the economies in a nation (also economy of finance!), as an “organism” of economies from which with advancing culture a political activity (cultivation of national economy!) aimed at benefiting it seems less inseparable,4 then the above expression actually appears to be a not wholly unsuitable designation for the group of sciences in question here. Also the division of “economics” into a theoretical and a practical portion and of the latter into an “economic policy” and a “science of finance” flows rather easily from these reflections. If nevertheless a large number of German and the vast majority of foreign economists cling to the expression “political economy” which is just as indefinite as inexact, this obviously is done because of the international currency of the term. That is, it is done for a reason which in questions of terminology is of great significance, usually even of decisive significance. But perhaps it is done partly just because of its indefinite nature, which expediently cloaks the vagueness of the concept which it designates.

Incomparably greater interest, but, to be sure, incomparably greater difficulties are offered by the problem of a satisfactory terminology of our science if we do not look upon this problem merely in respect to political economy in the present-day conception of it, but in consideration of the science of human economy in general. A terminology adequate for the nature of the latter can only be the result of full insight into the nature of the various tasks which research in the realm of economic phenomena has to fulfill. It has as its presupposition a satisfactory solution of the comprehensive problem of classifying the economic sciences.

It scarcely needs to be stressed how far removed from this goal the theory of the human sciences in general and of the social sciences in particular still is. After all, the analogous problem in the realm of the natural sciences is still far from solved. And, as the most recent experiments show, the related theory is still controversial even in the most essential points. And yet, how much higher the development of the natural sciences has gone, and the epistemology related to it, than that of the human sciences! The latter will need a long development before the various aims of scientific research in the realm of human phenomena are completely clarified and thereby the basis gained for a complete classification and terminology of social science in general and of the economic sciences in particular. Until then the following intimations about a few of the main points bearing on the pertinent problems may help prepare for the solution of these problems.

The totality of the sciences related to human economy, economic science5 in this broadest sense of the word, breaks down into three large groups, corresponding to the three main tasks which the human mind may set for itself in the investigation of economic phenomena: I. the historical, II. the theoretical, III. the practical.

I. The historical economic sciences have to examine and describe the individual6 nature and the individual connection of economic phenomena. According to whether they undertake to solve their problem from the point of view of condition or development they break down into the statistics and the history of human economy. The historical sciences can respond to their task in universal fashion only under the presupposition of collective consideration of human phenomena and the historical economic sciences only under the presupposition of collective consideration of economic phenomena. This evidently must be the case if we consider the vast number of individual phenomena of human life7 or economy and the exigencies of the technique of scientific presentation. The historical economic sciences are just because of their universal-scientific task necessarily presentations of human economy from the point of view of a collective outlook, i.e., of national economy in the just-mentioned sense of the word.8

II. The theoretical sciences of human economy have to examine and describe the general nature and the general connection (the laws) of economic phenomena. In their totality they form the theory of national economy, while singly they correspond to the various orientations of theoretical research in the field of national economy. In the latter we have become acquainted with and learned how to distinguish the exact and the empirical orientation of theoretical research, and in the empirical orientation the historical-philosophical, the theoretical-statistical, the “physiological-anatomical” orientations, etc. Yet at first glance it is clear that even with this the totality of the various justified orientations of theoretical research in the field of national economy is by no means exhausted. It is clear that the development of our science can, rather, again and again bring to light new orientations of theoretical striving for knowledge. At present, with the slight development of the social sciences, the results of all orientations of theoretical research in the field of national economy are grouped together suitably into one science, “theoretical economics,” into a discipline which, incidentally, just for this reason necessarily lacks strict formal unity in the knowledge it presents and thus lacks a strict systematic approach also. However, in our estimation there is no obstacle to its gradually splitting into various branches with progressive development, as this has already happened in the field of research in natural science, partly for logical reasons for division, partly for factual reasons. Each one of these branches will exhibit a certain, at least relative, independence. Until then what has been said may serve to clarify the theoretical problem in the field of national economy and to explain the peculiar difficulties which a strict systematic approach in theoretical economics encounters.

III. The practical economic sciences finally are supposed to instruct us on the basic principles according to which the economic designs of people (according to conditions) can be most suitably fulfilled. These are:

1. Economic policy, the science of the basic principles for suitable advancement (appropriate to conditions) of “national economy” on the part of the public authorities.

2. The practical doctrine of individual economy, the science of the basic principles according to which the economic aims of individual economies (according to conditions) can be realized most completely.

The latter breaks down further into:

(a) the science of finance, the science of the basic principles for the suitable institution, according to conditions, of the largest individual economy in the nation, of the government budget, and of other economic subjects endowed with financial power,9 and

(b) the practical science of private economy, the science of the basic principles according to which private people (living in our present-day social circumstances!) can best institute their economy (according to conditions).10

These economic sciences refer altogether to human economy in its present organization, i.e., to “national economy” in the present-day figurative meaning of the word. But with a strict socialistic organization of society they would, like economy itself, assume a considerably different form.

In a community ordered thus there would in the main exist neither private individual economies along with the community economy nor a special cultivation of national economy and administration of finance. Thus the practical sciences concerned with these would cease. There would then be only one economy, a national economy in the real sense of the word.11 Its economic subject would be the nation (or the representatives of it); its aim would be the fullest possible satisfaction of the needs of all members of society. There would thus be only one practical economic science, the science of the basic principles by which the community economy, according to conditions, could be most suitably instituted and conducted. What in our day are designated with extreme inaccuracy as “socialistic theories” are the beginnings of this practical science, and its nature and place in the system of economic sciences are thus clear.

This practical economics in the true, socialistic sense of the word would, like all other practical sciences, need a theoretical basis. This is just as clear as the fact that it could find one only in a science which would make us aware of the general nature and the general connection of the phenomena of the community economy. Theoretical economics in this true sense of the word would by no means coincide with that same science in the present-day sense, but just as little would it of necessity have to be absolutely different from it. The psychological basis for the most general economic phenomena, the theory of human needs and the means available to us for satisfying them, the theory of the nature and quantity of needs and goods (of need and the available quantity of goods!), of use value and its measure, of the nature of economy and abstract economic reality, etc., would all be common to the theoretical science of economy in both cases. It is true that in respect to the general nature and the general connection of complicated economic phenomena this theoretical science would in turn exhibit differences in the two cases, corresponding to the differences of the real phenomena.

Thus the systematic approach of the social sciences in the socialist state would in no way be identical with that of the present-day social sciences. For in the first situation “economic policy” and the “science of finance,” and in the main the “practical science of private economy” also, would cease. “Economic science”12 in the most universal meaning of this word would then merely be divided into the “historical sciences” of national economy, into a “theoretical” and a “practical” science of the economy. These, too, in accordance with the changed object of research, would exhibit different features compared to the analogous social sciences of the present.

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13See p. 38 ff.

14 A survey of these attempts in J. Kautz, Theorie und Geschichte der Nationalökonomie, I, p. 285 ff.; cf. also ibid., p. 288 ff.

15 See Appendix VI.

16 Again, in a single sentence, Menger writes of Volkswirtschaftslehre, of Nationalökonomie, and of Politische Oekonomie. For simplicity’s sake no translation has been given of Nationalökonomie. L.S.

17 See p. 38 ff. and especially notes 6 and 7, where we also have characterized the problems of scientific statistics and the various orientations of statistical research. Cf. on this especially M. Block, Traité théoretique et pratique de Statistique (1878), where also the very valuable modern German literature on the nature and concept of statistics finds careful consideration.

18 Here Menger’s term is Wirtschaftswissenschaft. L.S.

19 This circumstance, extremely significant for the methodology of the historical sciences in general, does not exclude the presentation of the condition and the development of individual economic phenomena of human economy, as is obvious. However, it does explain how the universal problem of the historical economic sciences necessarily leads to the collectivist view of economic phenomena—to the history and statistics of “national economy.”

Here also the basis for solving a problem frequently concerning historical research is to be sought: which phenomena of human life is it the task of the historical sciences to lift out of the vastness and to present? These disciplines really have the task of presenting the individual phenomena of human life from the point of view of collective considerations, and of presenting the individual phenomenon only insofar as it is per se significant for the collective image of human life. Only in this way can they satisfy their particular task universally.

What is called the artistic problem of writing history is also sufficiently explained in the above conception of the nature of history and its relationship to the individual phenomena of human life. The real art of the historian (also of the statistician!) consists chiefly in the ability to make us aware of the immense number of individual phenomena of human life from the point of view of a collective outlook. It consists in the ability to offer us a collective picture of the development and of the condition of human phenomena in their totality. (Cf. on this the attempts made repeatedly since Humboldt to explain the nature of the so-called “historical art,” in Gervinus, Grundzüge der Historik, p. 13 ff.; J. G. Droysen, Historik [1875], p. 75 ff.; O. Lorenz, Fr. Chr. Schlosser, Sitzungsbericht der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. 88, p. 136 ff.).

Here also appears with special clarity the contrast between the historical and the theoretical sciences. The latter do not have to do with the presentation of the “individual,” but of the “general,” of “phenomenal forms,” and “laws of phenomena.” They do not have the task of making us aware of the vast number of individual phenomena, but only of the incomparably narrower sphere of phenomenal forms and their typical relationships. The collectivist point of view, quite inseparable from the idea of historical sciences, can be dispensed with by the theoretical sciences. Indeed, we have seen that it is quite inadequate for them (cf. on this the pertinent discussions in Book II, Chap. 2, p. 117 ff.).

20 Those who undertook to put the “historical method” in place of the previous methods of social research characterized as unsatisfactory have one thing in common with the adherents of the so-called “organic view” of social phenomena. They labor under an intensive delusion about the present state of the methods concerned. We have already stressed elsewhere (cf. p. 137) that the explanation of social phenomena by analogies to organic structures is really an interpretation of what is little known by what is known still less, but also the historical method, with which some of our economists operate with such naive assuredness, as if they had fully explored its depths or as if not the least doubt existed about the nature of this method, does not seem to be anywhere nearly as clear to the true historians themselves as to the just-mentioned economists. Concerning this cf. Droysen (Historik [1875], p. 3): “If the historical studies are questioned about their scientific justification and their relationship to other forms of human knowledge, if they are questioned about the establishment of their procedure and the connection of their problems, they are not able to give a satisfactory answer.” Cf. O. Lorenz (Fr. Chr. Schlosser und über einige Aufgaben und Principien der Geschichtsschreibung, Berichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. 88, p. 133): “It must be admitted that even today we have no thoroughgoing principle, no acknowledged historiographic orientation, not even a historical style of any uniformity.”

21 The budget of economic subjects endowed with financial power has a variety of peculiarities which form the basis of the distinction of the practical science from the suitable institution thereof. By its nature, however, it is an individual economy and the science of finance thus falls under the more general category of the “practical sciences of individual economy” together with the practical science of private economy.

22From the above it is clear at the same time that the opinion of those who recognize a contrast in principle between the practical science of private economy and practical economics is quite erroneous. For the practical science of private economy also refers to the economy of socially organized people and it also has its theoretical basis not in a special theoretical science of private economy but in theoretical economics. The stockbroker, the banker, the speculator in stocks and in grain, etc., in their private economic operations, rely upon the theory of price, of capital income, of ground rent, etc., that is, on the sciences of theoretical economics, just as someone engaged in economic policy does, or as an organ of the administration of finances in its public activity does. Theoretical economics is the theoretical basis of the practical science of private economy just as well as it is of the science of finance and economic policy. Victims of error also are those who, like J. St. Mill (Essays on Some Unsettled Question, p. 125), do not at all acknowledge private economy to be the subject of science, but merely of art. For, as is obvious, theoretical and practical knowledge is at the basis of private economy, too.

All practical sciences of economy thus depend on the theoretical science of economy. But it would be erroneous to assume that the latter forms their sole theoretical basis. For the practical sciences, of whatever kind they may be, are not at all rooted exclusively in individual theoretical sciences. Rather, there is even usually a majority of these which form the theoretical basis of the former. Not only anatomy, but also physiology, physics, mechanics, chemistry, etc., are, for example, the theoretical bases of surgery and therapy. Theoretical chemistry is not the sole theoretical basis of chemical technology, but physics, even mechanics and mathematics, provide foundations for it as well. The same thing holds true of the practical sciences of economy. To be sure, they are thoroughly, but not exclusively, rooted in the theoretical science of economy.

23 Here, and in the next paragraph, when referring to “the real sense of the word” or “the true sense of the word,” Menger uses Volkswirthschaft, which evidently has a special appropriateness given the “collectivistic” meaning he wishes to convey. L.S.

24 Here Menger reverts to Wirthschaftswissenschaft. L.S.

• 1See p. 38 ff.
• 2A survey of these attempts in J. Kautz, Theorie und Geschichte der Nationalökonomie, I, p. 285 ff.; cf. also ibid., p. 288 ff.
• 3m Again, in a single sentence, Menger writes of Volkswirtschaftslehre, of Nationalökonomie, and of Politische Oekonomie. For simplicity’s sake no translation has been given of Nationalökonomie. L.S.
• 4See Appendix VI.
• 5n Here Menger’s term is Wirtschaftswissenschaft. L.S.
• 6See p. 38 ff. and especially notes 6 and 7, where we also have characterized the problems of scientific statistics and the various orientations of statistical research. Cf. on this especially M. Block, Traité théoretique et pratique de Statistique (1878), where also the very valuable modern German literature on the nature and concept of statistics finds careful consideration.
• 7This circumstance, extremely significant for the methodology of the historical sciences in general, does not exclude the presentation of the condition and the development of individual economic phenomena of human economy, as is obvious. However, it does explain how the universal problem of the historical economic sciences necessarily leads to the collectivist view of economic phenomena—to the history and statistics of “national economy.”
• 8Those who undertook to put the “historical method” in place of the previous methods of social research characterized as unsatisfactory have one thing in common with the adherents of the so-called “organic view” of social phenomena. They labor under an intensive delusion about the present state of the methods concerned. We have already stressed elsewhere (cf. p. 137) that the explanation of social phenomena by analogies to organic structures is really an interpretation of what is little known by what is known still less, but also the historical method, with which some of our economists operate with such naive assuredness, as if they had fully explored its depths or as if not the least doubt existed about the nature of this method, does not seem to be anywhere nearly as clear to the true historians themselves as to the just-mentioned economists. Concerning this cf. Droysen (Historik [1875], p. 3): “If the historical studies are questioned about their scientific justification and their relationship to other forms of human knowledge, if they are questioned about the establishment of their procedure and the connection of their problems, they are not able to give a satisfactory answer.” Cf. O. Lorenz (Fr. Chr. Schlosser und über einige Aufgaben und Principien der Geschichtsschreibung, Berichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. 88, p. 133): “It must be admitted that even today we have no thoroughgoing principle, no acknowledged historiographic orientation, not even a historical style of any uniformity.”
• 9The budget of economic subjects endowed with financial power has a variety of peculiarities which form the basis of the distinction of the practical science from the suitable institution thereof. By its nature, however, it is an individual economy and the science of finance thus falls under the more general category of the “practical sciences of individual economy” together with the practical science of private economy.
• 10From the above it is clear at the same time that the opinion of those who recognize a contrast in principle between the practical science of private economy and practical economics is quite erroneous. For the practical science of private economy also refers to the economy of socially organized people and it also has its theoretical basis not in a special theoretical science of private economy but in theoretical economics. The stockbroker, the banker, the speculator in stocks and in grain, etc., in their private economic operations, rely upon the theory of price, of capital income, of ground rent, etc., that is, on the sciences of theoretical economics, just as someone engaged in economic policy does, or as an organ of the administration of finances in its public activity does. Theoretical economics is the theoretical basis of the practical science of private economy just as well as it is of the science of finance and economic policy. Victims of error also are those who, like J. St. Mill (Essays on Some Unsettled Question, p. 125), do not at all acknowledge private economy to be the subject of science, but merely of art. For, as is obvious, theoretical and practical knowledge is at the basis of private economy, too.
• 11o Here, and in the next paragraph, when referring to “the real sense of the word” or “the true sense of the word,” Menger uses Volkswirthschaft, which evidently has a special appropriateness given the “collectivistic” meaning he wishes to convey. L.S.
• 12p Here Menger reverts to Wirthschaftswissenschaft. L.S.
• 13We have already spoken in another place about the nature of “political economy” and of its subdivisions, and the terminology which has come into usage for designating the latter. Only the question might still arise whether this expression is apt for the designation of the totality of the theoretical-practical sciences of national economy brought together under that heading, and whether the expressions “theoretical economics,” “economic policy,” and “science of finance” are apt for the individual subdivisions of “political economy.” This is a question which, to be sure, offers only a secondary, terminological interest with regard to the previously mentioned investigations into the sciences discussed here. Still, because of the fundamental character of the problems that lie at its foundation, it is not completely without importance.
• 14The terminological problem which concerns us here first offers, moreover, very particular difficulties. These explain the most varied attempts, continued into the present, to change the terminology referring to the designation of political economy and its subdivisions in contrast to the terminology which has become prevalent. These are difficulties, the ultimate reason for which is probably to be found mainly in the fact that political economy according to its present conception comprises sciences of very different formal nature, and that the problem of a thoroughly adequate designation of them according to their character offers formal difficulties not easy to overcome.
• 15The expression “economics”m seems less dubious as the designation of the totality of theoretical-practical sciences which are included in common under the concept of political economy. If the concept “national economy” is correctly understood, i.e., in the sense of a complex of all the economies in a nation (also economy of finance!), as an “organism” of economies from which with advancing culture a political activity (cultivation of national economy!) aimed at benefiting it seems less inseparable, then the above expression actually appears to be a not wholly unsuitable designation for the group of sciences in question here. Also the division of “economics” into a theoretical and a practical portion and of the latter into an “economic policy” and a “science of finance” flows rather easily from these reflections. If nevertheless a large number of German and the vast majority of foreign economists cling to the expression “political economy” which is just as indefinite as inexact, this obviously is done because of the international currency of the term. That is, it is done for a reason which in questions of terminology is of great significance, usually even of decisive significance. But perhaps it is done partly just because of its indefinite nature, which expediently cloaks the vagueness of the concept which it designates.
• 16The expression “economics”m seems less dubious as the designation of the totality of theoretical-practical sciences which are included in common under the concept of political economy. If the concept “national economy” is correctly understood, i.e., in the sense of a complex of all the economies in a nation (also economy of finance!), as an “organism” of economies from which with advancing culture a political activity (cultivation of national economy!) aimed at benefiting it seems less inseparable, then the above expression actually appears to be a not wholly unsuitable designation for the group of sciences in question here. Also the division of “economics” into a theoretical and a practical portion and of the latter into an “economic policy” and a “science of finance” flows rather easily from these reflections. If nevertheless a large number of German and the vast majority of foreign economists cling to the expression “political economy” which is just as indefinite as inexact, this obviously is done because of the international currency of the term. That is, it is done for a reason which in questions of terminology is of great significance, usually even of decisive significance. But perhaps it is done partly just because of its indefinite nature, which expediently cloaks the vagueness of the concept which it designates.
• 17I. The historical economic sciences have to examine and describe the individual nature and the individual connection of economic phenomena. According to whether they undertake to solve their problem from the point of view of condition or development they break down into the statistics and the history of human economy. The historical sciences can respond to their task in universal fashion only under the presupposition of collective consideration of human phenomena and the historical economic sciences only under the presupposition of collective consideration of economic phenomena. This evidently must be the case if we consider the vast number of individual phenomena of human life or economy and the exigencies of the technique of scientific presentation. The historical economic sciences are just because of their universal-scientific task necessarily presentations of human economy from the point of view of a collective outlook, i.e., of national economy in the just-mentioned sense of the word.
• 18economic sciencen
• 19I. The historical economic sciences have to examine and describe the individual nature and the individual connection of economic phenomena. According to whether they undertake to solve their problem from the point of view of condition or development they break down into the statistics and the history of human economy. The historical sciences can respond to their task in universal fashion only under the presupposition of collective consideration of human phenomena and the historical economic sciences only under the presupposition of collective consideration of economic phenomena. This evidently must be the case if we consider the vast number of individual phenomena of human life or economy and the exigencies of the technique of scientific presentation. The historical economic sciences are just because of their universal-scientific task necessarily presentations of human economy from the point of view of a collective outlook, i.e., of national economy in the just-mentioned sense of the word.
• 20I. The historical economic sciences have to examine and describe the individual nature and the individual connection of economic phenomena. According to whether they undertake to solve their problem from the point of view of condition or development they break down into the statistics and the history of human economy. The historical sciences can respond to their task in universal fashion only under the presupposition of collective consideration of human phenomena and the historical economic sciences only under the presupposition of collective consideration of economic phenomena. This evidently must be the case if we consider the vast number of individual phenomena of human life or economy and the exigencies of the technique of scientific presentation. The historical economic sciences are just because of their universal-scientific task necessarily presentations of human economy from the point of view of a collective outlook, i.e., of national economy in the just-mentioned sense of the word.
• 21(a) the science of finance, the science of the basic principles for the suitable institution, according to conditions, of the largest individual economy in the nation, of the government budget, and of other economic subjects endowed with financial power, and
• 22(b) the practical science of private economy, the science of the basic principles according to which private people (living in our present-day social circumstances!) can best institute their economy (according to conditions).
• 23In a community ordered thus there would in the main exist neither private individual economies along with the community economy nor a special cultivation of national economy and administration of finance. Thus the practical sciences concerned with these would cease. There would then be only one economy, a national economy in the real sense of the word.o Its economic subject would be the nation (or the representatives of it); its aim would be the fullest possible satisfaction of the needs of all members of society. There would thus be only one practical economic science, the science of the basic principles by which the community economy, according to conditions, could be most suitably instituted and conducted. What in our day are designated with extreme inaccuracy as “socialistic theories” are the beginnings of this practical science, and its nature and place in the system of economic sciences are thus clear.
• 24Thus the systematic approach of the social sciences in the socialist state would in no way be identical with that of the present-day social sciences. For in the first situation “economic policy” and the “science of finance,” and in the main the “practical science of private economy” also, would cease. “Economic science”p in the most universal meaning of this word would then merely be divided into the “historical sciences” of national economy, into a “theoretical” and a “practical” science of the economy. These, too, in accordance with the changed object of research, would exhibit different features compared to the analogous social sciences of the present.