Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Abbreviations
- List of Manuscript Collections
- Biographical Register
- Chronology, 1891– 1902
- List of Letters Reproduced in Volume 2
- Letters 333–479
- Letters 480–612
- Letters 613–732
- Appendix I Reports of Marshall's Speeches to the Cambridge University Senate, 1891–1902
- Appendix II Report of Marshall's Speech at the Meeting to Promote a Memorial for Henry Sidgwick, 26 November 1900
Letters 613–732
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Abbreviations
- List of Manuscript Collections
- Biographical Register
- Chronology, 1891– 1902
- List of Letters Reproduced in Volume 2
- Letters 333–479
- Letters 480–612
- Letters 613–732
- Appendix I Reports of Marshall's Speeches to the Cambridge University Senate, 1891–1902
- Appendix II Report of Marshall's Speech at the Meeting to Promote a Memorial for Henry Sidgwick, 26 November 1900
Summary
To William Albert Samuel Hewins, 29 May 1900
My dear Hewins,
I have just looked at the London Univ. Calendar. I find that the subject wh you had described as economic science is officially called ‘pure theory’. I knew that that had been assigned some place: but I am rather indifferent about it. Much of ‘pure theory’ seems to me to be elegant toying: I habitually describe my own pure theory of international trade as a ‘toy’. I understand economic science to be the application of powerful analytical methods to unravelling the action of economic & social causes, to assigning each its part, to tracing mutual interactions & modifications; & above all to laying bare the hidden causas causantes.
The MA Scheme in the hands of good examiners may conceivably promote the scientific study of past facts to a very limited extent. But it seems to me to have no room for the scientific study of those facts which are of the most importance & most fully alive.
In the hands of second-rate examiners it will I think foster sciolism as regards facts, & frivolity as regards reasoning.
Many thanks for the first edition of the Economics of Industry.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Correspondence of Alfred Marshall, Economist , pp. 280 - 420Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996