These sciences, which are well named social, have this peculiarity:  that for the very reason that they are of a general application, no one confesses himself ignorant of them.  Do we wish to decide a question in chemistry or geometry?  No one pretends to have the knowledge instinctively; we are not ashamed to consult Draper; we make no difficulty about referring to Euclid.

But in social science authority is but little recognized.  As such a one has to do daily with morals, good or bad, with hygiene, with economy, with politics reasonable or absurd, each one considers himself skilled to comment, discuss, decide, and dogmatize in these matters.

Are you ill?  There is no good nurse who does not tell you, at the first moment, the cause and cure of your malady.

“They are humors,” affirms she; “you must be purged.”

But what are humors? and are these humors?

She does not trouble herself about that.  I involuntarily think of this good nurse when I hear all social evils explained by these common phrases:  “It is the superabundance of products, the tyranny of capital, industrial plethora,” and other idle stories of which we cannot even say:  verba et voces praetereaque nihil:  for they are also fatal mistakes.

From what precedes, two things result—­

1st.  That the social sciences must abound in sophistry much more than the other sciences, because in them each one consults his own judgment or instinct alone.

2d.  That in these sciences sophistry is especially injurious, because it misleads public opinion where opinion is a power—­that is, law.

Two sorts of books, then, are required by these sciences; those which expound them, and those which propagate them; those which show the truth, and those which combat error.

It appears to us that the inherent defect in the form of this little Essay—­repetition—­is that which constitutes its principal value.

In the question we have treated, each sophism has, doubtless, its own set form, and its own range, but all have one common root, which is, “forgetfulness of the interests of man, insomuch as they forget the interests of consumers.”  To show that the thousand roads of error conduct to this generating sophism, is to teach the public to recognize it, to appreciate it—­to distrust it under all circumstances.

After all, we do not aspire to arouse convictions, but doubts.

We have no expectation that in laying down the book, the reader shall exclaim:  “I know.”  Please Heaven he may be induced to say, “I am ignorant.”

“I am ignorant, for I begin to believe there is something delusive in the sweets of Scarcity.”

“I am no longer so much edified by the charms of Obstruction.”

“Effort without Result no longer seems to me so desirable as Result without Effort.”

“It may probably be true that the secret of commerce does not consist, as that of arms does, in giving and not receiving, according to the definition which the duellist in the play gives of it.”