Excerpt from The Scope and Method of Political Economy The nature of the topics discussed in the following pages is sufficiently indicated in the introductory chapter, and a lengthy preface is therefore unnecessary. The abstract discussion of methods may appear to some to have mainly an academic interest, since it does not directly extend our knowledge of economic pheno mena. Whilst, however, we ought to be upon our guard against allowing any such discussion to obscure the greater importance of actual economic investigations, the subject is one to which all students of economics must necessarily give some attention in the course of their reading, and its indirect bearing on the solution of practical economic questions is very far indeed from being without importance. Unfortunately almost every problem connected with the scope and method of poli tical economy has given rise to conflict of opinion; and the resulting controversies have sometimes been very. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.