Excerpt from History of Economics: Or Economics as a Factor in the Making of History
History is no longer a study of isolated events, but rather of the workings of unseen laws and influences. As the different phenomena of chemistry and physics receive their orderly arrangement and their power to interest only from their association with certain laws, so, in history, the facts that make up the narrative are but the material or medium through which are conveyed the workings of laws both universal and ever constant.
The study of history has thus lost much of the dryness, and, perhaps, also some of the disregard in which it used to be held. No longer is it a mere committal to memory of battles and sieges, of alternating wars and treaties, of the rise and succession of dynasties. It is now a scientific research into the influences that bring about all these different results. The action of the motor power of certain laws is now seen in all the pages of history, and every event that takes place can be attributed to the action of some law.
The study of history, therefore, has been raised to the dignity of a science, a science that specially interests the mind of the seeker after true wisdom. None other, perhaps, deals so effectively with the mainsprings of human conduct. It reveals the future by means of the-past, and shows to mankind what particular environment it must seek after in order to achieve the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
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. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге History of Economics (J. A. Dewe)