Nassau Senior's Contribution to the Methodology of Economics

Abstract

THE intensity and persistence of the methodological controversies on the Continent have distracted attention from the mode of growth of the English approach to the problems of the method and scope of economic enquiry.' Indeed it has frequently been assumed that continued use of the deductive method has been the result of blind adherence to the classical tradition without any important discussions, except such as were stimulated by the attacks of the historical and empirical schools. But in this respect the historians have shown a lamentable disregard of their own avowed principles of research, and failed to appreciate the history of the methodology they have attacked. By attempting to explain away the existence of the classical school of method in terms of contemporary philosophy and institutions, they have overlooked the actual development of the methods they lhave criticised. In fact, whatever may have been their mistakes, the adherents of the classical method have possessed a far greater understanding of its problems, thanl their critics have either given them credit for, or displayed themselves. The classical economists themselves have shown a very real interest in putting their own house in order, a fact which perhaps accounts for their apparent indifference to the developments of divergent schools of method, of which they were not by any means unaware.2 It thus appears