The Industrialization of Modern Britain

Abstract

EcoNOMIC HISTORY has been deeply affected by broad abstractions. The German Historical Schools, before and after Marx, were deeply committed to sociological concepts which frequently obstruct the critical analysis of the movement of historical events. There was too much emphasis upon narrowly defined ends: nationalism, the factory system, capitalism. Furthermore, the concept of historical development was too largely defined in idealistic terms, sometimes with emphasis upon romantic heroes, sometimes with stresses upon an impersonal development from the implicit to the explicit, as carried to great extremes by Marx. All these generalizations have been stimulating and have made some contribution to the interpretation of the records of economic development, but there are many problems that defy analysis by such an approach. More particularly, the interrelations between science, technology, and economic development cannot be analysed in much detail from this idealistic point of view. There is thus urgent need of more systematic study of the processes of economic development from the point of view of modern empiricism, i. e., as a progressive emergence of novelty. Philosophy and the natural sciences are today dominated by notable revisions of empirical philosophy. In these fields, thought is moving away from emphasis upon specific final ends to concepts of evolution without any determinate end. The new attitudes are especially significant for historical analysis, and the history of technology can be much more adequately presented from the point of view of