But let us look at a science less exact than astronomy.The science of the tides explains how the tide rises and falls twice a day under the action of the sun and the moon: how there are strong tides at new and full moon, and weak tides at the moon's first and third quarter; and how the tide running up into a closed channel, like that of the Severn, will be very high; and so on.Thus, having studied the lie of the land and the water all round the British isles, people can calculate beforehand when the tide will probably be at its highest on any day at London Bridge or at Gloucester; and how high it will be there.They have to use the word probably, which the astronomers do not need to use when talking about the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites.For, though many forces act upon Jupiter and his satellites, each one of them acts in a definite manner which can be predicted beforehand: but no one knows enough about the weather to be able to say beforehand how it will act.A heavy downpour of rain in the upper Thames valley, or a strong north-east wind in the German Ocean, may make the tides at London Bridge differ a good deal from what had been expected.
The laws of economics are to be compared with the laws of the tides, rather than with the simple and exact law of gravitation.
For the actions of men are so various and uncertain, that the best statement of tendencies, which we can make in a science of human conduct, must needs be inexact and faulty.This might be urged as a reason against making any statements at all on the subject; but that would be almost to abandon life.Life is human conduct, and the thoughts and emotions that grow up around it.By the fundamental impulses of our nature we all-high and low, learned and unlearned-are in our several degrees constantly striving to understand the courses of human action, and to shape them for our purposes, whether selfish or unselfish, whether noble or ignoble.And since we must form to ourselves some notions of the tendencies of human action, our choice is between forming those notions carelessly and forming them carefully.The harder the task, the greater the need for steady patient inquiry;for turning to account the experience, that has been reaped by the more advanced physical sciences; and for framing as best we can well thought-out estimates, or provisional laws, of the tendencies of human action.
4.The term "law" means then nothing more than a general proposition or statement of tendencies, more or less certain, more or less definite.Many such statements are made in every science: but we do not, indeed we can not, give to all of them a formal character and name them as laws.We must select; and the selection is directed less by purely scientific considerations than by practical convenience.If there is any general statement which we want to bring to bear so often, that the trouble of quoting it at length, when needed, is greater than that of burdening the discussion with an additional formal statement and an additional technical name, then it receives a special name, otherwise not.(2*)Thus a law of social science, or a Social Law, is a statement of social tendencies; that is, a statement that a certain course of action may be expected under certain conditions from the members of a social group.
Economic laws, or statements of economic tendencies, are those social laws which relate to branches of conduct in which the strength of the motives chiefly concerned can be measured by a money price.
There is thus no hard and sharp line of division between those social laws which are, and those which are not, to be regarded also as economic laws.For there is a continuous gradation from social laws concerned almost exclusively with motives that can be measured by price, to social laws in which such motives have little place; and which are therefore generally as much less precise and exact than economic laws, as those are than the laws of the more exact physical sciences.
Corresponding to the substantive "law" is the adjective "legal".But this term is used only in connection with "law" in the sense of an ordinance of government; not in connection with "law" the sense of a statement of relation between cause and effect.The adjective used for this purpose is derived from "norma", a term which is nearly equivalent to "law", and might perhaps with advantage be substituted for it in scientific discussions.And following our definition of an economic law, we may say that the course of action which may be expected under certain conditions from the members of an industrial group is the normal action of the members of that group relatively to those conditions.
This use of the term Normal has been misunderstood; and it may be well to say something as to the unity in difference which underlies various uses of the term.When we talk of a Good man or a Strong man, we refer to excellence or strength of those particular physical mental or moral qualities which are indicated in the context.A strong judge has seldom the same qualities as a strong rower; a good jockey is not always of exceptional virtue.
In the same way every use of the term normal implies the predominance of certain tendencies which appear likely to be more or less steadfast and persistent in their action over those which are relatively exceptional and intermittent.Illness is an abnormal condition of man: but a long life passed without any illness is abnormal.During the melting of the snows, the Rhine rises above its normal level: but in a cold dry spring when it is less than usual above that normal level, it may be said to be abnormally low (for that time of year).In all these cases normal results are those which may be expected as the outcome of those tendencies which the context suggests; or, in other words, which are in accordance with those "statements of tendency", those Laws or Norms, which are appropriate to the context.
