The second difficulty is to state the problem correctly. The few writers who have managed to get over the first obstacle mentioned have almost all come to grief at the second. For the most part they pitch the question too high, and thus change, what to the simple man is a simple and natural thing, into a subtle and sophistical riddle, of which they then say, rightly enough, that no solution is possible. They try. to discover which portion of the joint product, physically considered, each factor has produced, or of which part of the result each factor is the physical cause. This, however, is not to be discovered. At the most it could be possible only in cases where the product is a complex of materials externally bound together; and even that only so far as regards the materials, and not as regards the power which makes them a complex -- a power whose effects inhere in all the constituent parts of the mass, without being incorporated in any one of them. Looked at in this way, we cannot get beyond the proposition that the result is the joint product of all its factors and causes; that those factors must work in combination or they cannot work at all, -- like the four brothers in the tale who saved the princess only by their united endeavours. If we wish to find the principle for division of return which is applied in practical life, the question must be put quite differently; it must be put as practical life puts it, and it must be put simply.
The causes of any phenomenon, whatever it may be, can be interpreted in very various ways. The philosopher looks at them in one light, the peasant in quite another; and yet both may judge rightly, and, so far as their judgment is correct, may apply rightly their conception. The difference in their opinions rests on the fact that they judge from different points of view.
The former searches after the final causes that may be grasped by human reason; the latter limits his attention to the proximate and immediate causes, taking for granted the agency of all those which are further removed. Each would fail were he to make use of the other's knowledge; the peasant's maxim does not answer the purpose of philosophy, and the philosophic conception has no place in the economy of the peasant; yet each is serviceable enough in its own place. In whatever industrial situation men come to a judgment as to the causes of the phenomena which they encounter, the horizon of the judgment is always strictly limited by the point of view they take. Whatever lies beyond that cannot properly be taken into consideration, or the judgment would never come to anything. It would only end in needless critical reflection, which would be of no help as regards the objects aimed at. If we wish to obtain a practical judgment the object must be kept in view, and the matter looked at from the point of view of those concerned. A theory which proposes to explain the idea in business life, must, of all things, not be above its business; it must limit itself, so as not to give too deep a meaning to, and thereby really distort, the limited subject.
