I
 

INTRODUCTION
 

21
 

confused state.  I have already endeavoured to show

the need of this step in a  lecture delivered at  the

University College,  in October 1876,1 and I shall

perhaps have a future  opportunity of enlarging more

upon the subject.

   To return,  however, to  the topic  of the present

work, the theory here given  may be described as the

mechanics  of utility and self-interest.   Oversights

may have been committed  in tracing out its details,

but in its  main features this theory must be the true

one.   Its method is  as  sure  and demonstrative as

that of  kinematics  or statics, nay,  almost  as  self-

evident as are the elements of Euclid, when the  real

meaning of the formulae is fully seized.

   I  do  not hesitate to say, too,  that Economics

might  be gradually  erected  into  an  exact  science, if

only commercial statistics  were  far  more  complete

and accurate than they are at present, so  that  the

formulae  could be endowed  with exact meaning  by

the aid of numerical data.   These data would consist

chiefly  in  accurate   accounts  of  the  quantities of

goods possessed and consumed by the  community,

and the  prices at which they are exchanged.  There

is no reason whatever why we  should not have those

statistics, except the cost and trouble of collecting

them,  and the unwillingness  of  persons  to afford

information.  The quantities themselves to be measured

and registered are most concrete and precise.  In a few

   1 Fortnightly Review, December 1876; "The Future of Political

Economy."