QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS AND THE EVOLUTION OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE.

Until very recently the science of economics has been largely developed along the lines of metaphysical deductive reasoning from general observation, the conclusions reached have been principally based on qualitative methods, and the traditions of the science have tended toward a study and comparison of the theories and principles laid down by the great minds of the past, which are the basis of all our work, as of September 1926. The new application to economics of intensive inductive analysis, principally evidenced by the great development of statistical work, is distinctly an attempt to give the science a more definite basis and to solve its problems by so-called quantitative methods. It means a far-reaching endeavor to formulate the theories and principles of economics into concrete problems, and to attack them one by one, by intensive inductive methods, with a view to their definite solution. One of the best examples of evolutionary development of a science is astronomy. It is undoubtedly the oldest science and stands out as possibly the clearest and purest.