The Economic Interpretation of History

To the student of the social sciences it is interesting to observe the process by which, in one respect at least, we are drifting back to the position of bygone ages. Although Aristotle pointed out the essential interrelation of politics, ethics and economics, modern thought has successfully vindicated the claims of these disciplines, as well as of others, such as jurisprudence and the various divisions of public law, to be considered .separate sciences. For a long time, however, to the common detriment of all, the independence of each was so emphasized and exaggerated as to create the serious danger of forgetting that they are only constituent parts of a larger whole. The tendency of recent thought has been to accentuate the relations rather than the differences, and to explain the social institutions which form the bases of the separate sciences in the light rather of a synthesis than of an analysis. This method has been applied to the record of the past, as well as to the facts of the present; the conception of history has been broadened until it is now well recognized that political history is only one phase of that wider activity which includes all the phenomena of social life. If the term "politics" is used in the common but narrow sense of constitutional and diplomatic relations, then to repeat the familiar dictum, "History is past politics," is to utter a half-truth, in lamentable disregard of these newer ideas.