CHAPTER I. OF THE ECONOMIC SCIENCE.

% 1.--Opposition between FACT and RIGHT in social economy.

I affirm the REALITY of an economic science.

This proposition, which few economists now dare to question, is
the boldest, perhaps, that a philosopher ever maintained; and the
inquiries to follow will prove, I hope, that its demonstration
will one day be deemed the greatest effort of the human mind.

I affirm, on the other hand, the ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY as well as
the PROGRESSIVE nature of economic science, of all the sciences
in my opinion the most comprehensive, the purest, the best
supported by facts: a new proposition, which alters this science
into logic or metaphysics in concreto, and radically changes the
basis of ancient philosophy. In other words, economic science is
to me the objective form and realization of metaphysics; it is
metaphysics in action, metaphysics projected on the vanishing
plane of time; and whoever studies the laws of labor and exchange
is truly and specially a metaphysician.

After what I have said in the introduction, there is nothing in
this which should surprise any one. The labor of man continues
the work of God, who, in creating all beings, did but externally
realize the eternal laws of reason. Economic science is, then,
necessarily and at once a theory of ideas, a natural theology,
and a psychology. This general outline alone would have sufficed
to explain why, having to treat of economic matters, I was