OUTLINES OF AN INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. Second Edition, crown 8vo, cloth, price 6s. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. "The dissatisfaction with the current doctrines of political economy is evidently on the increase. The number of attacks from different points of view is already considerable, and they are likely to be more numerous in future. The name and the thing are alike disagreeable to many writers, and both the method and the results of former investigations are called in question. One of the most vigorous attacks made in recent years is that contained in this volume by Mr. Syme. It is a book which may be read with thorough enjoyment; Mr. Syme is master of a clear, vigorous, and incisive style. No greater contrast could there be than between the transparent English of this volume and the clumsy, lumbering sentences of many former writers on this, which Carlyle calls the dismal science. Mr. Syme's polemic is most enjoyable-a healthy breeze of moral indignation breathes through the book; nor do we think the indignation out of place when we consider the revelations which he makes. . . . In attack, Mr. Syme is often irresistible no more vigorous polemic have we read for a long time than the attack on competition."-Edinburgh Daily Review. "Das Kleine Buch tritt mit dem Gefühl eines neuen und Kühnen Versuchs in durchweg polemischem Ton auf gegen die Englische National-ökonomie.. So muss man ihm zugeben dass er der Englischen National-ökonomie gegenüber durchaus neu und selbständig dasteht. Wünchten wir auch dass dieses Buch recht bald in deutcher Uebersetzung erschiene."-Allgemeine Zeitung. "Mr. Syme has written a treatise on what he calls Industrial Science, in which, in a sufficiently friendly spirit, he calls in question some of the most popular dogmas accepted by English political economists. On the whole he accords in spirit with Mr. Mill, but mostly on those sides of him on which he was least of a pure economist and most of a social philosopher. Mr. Syme's view is that among writers on political economy too much emphasis is laid on the narrower, coarser, and by no means universal facts of man's nature and of the physical world, and not enough on the more complex conditions which are of the utmost moment, and yet often evade notice. Thus Mr. Syme holds that political economy is not so much conversant with facts of the outward world as with the desires and other feelings to which these facts give rise. Nevertheless, Mr. Syme is by no means a sentimental writer, and, in fact, his work is closely and aptly reasoned throughout, and in a mode which Mr. Mill, of all others, would have admired."-Westminster Review. "There can be only one opinion, that he displays remarkably acute powers of thinking, and shows himself perfectly competent to handle and make intelligible some of the abstruser questions connected with our industrial forces, and their relation to the social well-being of the community."-Liverpool Mercury. "We should advise the friends as well as the opponents of the modern school of economists to read this book attentively. It is thoughtful, full of suggestions, and worthy at least of fair consideration."-Standard. "I regard political economy as a purely mental science.' Such is the startling statement which faces us on page to of this little volume, and which may be said to define the purpose of the author. To those who are accustomed to regard political economy as plutology, or the science of wealth, and who see in it only rules or the expression in theoretical terms of the modes in which wealth is distributed according to the dictates of self-interest, the sentence we have quoted will appear a paradox. Is not wealth the most material of all things? and if the science which treats of it be mental, where can there be found in any direction a science of material phenomena? Yet Mr. Syme has a good deal to say for himself. . We have not space to follow him in his expositions of 'principles' and of the 'relations' of industrial science to sociology, to ethics, and to art; but we have said enough to show that we regard this little book as well worthy of careful study. It is full of freshness and force. Though it contains only 'outlines,' they are suggestive; and we hope that Mr. Syme will take an early opportunity of filling in the outlines, and giving us a complete view of industry as a mental science."-British Quarterly Review. LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & Co., I, PATERNOSTER Square. |