Third part: Confirmation derived from the inadequacy of the inexact sciences to deal with all the problems that the civilised mechanism presents

Summary

Preamble on systematic thoughtlessness

Aristotle, one of the most highly regarded of our sages, considered his own understanding to be woefully slight. His motto was ‘What do I know?’, which was probably the best thing he said. The moderns are not much inclined to modesty of that sort; yet are they wiser than Aristotle when it comes to social policy? No. The situation has not changed since classical times: there is still nothing to be found but poverty, fraud and revolutions. And judging by the storms that our modern philosophers have inflicted on the present generation, there can hardly ever have been a century in which Aristotle's motto was more needed.

They have all gone laughably wrong, because in every science they have overlooked the fundamental question, the one that is the pivot of the whole of that science. For example:

If they are concerned with industrial economy they neglect to deal with association which is the basis of every economy.

If they are concerned with politics they neglect to say anything about population, the right size of which is the basis of a people's well-being.

If they are concerned with government and administration they neglect to look at ways of organising the administrative unity of the globe, without which there can be neither a settled order nor a guarantee of the future of empires.

If they are concerned with [practical] industry they neglect to look for ways of suppressing [fraud], monopoly and speculation, which amount to robbery of proprietors and are a direct obstacle to circulation. […]