Note 811 — Chapter I · : THE HISTORICAL SCHOOL AND THE CONFLICT OF METHODS
R. (Robert) Richards translation
Even Roscher had ventured to say that they partook of a mathematical nature. This is how he expresses his views as against those of Hildebrand on the real aim of political economy in the Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, vol. i, p. 145: “Economic science need not attempt to find the unchangeable, identical laws amid the multiplicity of economic phenomena. Its task is to show how humanity has progressed despite all the transformations of economic life, and how this economic life has contributed to the perfection of mankind. Its task is to follow the economic evolution of nations as well as of humanity as a whole, and to discover the bases of the present economic civilisation as well as of the problems that now await solution.”