It is, however, when an attempt to
estimate the immediate effects and the remoter consequencs that
followed that our difficulties begin.
Before a man is qualified to dogmatize upon those effects, he must
have gone some way towards making himself familiar with the social
and economic conditions of the country during at least the century
before the plague. Unfortunately the history of economics in England
has never been attempted by any one at all duly qualified for dealing
with so complex and difficult a subject, and the crudest theories
have been substituted for sound conclusions, then only to be accepted
when based upon the solid ground of ascertained fact. In the
childhood of every science dogmatism precedes induction, and in the
absence of clear knowledge, foolish and wild-eyed visionaries have
posed as discoverers again and again. Yet bluster and audacity have
their use, if only to stimulate the timid and the dilatory to quicken
their pace and move forwards. For my part, however, if it be
necessary to choose between the two, I should prefer to err with the
slow and cautious rather than with the rash and over-bold; the former
may for a while serve as a drag upon the chariot wheels of progress,
the latter are sure to thrust us out of the road and land us at last
in some quagmire whence it will be very hard to get back into the
right track.
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