Arthur Cecil Pigou: Quotes about science

Arthur Cecil Pigou was British economist. Explore interesting quotes on science.
Arthur Cecil Pigou: 16   quotes 0   likes

“If it were not for the hope that a scientific study of men's social actions may lead, not necessarily directly or immediately, but at some time and in some way, to practical results in social improvement, not a few students of these actions would regard the time devoted to their study as time misspent. That is true of all social sciences, but especially true of economics. For economics "is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life"; and it is not in the ordinary business of life that mankind is most interesting or inspiring.”

Arthur Cecil Pigou

Source: The Economics of Welfare (1920), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 1

Life , Men , Hope , Way

“It is not pretended that, at the present stage of its development, economic science is able to provide an organon even remotely approaching to what it imagines for itself as its ideal.”

Arthur Cecil Pigou

Source: The Economics of Welfare (1920), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 4

Imagination , Science

“Wonder, Carlyle declared, is the beginning of philosophy. It is not wonder, but rather the social enthusiasm which revolts from the sordidness of mean streets and the joylessness of withered lives, that is the beginning of economic science. Here, if in no other field, Comte's great phrase holds good: "It is for the heart to suggest our problems; it is for the intellect to solve them…. The only position for which the intellect is primarily adapted is to be the servant of the social sympathies."”

Arthur Cecil Pigou

Source: The Economics of Welfare (1920), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 1

Problem , Science , Heart

“When a man sets out upon any course of inquiry, the object of his search may be either light or fruit — either knowledge for its own sake or knowledge for the sake of good things to which it leads. In various fields of study these two ideals play parts of varying importance. In the appeal made to our interest by nearly all the great modern sciences some stress is laid both upon the light-bearing and upon the fruit-bearing quality, but the proportions of the blend are different in different sciences. At one end of the scale stands the most general science of all, metaphysics, the science of reality. Of the student of that science it is, indeed, true that "he yet may bring some worthy thing for waiting souls to see"; but it must be light alone, it can hardly be fruit that he brings. Most nearly akin to the metaphysician is the student of the ultimate problems of physics. The corpuscular theory of matter is, hitherto, a bearer of light alone. Here, however, the other aspect is present in promise; for speculations about the structure of the atom may lead one day to the discovery of practical means for dissociating matter and for rendering available to human use the overwhelming resources of intra-atomic energy.”

Arthur Cecil Pigou

Source: The Economics of Welfare (1920), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 1; First lines, p. 3

Soul , Search , Knowledge , Problem