“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

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Arthur Cecil Pigou 8
British economist 1877–1959

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